Training And Development Strategy Essay Example for Free

Training And Development Strategy Essay 1.0 Executive summary Training involves has to do with behaviour modification which is implemented in a formal and systematic manner. Organizational training and development needs to be incorporated in Fair Price. The aims and objectives of carrying out training in this store are to minimise absenteeism and equip employees with skills etc. There are various steps that are taken in employee training and development including formulation of training policy. There are poor levels of supervisory skills in this store which can be improved by mentoring and coaching. Training existing and new staff will help Fair Price store to have skilled manpower though it may be costly. Management training should include both men and women with larger percentage being women. Management development of managers in this store will help to improve their skills. There are different models which have been used including Kirkpatrick’s 4 level model. If training and development is well implemented in this store it will solve the existing problems and lead to success. 2.0 Introduction Training involves a behaviour modification which is normally carried out in a formal and systematic manner. It is as a result of planned experience, instruction and education. Training and development plays a big role in achievement of organisational goals. (Brooks, 1999)   Most of these goals are normally long term in nature. Training is part of the strategic framework of organisations.   It produces a comprehensive and coherent plan that helps in developing employees and other stakeholders in organisations. When a business incorporates training and development therein, it acquires a competitive advantage over the other businesses. This is because the intellectual capital in the business is greatly developed. In fact employees in an organisation get an opportunity to improve their skills in their areas of specialization.   This leads to great impacts on the organisation as a whole. There is usually improved team performance when training and development strategies are incorporated in a business. (CIPD 2006) Research shows that such training influences the performance of employees at personal levels. For instance employees are in a position to carry out self evaluation of their performance and implement self corrections where necessary. 2.1Justification Fare Price stores needs to incorporate organisational training and development strategy in its management system. This is because a close evaluation at Fair Price store shows that it requires training and development in many areas. For instance the previous store manager never tried to implement company appraisal scheme in the organisation. (Cherrington, 1994) The employees that continue learning never see the benefit because the management was not acknowledging it.   The previous manager did not seek qualified personnel to carry out the responsibilities therein. This has led to underperformance in this organisation. (DTI 2006)   Employees are given posts and responsibilities that they are not qualified for. The previous manager never considered Investing in People. In fact the supervisors in Fair Price store are not qualified at all. There is a lot of absenteeism in this supermarket. The supervisors therein are not concerned and they are not doing anything about it. The absenteeism is taken in form of sick leave. Even the till operators complain that no one notices their presence. This shows that there have been poor relations between management and employees in this supermarket. In fact even when they do not report to duty, no one notices. This has created a sense of irresponsibility in them. Research shows that when people are not appreciated, they never do their best. They do shoddy work. Employees in Fair Price store are really demoralised.   How can all the managers in an organisation be male only? This is what is happening in Fair Price supermarket. (Fawson, T. 1999) There is no gender equality in the management. All the managers are male despite the fact that most of the employees in this supermarket are women. Women constitute seventy five percent of the two hundred employees in this supermarket. This means that most of the issues affecting the female staff are not adequately addressed. It is only the wearer of the shoe who knows where it pinches most. There is no way that the male managers can adequately address feminine issues.   (Burgoyne, J. 1997)They simply cannot understand because they are not female. Having considered all these factors, I strongly feel that implementing a training and development strategy in this supermarket will be very beneficial both the staff and the organisation at large. 2.2 Performance appraisal management system Performance appraisal is one of the training needs in Fair Price store. This is whereby employees that are best performers are rewarded by the management. 2.3 Succession planning This need to be carried out in Fair Price store and it includes. (Brooks, 1999)There needs to be smooth transition from the old management to the new management in this store. This has not been practiced in Fair Price store. 2.4 Mentoring and coaching Fair Price store needs to put in place mentoring and coaching mechanisms. (Brooks, 1999) Management in this organization needs to mentor employees and also to coach them on various leadership and job skills. This has not been practiced in this store. 2.5 Personal development Management in this store has to consider personal development of employees. This is where they are given training on their professional skills. (Brooks, 1999)This will benefit them. Fringe benefits given to employees help in promoting personal development. All these have not been implemented in Fair Price store. 3.0 Aim and objectives The aim and objectives of carrying out training and development strategy in Fair Price store include: To recruit new staff on merit basis. To help eradicate or minimize absenteeism in Fair Price store.   