Kentucky Fried Chicken is the one of the oldest organizations operating in the fast food industry was established in the year 1930 and started its franchisee business in 1952. It was also one of the first few companies in this sector to expand out of America internationally and now operates over 20,000 locations over 123 countries almost. KFC as a firm is well known for both its products and its services all over the world. However, of late it has been facing issues regarding the smooth supply of the raw materials used and also the delivery of products to the customers quickly and efficiently. According to many of the reports and feedbacks analyzed, the customers are not happy with the delivery services provided by the firm and want the firm to effectively apply methods so that there is faster and better delivery of goods on time (Owens, 2018). Also, data analyzed has brought to light the problem of efficient supply of all the raw materials needed to manufacture quality products, something the firm has ensured since the beginning. These problems have been mostly observed in Britain where the firm ended its contract with Bidvest midway and entered into partnerships with DHL and Quick Service Logistics in spite of a lot of warnings from the GMB Union (supplychaindigital.com, 2018).
Thus, the firm will have to take up steps so that there is proper management of the supply chain being handled by the managers in co-ordination with the resources of DHL and also provide rigorous training to the employees of KFC who are involved with delivery of the finished products to different customers on time. The training participants will thus include, the employees forming the coordinators between DHL and KFC stores and also the employees who delivery the food. It will also include the people who are responsible for allocating the whole amount of delivery among the various employees. Apart from these participants the other participants included in the process of training will be the managers and the human resource management trainers. It will also include the experienced logistic trainers who will be involved with evaluating and monitoring the process of training and development being imparted and will also be responsible for implementing changes needed, if any.
This training and development is very crucial and important for the firm as it will help the firm to only better the situation existing in the context of customer satisfaction and will also help the firm to understand the techniques and strategies that it can apply in the other stores around the world so that the delivery, logistics and supply chain management process existing in the other countries and stores can be made even better. The process most importantly will help restore accountability and credibility that is lacking in the employees at this moment. It will also increase the transparency prevalent in the firm and also help in concentrating all the information that both the employees and the managers need to share. This in turn will help the managers to know about the problems that the employees are faced with in context to the delivery needs and the supply of raw materials, that is, how the needs of the customer have changed and how that implies changes in the logistics and supply chain management too. Also, the managers will be able to strategize techniques that will help overcome the problems with the advice and help from the higher authorities and hence help build new goals and objectives for the firm.
The very reason behind framing the training plan and then executing and conducting the program is because of the need of the reduction of the performance gap that has been identified in the area of supply chain management and also the delivery of the raw materials to the customers. The training program has to be built and executed in coordinated way so that the employees can have better set of skills with respect to both allocating the work in an efficient manner and also delivering at a fastened pace. It will also help the supply chain employees working together with DHL to set up policies and methods so that there is sufficient supply of the raw materials on time. It will also benefit the managers in allocating the employees and rearranging them in the order of best fit, that is, placing the employees in the correct departments according to their capabilities and also according to their ability of handling different situations. On the part of the trainers, it will give them the opportunity to know about the problems faced by the employees associated with and working in the concerned fields and also about the view of the managers as to how they should be trained so that the training goals are in line with the long run goals and objectives of the firm.
The theory of Kolb which is an experimental theory states that cognition, behavior, experience and perception form a holistic contribution and each of these factors should be worked upon for conducting a complete training and development program and imparting the right kind of training. It focuses on the fact that learning is created through the change of a series of experiences (Kolb, 2014). It also particularly focuses on the learning process of every individual. It is a cyclical process of learning that is taken up and there are four stages of the entire training process which are to be compulsorily followed in a sequential manner. These steps include Concrete experience, Reflective observation, Abstract conceptualization and Active experimentation. In this process the experiences gathered over time are changed into reflection and concepts. These reflections, concepts and methods are then used in the form of guides and processes to carry out further active experimentation and also the choice and preferences of the implementation of new experiments are chosen based on the estimates (Flinders et al. , 2013). This whole process of providing training and development will be used for framing and implementing the training and development plan. This is because it will help the trainers to have an initial insight into the practical hindrances and problems faced by the employees who are going to be trained and whose capacity is to be developed and will help them in allocating the responsibilities and work of both the employees and the managers.
The method of delivery of the program will be such that it ensures a holistic development of the capacities of not only the employees but also the entire system where the performance gap has been identified. Hence the following measures will be taken to deliver the training
Discussion: Firstly interactive discussion sessions will be held in order to ensure that there a list of problems and the countering solutions to those problems. The method of discussion will also help to bridge the gap between the supply chain employees and the employees delivering the finished products (Cascio, 2018). It will also help ensure that the solutions based on which the training is being conducted is ultimately helping to reach the objectives of the firm in the long run.
Audio-Visual: The first part of the training will involve showing the participants, the experiences of the employees in the two teams as well as the employees of the other firms who have also faced the same problem (Noda et al., 2015). It will help the employees of the supply chain department to know the experiences of the employees involved with the delivery and vice versa. This will ensure that the two groups come across the ideas that each other has about the workings of the two departments.
