Corporate Training Strategies: Vital Component

Wesfarmers’ Training and Development Program

Discuss about the Corporate Training Strategies: Vital Component.

Training and development is an important concept of human resource development. Training refers to the learning and teaching activities which help members of organisation to acquire skill, abilities, attitude and knowledge related to a particular job in an organisation. This report contain a full training and development programme of Wesfarmers, also includes need assessment of training, full design process, participant involve and training barriers.

Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian multinational company. The company has its head office in Perth, Western Australia. The company was found in 1914 as a cooperative to provided merchandise and services to Australian farmers. They deal in Chemicals, Fertilisers, coal mining, and safety products. With the profit of AU $65.98 billion in financial year 2016 Wesfarmers became a largest Australian company by overtaking Woolworths and BHP Billiton. The company is listed on Australian Securities Exchange. Wesfarmers is the largest private employer in Australia, with approximately 220,000 employees (Wesfarmers, 2018).

The organisation is committed to provide a skill based training and leadership development to all employees. With on job training Wesfarmers provides a job specific training opportunities as well. The organisation also provide general training opportunities  which covers areas like customer service, leadership, technical skill and team work. These training programs are available to causal, part time and full time employees (Wesfarmers, 2018).

The organisation leadership model and development approach does not aim to attain a model of leadership perfection. Instead they support, the leader should be aware of his/her strength and develop area and keep learning.

The organisation approach of training and development include 360 assessment external coaching, planning development and mentoring. In addition they provide collective learning experience. The organisation renews their suite of offers which include- virtual classroom, online learning and personal workshops.  They also focus on providing training to more junior full time or part time team members as per their responsibilities and roles such as people management training unconscious bias training, first aid Microsoft Excel courses and LinkedIn profile building (Wesfarmers, 2018). 

Need Assessment is a process of gathering information of implied or expressed organisational needs that could be met by conducting training. The need assessment is design to improve current performance and to correct deficiency. The need assessment process is a part of planning process, which will help both trainer and the person who has requested for training to reduce performance deficiency (Keep, 2014).

Needs Assessment for Training

The top management of the company understand the need of conducting a need assessment as this protects the assets of an organisation. The main aim of need assessment is to identify the issues in performance which need the corrective action. To identify the requirement the need assessment is categories in three-phase process which includes gather information, Analysis of information and creating a training plan. The employees of every organisation need to remain updated to keep themselves updated for the job.

Training need assessment is having several benefits. A customised training need assessment help to identify, assess and compare what the company is doing with the knowledge, skill and behaviours needed to enhance its performance.

1. Develop high performance workplace through participation and engagement,
2. Plan to identify competence, potential and capacity,
3. Determine the key performance and need of business to achieve results,
4. Build credibility for the development process with all stakeholders,
5. Expert assistance with a fresh approach for innovation,
6. During role change, training needs analysis plays major role in identifying, competency and behavioural requirements,
7. Earn respect of senior management for implementing solution that make a difference,
8. Identification of gaps or existing solution that make a difference, and
9. Identification and evaluation of current performance gaps between people, strategy, behavioural and processes (Malone, 2017).

In house training refers to those training which are conducted in the company premise to educate, improve and develop skills, behaviour and knowledge of employees. These types of training bring lots of benefit to the organisation like cost saving, flexible time raising awareness and build understanding among employees (Adsule & Surkutwar, 2017).

1. Environmental changes: In present time automation, computerization and mechanization are bringing many changes in the business to meet these changes trained staff possessing good skills and knowledge is required. The organisation should train their employees to enrich them with the latest technology
2. Organisational complexity: Modern technology, inventions and diversification making organisation working very complex. This increase the problem of coordination in the working. To cope up with this complexity training has become compulsory.
3. Human relation: It is important for every management team to maintain good human relation and training provide chance to employees to deal with human problems.
4. Employee specification with job requirement: Employees specification may not always suits to requirement of the job. There always a gap between an employees present specification and organisation requirement. To fill this gap training is required.
5. Change in job assignment: Training is necessary when the existing employees is transferred to other department or promoted to higher position. Training is also required to equip old employees with new technologies (Adsule & Surkutwar, 2017).