Ensure gender balance in management. Introduce an Information technology system for checkouts. Implement employee appraisal schemes. To improve leadership and professional skills of employees To enhance behaviour modification among employees 4.0 Steps for employee training and development The following steps will be taken in the training and development strategy in Fair Price store. Formulation of a training policy Identification of training needs in Fair Price store Training plan development Conducting of the training program Training responsibilities Training evaluation 4.1 Formulation of training policy Training policies normally give a guideline on degree of training that should be carried out in an organisation. They direct on the employees that need to be trained. In this stage there is allocation of profits to the training. This has to be done annually. Aims of training are clearly evaluated at this stage. (CIPD 2007)All these information has to be disseminated to the employees and the entire staff in Fair Price store. This will help them to understand that the management is interested in their welfare. This is in relation to career development. Training the employees in Fair price store will greatly influence in goal achievement. In fact the employees’ personal skills will be sharpened and this is very beneficial to Fair Price supermarket in general. The training in Fair Price store can be carried out in two ways. One of them is where it is oriented to actions. The other way relates to performance of the employees. This includes meeting targets. Performance training has to do with competence of employees. (Phillips, J. 1996)This means that they are trained to be more competent in their various responsibilities. When the training is action oriented, the employees in Fair Price are trained to make things happen. For instance they can be trained in customer care skills that will influence many customers to visit and purchase from the store. 4.2 Identification of training needs in Fair Price store When implementing training and development strategy, it is very important to identify the training needs in the organisation. Fair Price store has to identify its various training needs. This will help in realizing what the employees in this store know and what they can do. (CIPD 2007) It will also help in identifying what they need to know such that services in Fair Price store are improved. This is in relation to the goals in Fair Price store. For instance one of the goals is to ensure customer satisfaction in their service provision. The training needs in Fair Price store have to be analyzed at a corporate level. After that the analysis has to be done at the departments in this store. This includes customer care, finance and sales departments. (CIPD 2007)   Later on they need to be analyzed at team levels then finally at individual level. There are various tools that can be used when carrying out this analysis. This includes administering questionnaires to the employees.   This is because employees normally have first hand information concerning what they know and what they need to know. Focus group discussion between management and employees can be used in this store in identifying the training needs. This will really work for this store.   (CIPD 2007)   These discussions should also be done between the management and the departmental heads. This information will really be beneficial to Fair Price store when carrying out their long term and short term goals on training. 4.3 Training plan development Much thought has to be done when developing a training plan. This is in relation to the outcomes of learning program. Fair Price store management has to be keen in examining any changes in behaviour of employees after training is done. Now after identifying training needs then the training program content has to be put in place. After identifying the training objectives, an analysis needs to be done such that this stores’ management knows exactly what to do. .   (CIPD 2006)     All these things have to be put in place so that Fair Price store’s objectives are met. The content will greatly determine how long the training will take place. The length of the training will be influenced by modes of delivering information. For instance lectures may need long time to accomplish all that is required unlike the use of handouts. Training can also be done by the managers by carrying out on job training of the employees in Fair Price store. They can do this by coaching the staff at low levels in Fair Price store. These employees just learn how to do their job under the managers guidance.   They just learn naturally as they interact with other employees and managers. (CIPD 2007)  Ã‚     This is done on a day to day basis. Supervisors and also other senior employees in Fair Price store should go for training which can be done externally and not necessarily internally. They can make good use of consultants who provide these services at a fee. Through this the senior employees will gain skills in leadership and technical areas which they are lacking. 4.4 Conducting the training program In this stage there is monitoring of the courses that were identified during when analysis of training needs was being done. (Parry, S. 1996)This helps in ensuring that all the activities carried out in the training are within the budgets of Fair Price store. Management in this fair Price store should evaluate the training and know whether it is effective or not. 4.5 Training responsibilities Training in Fair Price store should not be carried out on an ad-hoc basis. This is because training will help this store to achieve its corporate goals. This human resource department in Fair Price store should be concerned with all the training and development needs therein. This should not just be done by the human resource department in general but a unit in this department will be more efficient. This unit will carry out coordination of every activity that is related to training and development. This unit will be responsible for evaluating both internal and the external people responsible in facilitating the training. It will also be responsible for planning the training and development activities in Fair Price store. Managers in this store should come to knowledge that it is their responsibility to oversee all the training activities. 