Simulations: This process is very effective and the most important method of delivery where the trainees are made to face the situations where the problems have risen and made to enact the way in which they have to from then in order to overcome the performance gap (Hays & Singer, 2012). It will help all the trainees and managers to know about the interpersonal skills of each other and help in increasing the productivities of the employees in a memorable and retainable manner.
Case Studies: Particular case studies will also be discussed as well as simulated so that the employees are well acquainted with the different scenarios that might arise and so that the employees are able to address the challenges associated and answer the problems of the performance gap better (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Role Play: This is the most effective and important method that will be implied for delivering the training as it will help the employees of the supply chain department and the employees of the delivery department to enact and come up with instant solutions (Schlegel et al., 2012). This will help to build in them the nature of problem solving and coming up with fast and efficient delivery solutions.
As mentioned earlier the program is being framed and implemented in order to overcome the shortcomings and the performance gap located and identified in the areas of supply chain management and delivery of the finished products. The program will thus aim towards achieving the following objectives:
For any kind of training program it is important that the trainers are themselves well equipped and knowledgeable about the various problems as well as the solutions to those problems. It is also important for them to have answers for the various questions and situations that might have cropped up on the part of the employees while they are imparting the training. Thus, the following set of instructions should be followed by the trainers effectively:
The trainers and the managers should evaluate and monitor the feedbacks for the different employee participants both internally and externally. In the internal context, the managers should be holding extensive sessions with the trainers and the employees on a one on one basis so that the employees can be judged and also their views and level of confidence can be judged after the imparting of the training sessions. The external context of sessions with respect to monitoring and evaluating the performance of the employees is based on the feedbacks and the level and types of complaints provided by the customers at the end of the training session or even during the session. The evaluation and monitoring being the most important part of the training that helps in understanding and measuring the change in the amount of productivity, should be carried out with a lot of accuracy. The measuring of the productivities should also be based on proper parameters and factors.
The resources required for the training and development process include all the materials and equipments that are required right from the needs of the classroom training to the increase in the networking between the employees of the firm as well as the employees of the firm and the customers. The resources required for the training and development process are enlisted below:
List of handouts, presentations and notes for the trainees and the trainers will include all the matters and subjects on which the training in the classrooms will be provided along with all the different set of policies and rules that the managers, employees and trainees need to follow while the process of training is being conducted and carried out. It will also include the set of objectives and goals that are to be reached with the help of the training process and the performance gap identified and how each department is supposed to contribute towards overcoming this gap with increase in their respective productivities.
The location where the training process will be imparted will include the office where the trainees from the respective can meet conveniently. The location of the training for the employees involved will also include the various stores where the delivery complaints have been received as the change in the productivities and also the feedbacks of the customers need to be evaluated and monitored.
As mentioned earlier, the staff will include the set of participants who are involved in the process of training involve the employees concerned with coordination of supply management between DHL and KFC stores and also the employees involved in delivering the goods from the stores to the customers. The other set of staff will include the managers and trainers involved with monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the training and development process being undertaken to address the challenges and issues of the performance gap.
The entire process of training and development in this particular case is very important as it involves a lot of costs and investments that will cause the firm to incur quite some amount of expenditure. The list of particulars along with the approximate amounts of expenditures is presented in a tabular form as follows:
Particulars |
Amounts |
Applications and Software |
$5,000 |
Compensation of external trainers |
$4,000 |
Smart Devices |
$10,000 |
Logistical Equipments |
$20,000 |
Audio-Visual Equipments |
$10,000 |
Total Expenditure |
$49,000 |
Thus, it can be seen that in order to effectively carry out the entire training and development program an estimated cost and expenditure of $49,000 will have to be incurred. However, it is important to note here that this estimated cost is just an approximation and the real implementation costs can vary depending upon many other factors or variables that will affect this situation.
Possible Barriers
Like every other new process or change management procedure that is implemented in the corporate world, this process and plan of training and development will also be faced with some possible barriers and these are discussed in details herein:
References:
(supplychaindigital.com, 2018) Available online at: https://www.supplychaindigital.com/scm/expert-reaction-kfc-supply-chain-crisis-could-have-been-avoided
Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Flinders, B. A., Nicholson, L., Carlascio, A., & Gilb, K. (2013). The partnership model for service-learning programs: A step-by-step approach. American Journal of Health Sciences, 4(2), 67.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hays, R. T., & Singer, M. J. (2012). Simulation fidelity in training system design: Bridging the gap between reality and training. Springer Science & Business Media.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.
Noda, K., Yamaguchi, Y., Nakadai, K., Okuno, H. G., & Ogata, T. (2015). Audio-visual speech recognition using deep learning. Applied Intelligence, 42(4), 722-737.
Owens, J. D. (2018). Why has KFC run out of chicken?. Manchester Evening News.
Schlegel, C., Woermann, U., Shaha, M., Rethans, J. J., & van der Vleuten, C. (2012). Effects of communication training on real practice performance: a role-play module versus a standardized patient module. Journal of Nursing Education, 51(1), 16-22.
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