Outline Of A Half-Day (Off-the-job) Training Program, On-the-job Training Initiatives And Reasons On The Chosen Methods

Targeted aim of the half-day training program

Discuss the outline of a Half-Day (Off-the-job) training program, on-the-job training initiatives and reasons on the chosen methods.

It has to be realized that investing in employee’s additional trainings and not necessarily always directly linked to their role in the organization, is extremely valuable. Furthermore investing in employee’s well being is also important. At the end of the day happy employee is a productive and loyal employee. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, where employees abuse organizational care for employees. It is recommended that the training needs of employees should be meet at  ‘One Pound Emporium’. It can be said that a knowledge management strategy designed to improve business performance must address behavioral norms and practices, in other words organizational culture where these are essential to effective knowledge use (Kuvaas, 2010). This may explain why organizations in collectivistic cultures such as in Japan readily embrace and utilize knowledge management, whereas in more individualistic cultures like UK, there may be more resistance. There are various ways to design the training programs. The training for ‘customer care first and employee values at the heart of excellent customer service’ would be an informal training in the form of a group discussion among the employees. The specifics of this half-day training can be discussed as:

Targeted aim: This would be off-the job training with the aim to increase the communication between workers and improve the workplace dynamics. The targeted aim of this training would be to improve flexibility within the organization (Clardy, 2008). The aim of this training would be to focus on customer relationship management.

Learning objectives: This would be an informal event with the objective to increase flexibility in the team members. The employees would be trained to understand the customers’ expectations and act accordingly.

Timings: The timing of this training program would be 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. There would also be a short break from 1 P.M. to 2 P.M.

Activities: There would be number of activities that would be performed as part of this training. There would be group discussion, informal chat rooms, short games, etc. There would be power point presentations that would be given with the specific targeted aim and the learning objectives (Ramachandran, 2011). There would be seven power-point presentations for different topics like team dynamics, flexibility, work place dynamics, etc.

Assessment: There would be an assessment performed after the training is completed. This assessment would be in the form of a quiz. The quiz or the assessment would have 20 multiple-choice questions. The objective of this assessment would be to judge the learning and knowledge gain by employees (Corbridge, 2010). A sample of questions in the assessment can be discussed as:

Learning objectives

Q 1: How would you define the importance of team communication for work environment? Rate from a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being least important and 5 being most important

Q2: What is the importance of customer relationship management in the overall organizational policies? Rate from a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being least important and 5 being most important

Q3: What is the important of CRM policies in organizational mission and vision ? Rate from a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being least important and 5 being most important

Training feedback evaluation form: It is important that every training should have a feedback evaluation form. The evaluation form that would be used for this training can be shown as:

Name of the candidate/ trainee
Date of Birth
Contact Details (Phone number and email-id)
Address
Designation in the company
Number of years of experience in the company
Did you find training useful?
What did you gain from the training?
What were the shortcomings or the weakness of the training?
How could this training program be further improved?
Would you prefer to attend any similar training in the future?
Any other comments/ suggestions/ issues/ concerns?

There would be significant difference sin the off-the-job training and on-job training. The on-the-job training would focus more on the continuous improvement. Whereas, the off-job training was more of one time activity that would happen at regular intervals. The three on-the-job training initiatives for the employees of at  ‘One Pound Emporium’ can be discussed as:

First Initiative: Classroom training and session from senior management

In an organization, the senior management is the most experience people. It is important that the senior management should cascade their learning experience to employees. The senior managers of the firm should explain the learning from their success and from their failure. Woodrow (2014) argued that the richest learning experience could be achieved from failure. He criticizes the way managers reward success and look down upon failure as something that can be detrimental to the long-term health of the organization.

Second Initiative: Practical training with role-plays

The customer satisfaction could be achieved only when employees understand the issues of customers. The on job training must include the role-play where management would act as customers and employees would be trained (Bach, 2001). There are a lot of theories, which describe the learning management for the organization and the organization knowledge managements so far “Modern theorists of management practice” argue that knowledge is key for long term competitive advantage in modern economy.  Currently available models, which describe knowledge creation, are mainly incomplete due to unevenly distributed support for specific aspects of these models (Constandse, J.M., 2013). I am personally agree with the theory that mention that the organization learning and organizational knowledge is the key as much as the key is important we still need to plan what next and here is the value of the knowledge and how to use id in the development process. So, it’s a complete cycle of process that supporting each other and also developing each other toward the final planned strategically goals.

Timings of the training program

Third initiative: Training with peers

The absolute level of customer satisfaction could be achieved only when employees also understand the skills and competencies of their peers. The organization has multiple stores. Therefore, the employees must also learn to work in virtual teams. The best-fit approach would suggest that organizations need to move with the times and use virtual teams, especially if that is what competitors are doing. The best-practice model would also drive the use of such teams if it means that performance will be enhanced (Armstrong, 2009). As the resource-based view places great focus upon the people of the organization, it would be considered vital to do what is best for the employee, and if allowing for a virtual set-up means getting the best people on board, virtual teams would be supported.