4.6 Training evaluation This is very important since it will help to assess how effective the program is. This helps to know whether the objectives set at the planning stage were met or not. (Easterby, 1997) For instance the performance of the employees can be greatly monitored to see whether it has improved or not. In case the objectives are not met then necessary adjustments have to be put in place. These adjustments will help in improving the training so that it is more effective. For instance managers in Fair Price store should evaluate whether the employees’ skills have improved after the training or not. (Parry, S. 1996)Behaviour change in staff should be evaluated concerning absenteeism from work. This stage is should be done thoroughly and stakeholders should be given an opportunity to give the reasons why the objectives were not achieved and factors that contributed. Evaluation should be carried out to whether employee’s supervisory skills have been improved. Evaluation can be carried out in four levels. They include the following; 4.6.1 First level In the first level, there is the measurement of the reaction of the people who participated in the training. They include employees and external trainers. In this stage the degree of satisfaction of participants is evaluated whether it was poor, fair or excellent. (Parry, S. 1996)   In this case employees in Fair Price store can be interviewed by the managers or they have an open forum. Through this managers can know whether the training was effectively carried out or not. 4.6.2 Second level The evaluation is carried out in relation to achievement of objectives. This is to know whether the objectives were attained or not. (Alliger, G. 1989) The objectives in this case were to reduce absenteeism, to ensure behaviour modification in employees and to ensure that employee’s skills are improved. This can be evaluated whether they have been achieved or not. 4.6.3 Third level In this level the degree of behaviour change is evaluated. This is to know whether the employees’ behaviour has improved or not. Mangers in Fair Price store can evaluate behaviour change in the employees by observing their behaviours when at work. (Alliger, 1989) This can be noted down and those that have improved should be acknowledged by the managers.   Those that have not improved in their behaviour can be asked the reasons why and necessary steps taken. 4.6.4 Fourth level The results of the training are evaluated at this level. The costs of the training are evaluated against the benefits achieved. Managers in Fair Price store should evaluate the results of the training needs. (Alliger, 1989)   This can help them to know whether it was worth the initiative or not. The costs that Fair Price as a store incurred should be calculated against the benefits that the store would have achieved. This needs good use of records concerning the expenses that were incurred by the organization in carrying out the entire training. 5.0 Critical evaluation of options to tackle poor level of supervisory skills There are various ways of dealing with poor supervisory skills in Fair Price store. Now having a closer look at the supervisors shows that they are not qualified for the job they are doing. (Parry, 1996)They do not have leadership skills at all and this is clearly seen in the way that they deal with absenteeism. One of the ways of dealing with this is carrying out retrenchment of these under qualified staff. While this will help eliminate untrained staff, it may create a very poor relationship between managers and some employees. Though it is worth it since the store’s structure has to be reorganised. Carrying out organisation al learning for these supervisors can be very expensive for the store. In fact some of them may not understand due to lack of basic knowledge. Instead of retrenching them, they can be demoted to responsibilities that do not require skills like sanitation duties and packing the goods. New staff can be recruited on merit basis to do supervisory work in this store. Mentoring and coaching can be carried out by the managers in this organization. This should be carried out especially in relation to supervisors in this store. This can be done by the managers in this store showing the right examples to the supervisors. Managers can also have coaching sessions with supervisors and this will help improve supervisory skills though its time consuming. 6.0 Women only management training It would not be appropriate to carry out women only management training in Fair Price store in the name of levelling the playing field. (Kaufman, R. 1996)This still would not be gender sensitive. It will still be biased. Rather management training should be carried out for both male and female employees. Women should constitute two thirds of those attending the management training while then men should be a third. This is in relation to the gender ratios of the staff in Fair Price store. This will help in addressing feminine issues affecting the female employees. On the other hand if all the managers are women, the management in this store will not be stable. The male employees will never be comfortable with this. 7.0 Critical evaluation of option of training existing and new staff On opening of the new ‘mega store’ there will be the option of recruiting one hundred and fifty extra staff in various areas of the store. This is a positive venture though it has got its own challenges. Having a large number of employees to manage means having more problems to solve. Management development courses will be beneficial to managers at this stage. One of the challenges that are posed by this venture is in the financial sector. (McNamara, C. 2001)This is because the recruitment process can be very expensive. This is because there are costs that are incurred in advertising vacancies. The entire recruitment process can be quite