Developing A Learning And Development Proposal For Red Telecom

Background of Red Telecom and the RISE initiatives

This report in the form a proposal is based on the learning and development programs against the challenges that Red Telecom presently face when implementing the RISE initiatives. The purpose of the proposal is to analyse the existing group interventions to the implementation of RISE and design a learning and development program for addressing training needs and other significant barriers in workplace (Nevala et al., 2015). The plan is aligned to the aims of General Managers who are involved in the implementation of RISE. Significance of preparing a learning and development plan lies in the fact existing issues about training needs and team management and imbalance in diversity will further deteriorate Red’s overall performance. Thus, to achieve the objectives of Red’s inclusive strategy 2020, a learning and development plan must be developed.

The multinational enterprise Red Telecom provides business and residential customers with a comprehensive range of mixed and fixed line broadband and voice services. As part of a strategic refresh intended enhance outcomes and service for a range of a stakeholders Red launched a diversity and inclusion initiative known as RISE which aim at defining diversity. RISE increases to enhance diversity within organization’ workforce by meeting specific targets such as increase women’ representation particularly in senor leadership roles from 11% to 25% and increase rate across LGBTIQ representation in workplace and changes in some other areas. When implementing the initiatives Customer Resolution Department had to undergo a restructure in which the whole team moved to Australian Call Centre that depends on several works teams. However, in doing so, the challenges that are found are employees are feeling stressed and overburdened as well as there is a diversity imbalance in each team. Thus, to resolve these challenges, Red’s business is in the need of a suitable analysed report which must identifies the stated challenges and develop a suitable learning and development plan. So, this proposal states how the report should be prepared and what outcomes can be gained with respect to learning and development program. 

This proposed development plan include a detailed analysis of the issues including the diversity imbalance in teams, stress and excessive workload on staff, apprehension among staff regarding the implementation of RISE, lack of coordination among workers due to poor communication practices and many others. A detailed analysis of the issues have been presented with theories of management and HR department. The report includes a review of existing papers performed on diversity management and human resources practices. However, as the report is based on a case study, analysis also includes primary data and primary method of data collection and analysis.

Challenges in Implementing RISE Initiatives

A performed a study and mentioned that a diverse and inclusive workforce group could to drive the creation and implementation of new products, business process and services. The author of this study has mentioned that investing in workforce diversity contributes to enhanced economic and as well as social performance, effective application to demographic as well as organizational change. Urbancova,  Cermmkova and Vostrovska (2016) performed a study and mentioned that in order to reap the benefits of diverse workforce, the business needs to promote as well as evaluate diversity at the team level. It is certain that multicultural teams provides a great range of advantages with the inclusion of better adaptability, as well as higher innovation potentials as knowledge of multiple product market enhances potential for a service range and culturally more sensitive customer service (Baker & Kelan, 2015). 

On the other side,Mahon and CJM Millar (2014) performed a study on diversity and inclusion and when it comes to profitability from diversity, and mentioned that for a business to gain profits from diversity of thought of its diverse workforce, some specific conceptual factors should come together include the commitment to diversity development process by employees and top management. The factors such as promotion of diversity and support companywide structure and process. Mushtaq, Haider and Khan (2015) mentioned about a factor which is development and training of workforce’s cross cultural competencies as well as conflict management skills. It is identified that without essential organizational framework, intercultural training, and support, a diverse team might have difficulties in becoming a cohesive, innovative and productive team unit. Hanifet al., (2014) mentioned about the following conceptual steps aligned with a suitable learning and development plan to gain positive outcome from diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Selection of a cross culturally competent team leader: As put forward by Kemp and Madsen (2014), in order to lead a multicultural team effectively require competencies that go effectively beyond the technical knowledge as well as leadership qualities as required. In order to become an effective leader of a multi-cultural team an increasing level of cultural flexibility, robust ambiguity tolerance and decreasing level of ethnocentrism

Selection of team members:  A team leader who already has the significance proficiency of cross culture can select the member on the basis of a particular criteria associated to team’s target population (Manutiet al.,2015).

Learning about the differences: While team members might have similar education, professional experiences and work role in the same sector but still there are significant differences to be discovered between team members. This could lead to creative and significant ideas and eventually influence the quality of team performance (Cha, Park & Lee, 2014). For instance, a big American Telecom firm increased sales as well as retention of consumers calling to Brazil based on the brief of its South American team members. Members explained that Brazilians prefer to take their time talking to friends and family back home. Consequently, organization lowered the call rate but still increased its gain due to longer call time.

Significance of Preparing a Learning and Development Plan

Communication: Selecting adequate communication channels as well as cooperation persistently are necessary for local as well as virtual teams. It is necessary to identify which tools fits framework and methods of work in team (Wilson, 2014). As people know, keeping a clear flow of communication without any sort of conflict could be challenging and the difficulties increase multiple vocabularies are used in the field of an international team. Thus, it is highly important to the relevant rules of communication such as communication with positive attitude and one should be clear about what he/she is addressing (Curtis et al., 2013). 

