Handbook Of Reflective Experiential Learning: A Training Development Proposal For Red Telecom

Problem Statement

This training development proposal is tailored for Red Telecom (Red) specifically for team leaders in the Customer Resolution Department. It is tied to Red’s Inclusive Strategy (RISE) which has four broad aims. The first aim is to elevate the proportion of women within the department. Secondly, it seeks to increase the number of employees from a culturally diverse background. Thirdly, it aims to increase the recruitment of people with disabilities. Lastly, the proposal seeks to align with the fourth Red’s objective which is attracting and retaining talented staff from any background to the organization (Hur & Strickland, 2015).

The learning and development aims, when fully implemented within Red will bring a raft of changes. The most obvious will be an increase in productivity within the organization (Kossek, 2010). Moreover, it is expected that adopting the four aims will lead to a sustained competitive advantage in the market since Red is a multinational company. Implementing the RISE strategy will also undoubtedly lead to employee motivation since the teams will be more open for diverse ideas thereby resulting in employee satisfaction in the customer resolution department (McGuire & Jorgensen, 2010). The training will also alleviate the resistance to change and address the high employee turnover especially those working on a part-time basis (Akingbola, 2013). Finally, it is expected that customer satisfaction dispute resolution will also improve significantly.

Currently, there are myriad shortfalls affecting Reds in general and the customer resolution department. In general, Red’s proportion of women employees stands at 11% which is way below the national average of 17% in Australia. This is counter-productive given that numerous studies have indicated high productivity when more women are recruited to management (Bygren, 2010).

There is high employee turnover especially those working on a part-time basis in the customer resolution department. Thirdly, the disability representation within Reds stands at 0.7% which is way below the national proportion of disabled people at 18.3%. This, according to Hart (2014), is against the letter and spirit of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 Australia.

The number of employees from culturally diverse backgrounds is underrepresented at Red with only 9% of the employees coming from diverse cultures. This proportion is minimal considering that an estimated 40% of Australian workforces of diverse cultural background (Hur & Stickland, 2015).

There is also looming fear of downsizing and job layoffs. This amounts to resistance to change due to the fear of the unknown. At Reds, the majority of White employees fear they may lose their jobs to pave way for culturally diverse employees (Dun, 2010).

Target Group

Lastly, the teams are not achieving their potential given that female employees are afraid of approaching the male team leaders with questions or suggestions for improvement as they fear they could be discriminated against (Hatcher, 2010).

The training exercise will target the team leaders of the customer resolution department. This is because a number of problems identified such as gender imbalance, cultural representation, the low proportion of people with disabilities and employee turnover are associated with the department. In addition, the employees also fear the team leaders.

The operations team leaders will also be targeted since it has been established that resistance to change is high in the department with incumbent employees fearing that they may be replaced by unqualified staff just for Red to appear politically correct (Werner & Desimone, 2011).

This part establishes the functions and roles associated with the team leaders for the customer resolution department and those of the operations department. This will in turn help in the establishment of gaps between the competencies at Red and what is expected in the industry.

The first role of the customer resolution department and their team leaders in the telecommunication sector is to solve customer problems. This may include directions to change gadget language, accessing various functions of mobile devices and billing problems raised by the customers. Customers like their problems to be served promptly and may be required to rate the customer service when the session is over (Kumar, Venkatesan & Leone, 2011).

The second role is to handle customer complaints. This happens when a transaction has already been made and the service has been delivered or on course to be delivered. In the telecommunication industry, complaints may be in the form of delayed delivery of ordered mobile devices, malfunctioning telephone, erratic network issues and much more. The customer resolution team leader and their team should know how to handle irate and abusive customers when their complaints are not handled as expected. The team leaders should, therefore, possess dispute resolution skills, be patient, and have diplomatic skills (Epp & Price, 2011).

The customer resolution department also handles inquiries from customers. Some may be potential clients who want to know the services offered by the company while others are existing clients seeking to know more about new products, for instance, data packages for smartphones. This requires the employees to be knowledgeable, agile and have multidisciplinary skills (Kumar, Venkatesan & Leone, 2011).

Competencies of the target group

As with many service industries, the customer resolution department in the telecommunication industry also handles sales and marketing functions. Once a problem has been solved, the employee may follow up with additional offers or new products such as cable television and packet data offers just to mention. They should, therefore, be able to generate sales leads and close sales. The team should also have telemarketing skills, persuasion skills, and unqualified sales research skills (Epp & Price, 2011).

According to Shuffler, Diaz and Salas (2011) departmental team leaders and their team in customer resolution department should have data entry skills to be able to fill in customer requirements and expectations. This can be used for future customization of products and services to the customers. In this case, the competencies required include computing skills, multitasking ability, and the ability to use customer relationship management solutions.