Trainees/ Employees: The participants can be a new employee or new joining of the company or they can be existing or old employees. This depends on the need of the training and for whom training is organised (Malone, 2017).

Benefit of training for Participants and Organisation:

1. Economy in Operation: Training enables employees to become economical. With the help of proper training program employees become perfect in their work and start using resources effectively. In addition the rate of damage and accident of equipment and machinery is also reduced.
2. Increase productivity: A well trained employee show greater productive and high quality work in comparison of untrained employees. Training increase the skill of the employees and increase in skill helps in increasing quantity and quality of output. The productivity of the company increase when it introduces training and development courses. Increased efficiency will ensure project success which will improve the company turnover.
3. Less supervision: If the employees are given a proper training, the responsibility of the supervision is reduced. Training does not eliminate the need for supervision, but it reduces the need of constant supervision.
4. Systematic imparting of skills: A systematic training programme reduces the learning time to reach the desired level of performance. The employees need not learn by trial and error or by observing other it is just a waste of time. Systematic formal training programme will same the time.
5. Creation of inventory of skill: When the company introduce totally new skill in the business it becomes hard for employees to understand it. But training makes the hard task easy for the employees.
6. Higher Morale: The proper training programmes increase the morale of the employees. A good training programme will mould employees’ attitude to achieve support for Organisational activities.
7. Addressing Weakness: Many employees have some weakness in relation with their related job. The training program allows employees to strengthen their skill and improve their knowledge. A development program brings all employees to a higher level so all have similar skills and knowledge.
8. Consistency: A healthy training and development program ensure that employees have a consistent experience and background knowledge. Every employee need to be aware of the expectation and procedures of the company that will increase the efficiency in the process which will generate financial gain for the company.
9. Reduce employees’ turnover: Training and development plays important part in retaining employees. And due to that recruitment cost goes down.
10. Increased innovation in new strategies and products: Training and development encourages creativity Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009).

Training is something which should be developed and planned in advance.  Before designing or developing a new training plan, there are few factors which are need to be consider. 

Need assessment is the first step in the developing training program. There are three levels in need assessment:

1. Organisational Assessment: In organisational assessment the company will determine the skills, abilities and knowledge, a company need to meet the strategic objectives. In this company will consider the things such as changing technological trends and demographics. In whole this assessment considers how organisation will handle its weaknesses while promoting strengths.
2. Task Assessment: This assessment focuses on the specific tasks, knowledge, skill and abilities required to do jobs within the organisation.
3. Individual Assessment: This assessment focuses on the individual employees to check how they are performing their tasks. This will help in assessing the knowledge and skills of the employees, their capacity of learning new work. And mainly this is evaluated by using 360 evaluations. 360 evaluations will help in identifying the area which needs improvement in relation to the knowledge, skills and the behaviours (Sung & Choi, 2014).

When the organisation will determine that what type of training programme is require, then the learning objectives are set by the organisation. A learning objective is what the company want the learner to be able to do or demonstrate at the end of the training period. Good learning objective are performance based (Grohmann & Kauffeld, 2013). Few examples of learning objectives are:

1. Explain the safety procedure in handling chemicals,
2. Understand and utilize the new expense tracking software,
3. Perform a variety of customer needs analyses using company software, and
4. Demonstrate ethics when handling customer complaints

For training program adopting learning styles is an important component. For organisational purpose the company will utilise a widely accepted learning style model. As every person is different, so the same style model of learning could not apply to all, the organisation need to introduce learning style according to the skills and knowledge of the employees.  The personality and aptitude is a key of learning traits (Keep, 2014).

There are three different learning styles every effective trainer wants to develop training:

1. Visual learner: A Visual learner normally has a clear vision of experience. In this visual learner will prefer to use maps, graphs and images to understand the new information
2. Auditory learner: Auditory is a best method to understand new content by speaking and listening. It is a kind of situation such as group discussion and lectures.
3. Kinaesthetic learner: A kinaesthetic learner learns by developing feeling toward an experience. This type of learning can be done by listening or seeing someone else (Obisi, 2011).