The proposed development plan will include a detailed analysis of the background of diversity and inclusion, making of learning and development plan includes research reports containing real-world facts about diversity and inclusion and team management. The data will be collected from reliable secondary sources such as organizational reports of MNCs, team development plans used by other businesses, corporate norms of diversity management, etc. The collected data will be analysed with the existing data finding of previous studies. On the other side, primary data will be collected by performing a survey among the employees of Customer Resolution Department and General Manager.

The research will help to learn whether workplace diversity contributes to firm’s success. Red Telecom is in the need of diversity and inclusion initiatives to establish a diverse culture where both the number of female and male workers in managerial positions should be equal. The study will reveal how the organization can develop the measures against system of flexible working hours, procedures of dealing with the complaints and making sure the work safety are among the most frequent measures. Learning and development plan will determine how General Managers’ decision making-system and information that might help to enable the degree to which goals in the area of equal opportunities should contribute to productive work on the parts of managers (Braun et al., 2013). In addition to this, emphasis should be recommended on the development of employees and awareness-raising in the given areas, in the scope of which firm could utilize training in the field of Customer Resolution Department, programs on multi-cultural skills, leadership and managerial skills as well as possibilities of stimulating staff. On the other side, findings of existing studies summarize that diversity of human resources which should be managed by good interpersonal skills helping business to adjust faster as well as better to their customers, meet their needs as well as support human resource branding (Bogers, Foss & Lyngsie, 2018). 

The Proposed Development Plan for Red Telecom

When making a restructure in Customer Resolution Department, the transition should be transparent and organization needs to follow the norms of creating equality in staff management. It is certain that multicultural team like every other team requires room and time to know each other, experiment and form trust.  The business also needs to generate room for the “diversity of thoughts”, multi-cultural teams required to find the balance between time-verified practices as well as development of core ideas.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that significance of a diverse workforce is unmeasurable, as equality in the workforce always lead to a productivity unit. In developing and maintaining diversity and inclusion, team members should commit completely to the technique as well as intended to exceed beyond their comfort zone and if it happens and diverse team provides each member an opportunity to bring  his/her professional and personal expertise and to be recognized for it. Nonetheless, on the basis of analysis and expected outcomes, the following suggestions have been developed which should be further implemented. The areas needing development is:

• The inability of some General Managers to manage diversity directly because of the nature of business and its effectiveness
• Managers and supervisors in the Customer Resolution Department do not have adequate knowledge regarding how to manage workforce effectively.
• It is also identified that there is a lack of open communication between managers and employees. So, establishment of communication will help team members and managers to address the complaints about not receiving information and support from the team leaders.

While managers should be positive about the existence as well as execution of diversity and inclusion. Culture mentoring is one of the significant ways to orient manager and employees both existing as well as new people cope up with working environment and their responsibilities. In addition to this, managers need to be prepared to change some significant part of Red Telecom’s existing team management techniques, particularly when diversity management process adopted are no more effective but before doing so, the division for the change could be communicated adequately. 

References

Baker, D.T. & Kelan, E.K., (2015). Diversity management in the workplace. Managing Diversity and Inclusion: An International Perspective, p.78.

Bogers, M., Foss, N. J., & Lyngsie, J. (2018). The “human side” of open innovation: The role of employee diversity in firm-level openness. Research Policy, 47(1), 218-231.

Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S., & Frey, D. (2013). Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 270-283.

Cha, M., Park, J. G., & Lee, J. (2014). Effects of team member psychological proximity on teamwork performance. Team performance management, 20(1/2), 81-96.

Curtis, J. R., Back, A. L., Ford, D. W., Downey, L., Shannon, S. E., Doorenbos, A. Z., … & Arnold, R. W. (2013). Effect of communication skills training for residents and nurse practitioners on quality of communication with patients with serious illness: a randomized trial. Jama, 310(21), 2271-2281.

Mahon, J. & CJM Millar, C., (2014). ManAGEment: the challenges of global age diversity for corporations and governments. Journal of organizational change management, 27(4), pp.553-568.

Kemp, L.J. & Madsen, S.R., (2014). Oman’s labour force: an analysis of gender in management. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 33(8), pp.789-805..

Hanif, M.I., Shao, Y., Ziaullah, M. & Hanif, M.S., (2014). Role of Talent Management, Diversity Trainings and HRD on Effective Implementation of HR Practices in Telecom Sector in Pakistan. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (pp. 761-770). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Manuti, A., Pastore, S., Scardigno, A.F., Giancaspro, M.L. & Morciano, D., (2015). Formal and informal learning in the workplace: a research review. International journal of training and development, 19(1), pp.1-17.

Mushtaq, A., Haider, N. & Khan, M., (2015). Work Force Diversity as a Source of Innovation in context of Telecom sector in Pakistan. Journal of Business and Management Research, 8, pp.205-216.

Nevala, N., Pehkonen, I., Koskela, I., Ruusuvuori, J., & Anttila, H. (2015). Workplace accommodation among persons with disabilities: a systematic review of its effectiveness and barriers or facilitators. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 25(2), 432-448.

Urbancová, H., ?ermáková, H. & Vostrovská, H., (2016). Diversity Management in the Workplace. ActaUniversitatisAgriculturaeetSilviculturaeMendelianaeBrunensis, 64(3), pp.1083-1092.

Wilson, J.P., (2014). International human resource development: Learning, education and training for individuals and organisations. Development and Learning in Organizations, 28(2)