The objective of the above initiative is to focus on the competency of employees. While executing core competencies such has high communication skills, self and business awareness, the responsibility of HR managers was also to change their role’s perception seen by their non-HR counterparts by way of deploying their strategies by way of these core competencies; thus becoming credible champions of their role.

The main advantage and disadvantages of the recommended training methods can be discussed as:

Method	Advantage	Disadvantage
Classroom training and session from senior management	1.Direct communication and interaction between senior management and employees 2. Effective and efficient model of training as employees can directly present their concerns to management (Graf, 2007)	1. The fulfillment of this training would require infrastructure like classrooms etc. 2. The productive time of senior management would be used for other purpose
Practical training with role-plays	1. It would help to analyze the practical nature of the problem 2. Involvement of various stakeholders	1. Different employees can have their own perception of role play 2. Time consuming and costly
Training with peers	1. It would help to increase the communication between all the employees of organization	1. It could increase the chances of conflicts between the team members

The above training objectives could be achieved if the organization can focus on HR strategies. One of the difficult tasks for management of ‘One Pound Emporium’ would be to evaluate and assess the benefit of training programs (Bonder, 2011). The assessment and evaluation would be effective only when the organization has a HR strategist. In my opinion, the HR strategist is limited to the frame provided by the organization as such cannot do much where constrained. HR strategy will be efficient when it can be aligned with corporate strategy and drive.  The evaluation and assessment of the training would happen at three levels. These levels can be discussed as:

Level 1: Self evaluation

The first level of evaluation would be self-evaluation. All the workers and employees of the organization that would participate in the training programs would be asked to complete the self-evaluation.

Level 2: Evaluation at HR level

The second level of evaluation would be at an HRM level. At this level, the HR executives and management would evaluate and assess the training programs. The HR managers can use the metrics like ‘productivity improvement of employees’, attrition arte, etc. to assess the success of training programs (Mazvancheryl, 2004).

Activities included in the training program

Level 3: Evaluation at management level

The third level of evaluation would be at the management level. The senior management of the firm would assess the success of the training program. The management of ‘One Pound Emporium’ can use the metrics like ‘Customer Satisfaction Index’, ‘Employee perception’, etc.

The HR strategist would also focus on the negative managers and weak management skills in the ‘One Pound Emporium’. In an organization, few managers’ mention lack of delegation, minatory comment, lack of honest feedback and inaccessibility and closed mind as main factors that they especially watch out for in their communications and performance as managers, because of their former bosses.  Lauren Stiller (2015), President of Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership, support these negative factors that are identified in terrible managers performance, when she recommend leaders to avoid speaking before thinking, negative feedbacks and ignoring the benefits of diversity.

The management of ‘One Pound Emporium’ must realize that skills required to complete the job may never be constant (Hall, 2011). Therefore, it is important that employers should develop a culture where employees can work to update their skills. The management of the company should focus to update the training needs and the training programs at regular interval. It is also recommended that management of ‘One Pound Emporium’ should include employees to develop continuous training programs. The management must collect feedback from employees and this feedback would help management to develop future strategies and plans.

References

Anderson, E. W., Fornell, C. & Mazvancheryl, S. K. (2004) ‘Customer Satisfaction and Shareholder Value’, Journal of Marketing, 68, October, pp. 172-185.

Armstrong, M. (2009), A Handbook of Human Resource Practice Management, 11th ed. Kogan Page

Bonder, A, Bouchard, C, & Bellemare, G 2011, “Competency-Based Management-An Integrated Approach to Human Resource Management in the UK Public Sector”, Public Personnel Management, 40(1), pp. 1-10, education Research

Clardy, A 2008, ” The strategic role of Human Resource Develpment in managing core competencie”, Human Resource Development International, 11(2), pp. 183-197

Dr. Bach, S. (2001) HR and new approaches to public sector management: improving HRM capacity, World Health Org. Geneva, Switzerland [accessed on the 05^th February, 2016 https://www.who.int/hrh/en/Improving_hrm_capacity.pdf

Graf, A 2007,”Changing roles of customers: consequences for HRM”, International Journal of ServiceIndustry Management, 18(5), pp. 491-509

Jerald, C.D. (2009) Defining a 21^st century education. Available at: https://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Learn-About/21st-Century/Defining-a-21st-Century-Education-Full-Report-PDF.pdf (Accessed: 05 February 2015).

Kuvaas, B. & Dysvik, A. (2010) ‘Does best practice HRM only work for intrinsically motivated employees?’,International Journal Of Human Resource Management, 21 (13), pp. 2339-2357

Pilbeam, S. & Corbridge, M. (2010) People resourcing and talent planning: HRM in practice. 4th ed. London: Prentice Hall International.

Ramachandran, R. (2011) ‘Professional competence and statistical integrity challenges faced in the small area estimation: A public policy tool development perspective’,Statistical Journal of the IAOS, 27, pp. 39-47.

Torrington, D., Taylor, S. And Hall, L. (2011), Human Resource Management, 8th ed. FT/Prentice Hall

Woodrow, C., & Guest, D. E. (2014). When good HR gets bad results: exploring the challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying. Human Resource Management Journal, 24(1), 38-56.