Professional Retail Training For Opal Mart Employees

About Opal Mart

Question:

Discuss About The Development The Corporate Education Sector?

Established in early 2000s, opal mart holds the credibility of being one of the finest retail marts in Australia. The company owns several hundred retail stores across the country and boasts impressive sales in some hundreds of millions. One of the finest work forces with employees from across the globe, ranging over 30000. Each individual store holds about 300-400 employees, Indian, Chinese and Australians dominate the workforce. The retail store in the past has encountered some problems related to falling sales number, closing down of stores and employee attrition. This can also be closely associated with communication gap between the management and the staff accompanied with difficulty in handling customer query and complaints, thus showing lacunae between the organization objective and strategy being implemented to handle such situation. Training the staff in an appropriate manner can be one of the viable solutions to improve the prevailing condition, resulting in boosting employee morale and ability to handle customer effectively.

The answer to this can be simply attributed to the fact that in the past, we have trained more than 80,000 employees when it comes to the retail segment, and ensured that the training imparted has been fruitful, we do have a system of follow up after every 3 months for duration of 2 years for continual assessment and evaluation of the training delivered. Some of the retail players to work with us are: Myer, Kmart, Target, Harvey Norman, Terry white and the list go on This states our understanding of the different types of situation faced by retail chains, and our proven expertise in this financial makes us “The best training providers”.

For opal mart, we have devised training in 2 categories, one for the customer facing staff and other for the management. The modules are both engaging and intriguing at the same time.  The Combination of video tutorials, test, lectures, and team building exercises, puzzles, and games makes the training modules extremely engaging and fun to learn

Train2learn has established its reputation in the retail segment since last 10 years and are the marketing leaders when it comes to delivering professional training to the employees. The company has a wide range of experts, who has relevant industry experience and is known in the industry for their powerful delivery. The training methodology of train2learn revolves around driving engagement to the content and then extract conversation out of the same, making the employee feel enriched. The modules are specifically written and designed keeping in mind the contemporary problems faced by different sectors, and hence the curriculum, which we provide is unparalleled, and has all the content of a great training module.Our case studies are based on real life industry scenarios, which helps the employees to connect better with the content.

Opal Mart’s Problems and Solutions

Communication plays a central role in every facet of business, therefore it is highly recommended to have effective communication internally (in the organization, between the employees) and externally (between the organization and other stakeholders). Effective verbal & nonverbal communication, thereby becomes vital in the workplace (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). A lot of companies, hence spend a lot of money to train the employees on how to effectively communicate, which then goes beyond conversations and helps the employee in striking a chord with the individual.

• Help with diversity: Successful companies have a good proportion of global counterparts and multiple cultures growing in the same area, in this type of situation, to communicate effectively becomes of prime importance to the growth of the company. The difference in cultures requires the employees to be well versed with their  verbal and nonverbal communication(Powell & Powell, 2015)
• Help with employee morale: It is one of the most significant factor which is contributed by effective communication, the employees feel motivated if the communication is smooth between the managers and the subordinates. A feeling of assurance sets in them, which in turn improves their contribution to the company and hence increases their productivity in the process. Things are bound to go smoothly if everyone is on the same page by understanding the goals and objective of the business (Shockley, 2015)
• Helps in team building: Effective communication helps in bringing a sense of ownership among the team members and also reduces unnecessary competition between various departments of the organization, which eventually results in more productivity, integrity and a sense of responsibility for their work. It is also proven that a manager who can communicate with his team effectively without creating a hostile environment can harbor positive synergies amongst the team members thus resulting In team building (Woodcock, 2017)
• Helps in building better relationships: Effective communication helps in building better, positive & healthy relationships among all the stakeholders of the organization which then results in building harmonious relationship in the company(Rosenberg & Chopra, 2015)
• Helps in becoming self-aware: The communication training helps an individual become self-aware, the training helps one in identifying his areas of improvement and with the training the areas can be addressed. It also helps them to grow as communicators and build on their unique strengths and deliver more power(Heine, 2015)
• Helps in removing cultural barriers: As mentioned earlier ,in global businesses, there are people from many cultures who are working side by side , for everyone, it does not come naturally to break those cultural barriers and get together, communication training can overcome such barriers with great ease( Kitmoller & Lauring, 2013).
• Helps to facilitate innovation: It’s a simple logic, when an employee is confident of his communication ability, he expresses his ideas as and when required, the brainstorming sessions with the team can be highly productive if he is comfortable and confident of his communication skill, in the absence of same, ideas don’t flow and the company fails to get innovation out of its employees (Leeuwis, 2013).
• Helps in managing employees: When managers are effective communicators, they are in a position to delegate responsibilities to the employees in a better manner; they are in a position of command and also in a position to build better relationship with them. The feedback given by such managers can help the employees look seriously to it and work according to the goals set by the manager(Coombs, 2014)
• Helps in growth of the company: It’s a self-explanatory statement , in absence of lack of communication any organization is prone to fall, but on the contrary, where communication flows effectively among all its employees and department, the company is sure to go leaps and bounds (Ward, 2016)
• Helps to ensure transparency in the system: Information when flowing seamlessly top to bottom and vice versa, employees tend to trust the management and similarly management trust the employees, externally also, it easier to build a trust with the brand which communicates with its audience, hence both internally and externally transparency is maintained in the system( Mishra & Boynton, 2014).