tedious. There are also other financial implications like paying the salaries of one hundred and fifty extra people. The new employees will have to be recruited on merit basis unlike what initially happened in Fair price store under the previous store manager. Training of existing and new employees can be done with the help of National initiatives which were introduced by the government. The government helps in provision of resource materials in staff training. These resource materials include books in various professions that help the employees in the training. (Hoberman, S. and Mailick, S. 1992)   The government plays a big role in identifying modules that assist organisations such as Fair Price store to carry out training of employees. Fair price store can really benefit from government initiatives where it will be assisted to link up with qualified personnel that can be employed in the new store. This store will greatly benefit by receiving awards and scholarships through the National initiatives introduced by the government. The government offers scholarships and training opportunities that are quite collaborative in nature. Fair Price store can also gain through research that is carried out by the government. It will get a concrete base of knowledge from National Initiatives introduced by the government. 8.0 Management Development effectiveness In management development managers skills are improved. This is usually very beneficial to the organisation and even to the managers. It gives managers knowledge on how to deal with various issues in the organisation. This always plays a great role in the success of the organisation. (Gupta, K. 1999)   In this case managers are given the chance to broaden their reasoning in the business sector while at the same time continuing with their management responsibilities in the organisation. They learn more on new methodologies of handling human as a resource. It helps managers to gain knowledge in managing themselves first. Knowledge is also gained that helps them to manage employees in the organisation. Leadership skills of managers are greatly sharpened by management development. This will be effective for Fair Price store managers basing on the following evaluation models. 8.1 Flashlight Triad Model This model involves use of technology in accomplishment of various tasks. The technology should enable accomplishment of a specific activity. (Alliger, G. 1997) Management development will help managers incorporate appropriate technology in management areas like information technology. 8.2 Connoisseurship Evaluation An expert in the study field estimates how worth the new innovation is. (Alliger, G. 1997)   The threats that exist are clearly shown. Managers will be helped to use this model in their organisation. 8.3 Adversary Evaluation In this model there is a critical look at both sides of the innovation. This includes both the negative and the positive. (Alliger, G. 1997)This is to show whether the innovation is beneficial or not. 8.4 Kirkpatrick’s 4-level model In this model, the managers are helped to evaluate the reaction of employees on training and learning. (Alliger, G. 1997)Changes in behaviour are also noted in evaluation of the training by the managers. 9.0 Conclusion It is important for every business organisation to incorporate a training and development strategy. This helps in modifying employee’s behaviours. Organisational goals are easily achieved when training and development is well implemented. There are various steps in employee training and development. All these steps are important and should be carried out by business organisations. Evaluation will help in knowing whether the set objectives were achieved or not. 10.0 Recommendation Fair Price store has to include training and development strategy in its management. This will help in solving problems that exist in this store such as unskilled personnel, lack of appraisal scheme. This will help in motivating employees and will minimise absenteeism problems. Above all it will lead to the overall success of Fair Price store to the benefit of the stakeholders therein. 11.0 References Alliger, G. (1997): A meta-analysis of the relationship among training criteria. Personnel Psychology, 50, 341-358 Alliger, G. (1989): Kirkpatricks levels of training criteria: Thirty years later. Personnel Psychology, 42, 331-342 Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2006): Training and development strategy; New York; Sage Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2007): Creating a Training and Development Strategy; New York; Sage Beard, C. and Wilson, J. (2002): The power of experiential learning: A handbook for trainers and educators. London: Kogan Brooks, H. (1999): Workshops; Designing and facilitating experiential learning; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Burgoyne, J. (1997): Management learning; Integrating perspectives in theory and practice; London; Sage Cherrington, R. (1994): Pinning down experiential learning. Studies in the education of adults, 26(1) Easterby, S. (1997): Research traditions in management learning; Management learning: Integrating perspectives in theory and practice. London; Sage; pp. 38-53 DTI (2006): National Training and development Strategy; New York; Macmillan Press Fawson, T.   (1999): A study of executive education programs at ATT; Measuring learning and performance. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development. Gupta, K. (1999): A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment; San Francisco; Jossey- Bass/Pfeiffer Hoberman, S. and Mailick, S. (1992): Experiential management development; From learning to practice; New York; Quorum Books Kaufman, R. (1996): What works and what doesnt: Evaluation beyond Kirkpatrick. Performance and Instruction, 35(2), 8-12 McNamara, C. (2001): Employee Training and Development: Reasons and Benefits; New York; Macmillan Press Parry, S. (1996): Measuring trainings ROI. Training Development; 49(2), pp. 72-78 Phillips, J. (1996): ROI; The search for best practices. Training Development; 50(5), pp. 42-48