The operations team leaders are responsible for many aspects in the telecommunication industry. These include inventory management and control, leading and managing change, ensuring technical specifications for communication devices are met and scheduling of company operations. They also handle the maintenance and repair of faulty devices, ensure smooth network operations and observe quality management (Bhaskar & Mishra, 2014).

Their duties also include monitoring of network traffic to establish deficits and overload. They prepare budgets for the operations and handle growth plans for the company. Lastly, they review the communication network for purposes of planning and designing new standards and make reports to enable senior management to make decisions (Bhaskar & Mishra, 2014).

Their competencies and skills include network engineering skills, knowledge of software and hardware design for telecommunication, establishing and maintaining vendors relationships, report writing skills and ability to make communication strategies (Shuffler, Diaz & Solas, 2011).

The learning and development training is aimed at harmonizing the performance matrix to gauge the employees in the customer resolution department. It also seeks to improve employee motivation to stem the high turnover. Because of the increasing resistance to change, the training is designed to involve the employees in the change process and address their fears. The training will highlight the relationship between women in management positions and productivity. It will address the reasons for increasing employees with disabilities as well as culturally diverse employees (Jones, Woods & Guillaume, 2015; Moon, 2013)

The learning and development training has four distinct objectives aligned with the Red’s RISE strategy. These are:

1. To sensitize the team leaders on the importance of increasing women representation in management roles
2. To explore the benefits of increasing disability representation roles by 4.3%
3. To examine the benefits of increasing representation of culturally and linguistically diverse groups by 6% in the near term.
4. To inquire ways of attracting and retaining talent from all backgrounds
5. To resolve resistance to change issues

Gaps/Need assessment

The learning and development training will be delivered using instructional videos, roleplaying, group challenges, participant guides, curriculum and content guidelines, mentoring, group discussions, presentations, exercises and question, and answer sessions.

a) Change management and overcoming resistance to change b) Human resource recruitment, talent acquisition and retaining talent c) Linking Human resources to organization strategy (RISE) to business performance d)The resource-based view (RBV)-developing human resource for competitive advantage e) Human resource motivation and labor laws f) Safety training

The training focused on adults who prefer learning based on need, experience, and problem-based content. To make the content intuitive, the team leaders will be involved in identifying their learning category. This will enable the trainer to optimize training based on 3 categories; auditory learners or those who prefer listening, visual learners or those who prefer seeing and Kinesthetic Learners who prefer to touch (Moon, 2013).

Different styles of adult learning will be used such as coaching, mentorship where an experienced trainer can guide the team leaders. Experimentation will also be used to gain hands-on experience. Observation and abstract conceptualizations will be used (Werner & Desimone, 2011).

This is training that occurs in formal environments. Cross-training, for instance, is where one employee learns the roles of another employee while on the job to break the monotony and for career succession (Moon, 2013).

Coaching of new workers in the teams will be taught to team leaders to induce new employees. Safety training, on the other hand, will cover ergonomics and repetitive tasks to prevent work-related health issues.

This type of training occurs in informal surroundings. One way this will be achieved is by use of social media networks where employees can learn from others within or outside the company. Another way this will be achieved is by arranging for a getaway where employees can chat in a hotel. Other ways include the use of tutorial videos specially prepared by trainers and finally online chatting (Klein & Moore, 2016).

The budget and time frames for the learning and development training is as shown:

Particular	Budget  for 8 Team Leaders (In Australian Dollars)	Time-frame(Days)
Reviewing input from Team-leaders	N/A	3 days
Preparing  training material	5000	7 days
Preparation of location ( Inside Red and in a hotel)	6000	2 days
Transportation	400	N/A
Payment for professional trainers	3000	N/A
Stationery	200	N/A
Staff Allowances	2000	N/A
Miscellaneous expenses	1000	N/A
Training Duration	N/A	14 days
Total	17,600	26 Days

After the training, the team leaders will be gauged through the use of a questionnaire and interview schedule to find out the effectiveness of the training. They will also be evaluated using a write-up exam to find their performance on different issues trained. Feedback will be gathered from the team leaders to help in designing future learning and development programs as well as gathering information for further improvemen

Conclusion

In conclusion, this learning and development proposal aims at imparting knowledge to the team leaders in the Customer resolution department and operations department to enable the smooth adoption of (RISE) strategies at Red Telecom. The proposal looks at the objectives of the program, the topics to be discussed, the deliverable materials, formal and informal training, the budget for the program and the tentative time allocation. The proposal also defines the methods to be used in evaluating the effectiveness of the training.

References

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