• Consumer complaints handling: It has been pointed out in the case study, the staff at opal –mart is really not smart to handle customer complaints/concerns in an effective manner, the lack of effective communication makes it worse, resulting in loosing customer and fall in the business, with the communication training our team will help the staff in being better communicators and handle customers in the way desired by the company.
• Brand reputation: Sharp fall in business, increase in customer complaints and shutting down of many stores put the company in a bad light, with the training proposal we would like to address that as well..
• Conflict handling: It has been observed that there is a sense of conflict between staff members of different department, different groups due to state of distrust and lack of collaborative skills. This not only limits to internal conflicts, but it’s also towards buyers & Merchandisers.
• The Barriers of communication: It is observed and has been brought to notice that the management is very rigid about the information they share with the staff, the information is not only restricted, it’s also misleading at times, leaving the staff in fury and a state of distrust, hence the staff also does not put in extra efforts to improve his productivity. Once these barriers of communication are removed, the system would become very productive, learning & responsive.

Training Philosophy: We at train2learn.com.au believe that people learn when they have   an open mindset and are willing to engage, find the course relevant to them and have complete faith that the training will help them in improving their personality. We deploy a 3 step process in our training which consist of Traditional learning followed by applying learning and in the end action learning.

• Sales staff/junior staff & supervisors- Dealing with the customers directly, customer facing
• Senior managers/managers/decision makers- Responsible for processes/operation, alignment & management controlling/strategic planning.

Training Plan: A training plan will have to outline as to who will be delivering the training, when and where the training will take place and in depth the structure and components of training. The document can be treated as a working document and it highlights all the needs & requirement of the training (Schaefer,Asteroth &Ludwig, 2015). Training plan has some important components attached to it, some of which are:

• The competencies to be achieved.
• The time-frame for achieving the competencies.
• The training to be undertaken.
• The delivery modes required.
• Assessment details & subsequent arrangements.
• Name of the qualification to be issued

Training Framework: It can be understood as the brain & soul of the entire training methodology, modules, trainers and the competencies one can achieve with the help of specific training (Zhao, Evans & Dugelay, 2014). The timeline required for a particular module.

Position	Training Title	Efficient communication series	Becoming effective leader	Effective & creative problem solving	Service Excellence(Delight) focustomer	Motivation training	Culture training	Relationship building	Strategic management	Leadership 1	Leadership 2
Sales staff Supervisors Junior staff	Communication skills	R 12
Team work						R 6
Customer focus							R 4
Job functional skills			R 6
Customer grievance handling				R 8
Leadership									R6
Managers, Senior Managers	Communication	R4
Leadership										R 6
Teamwork						R 4
Management								R6

Note: R stands for required and the numerical following it stands for hours of training required.

• Efficient communication- Mr James Cock- Lecture & video tutorials
• Leadership 1- Mr Robert – Lecture
• Leadership 2- Mr Robert- Lecture
• Strategic thinking- Mr Daniel Richardson- Video tutorial & assignment
• Relationship building- Mr James cock- Lecture, video tutorial & team assignment
• Service excellence- Mr Robert- Lecture
• Self-motivation- Miss Patricia-Movie & lecture
• Culture training- Miss Patricia-Video tutorial & lecture
• Decision making & problem solving- Mr Daniel Richardson- Lecture, video tutorial, assignments.

In the capacity of Director (Customer handling), request you to kindly consider our proposal in the light of our previous accomplishments in the retail sector. At the same time keeping in mind that we are way ahead of our competitors in terms of experience, Teaching professionals, Curriculum of our training plan, our unique way of teaching and expertise in the retail segment. It can be established here, that Opal mart is surely going to benefit from the training provided train2learn, and it can be rest assured and can be further verified in the assessment of the opal mart staff right after the training, also 3 months after the training, the improvement in the staff’s personality in terms of communication, customer complaint handling and do away with the cultural barriers.

Conclusion:

We would like to conclude with the saying, “Learning is an important part of an employee personality development and a required facet for his growth at every stage of his professional journey and also the growth of company”. At train2learn.com.au we assure to provide the employees with training which will result an increase in employee productivity, better communication flow, team building, customer service excellence & appropriate customer grievance handling and all of these resulting in customer retention & increase in sales.

References:

Arnold, E.C & Boggs, K.U 2015, Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Coombs, W.T 2014, Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding, Sage Publications.

Heine, S.J 2015, Cultural Psychology: Third International Student Edition, WW Norton & Company.

Klitmøller, A & Lauring, J 2013, When global virtual teams share knowledge: Media richness, cultural difference and language commonality, Journal of World Business, 48(3), pp.398-406.

Leeuwis, C 2013, Communication for rural innovation: rethinking agricultural extension, John Wiley & Sons.

Mishra, K, Boynton, L & Mishra, A 2014, Driving employee management: The expanded role of internal communications, International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), pp.183-202.

Powell, R.G & Powell, D.L 2015, Classroom communication and diversity: Enhancing instructional practice, Routledge.

Rosenberg, M & Chopra, D 2015, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships, PuddleDancer Press.

Schaefer, D, Asteroth, A & Ludwig, M 2015, September. Training plan evolution based on training models, In Innovations in Intelligent SysTems and Applications (INISTA), 2015 International Symposium on (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

Shockley, P 2014, Fundamentals of organizational communication, Pearson.

Ward, J 2016, Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth, profitability, and family leadership, Springer.

Woodcock, M 2017, Team development manual. Routledge.

Zhao, X, Evans, N & Dugelay, J.L 2014, A subspace co-training framework for multi-view clustering. Pattern Recognition Letters, 41, pp.73-82.