In-house Training

Mostly individuals use more than one type of learning, but this majorly depend on what kind of information they are processing.

Delivery mode is purely depends on the type of training and its need to be delivered, the organisation will choose a different mode to deliver the training. The best example of vestibule training is an orientation and web-based training is good for sexual harassment training. When the organisation choose its delivery mode, it is very important to consider the budget and the participants.

In this point the major question of training is been discussed by the management ‘How much money is to be invested in training program?’ the proper performance of training is fully depend on the budget. Beside the actual cost of training the other cost also need to be considered. A proper spread sheet should be develop by the organisation which include materials actual cost, snacks and other direct costs and most important all indirect costs such as peoples time (Woodill, 2011).

This point consider the delivery method, in this the organisation will choose the best style to deliver training. While selecting the method it is important to know that learning through PowerPoint is not always work there should be variety of ways of learning should be include by the organisation such as auditory, kinaesthetic or visual. Beside this it is to be considered that what kind of breakout, activities, ice breaker and discussions organisation can incorporate while training (Neely, Adams & Kennerley, 2010).

Considering the audience is very important for training. While considering the audience it is been evaluate that the employee is new or he/she is been working in organisation form long time, and in which department they are working. Knowing the answer of these questions can help organisation in developing a better training program (Woodill, 2011).

The content is an important part of training and a most time consuming task. Developing a learning objectives are the thing organisation wants their learner to know for what purpose the training programme is develop. When the organisation has developed goals and objectives then they can begin to develop the content of training (Ment, 2011).

In some type of training the proper drafting of timeline is essential. Usually timeline is decided before employees start training. Sometime only one hour is enough for training but sometime it take days even weeks also. When the organisation develop the training content it  become easy to decide how much time training will take (Woodill, 2011).

1. Orientation will be conduct on first Thursday of every month
2. Management skills and vestibule training will conduct on second and third Tuesday
3. Safety and sexual harassment training will be conduct twice yearly in August and March to meet the legal requirement of the company

Participants of Training and Development Program

Once the organisation has developed training programme the next this comes is how availability of training will communicate to employees. Communication involves timing of training, a complete schedule of training. Modes of communication are company’s intranet, e-mail, an old-fashioned posters or Listservs (Ment, 2011).

After completion of training the organisation wants to make sure that the objectives of training were met or not. There is one model is there to measure effectiveness of training that is Kirkpatrick model. It has four models

1. Reaction: At this level organisation the trainer will observe the reaction of participants after training program.
2. Learning: At this level organisation will know that at what extent the knowledge and skills of participant is improve.
3. Behaviour: At this level the organisation will observe that is there is any change in behaviour of trainee because of the training.
4. Result: In the last the organisation will find what benefits are resulted from the training (Neely, Adams, & Kennerley, 2010).

Any information may require in making some changes during training period for example:

• Change the time allocation for particular topic
• Change in activities associate with a particular topic

Conclusion of session

• Use appropriate tool to evaluate outcomes of training session

1. Facilitator Manual: Trainer will receive a facilitator manual that will guide him/her in running the training program. This manual is customisable which allow trainer to meet extra needs of training.
2. Course Test: A pre course test will help trainer to evaluate his/her participants prior the training and collect important information on participants needs. A post course test will evaluate participants learning at the end of training.
3. Power point slides: Power point slides need to prepare by trainer. Slides should open with Microsoft Power Point and also customize so he/she can make changes easily.
4. Course Evaluation: Provide trainer a detailed evaluation tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the course.
5. Action Plan: Provide participants an action plan that will maximize their learning after the course is over.
6. Expert Guide: Trainer will also receive three informative expert guides on developing participation, listening skills and evaluating training that will maximize the learning during training program.
7. Course Exercise: Course comes with carefully created exercises that will encourage participant to apply their learning for the betterment of organisation.
8. Training Ice Breakers: Icebreakers are ready to use in any training session (Richey & Klein, 2014)

New training technologies, tools are increasing network bandwidth and worldwide spread internet access enable organisation to create an affordable and advanced video based training program. Technology require for this type of training will be designed software, main frame computer, internet connection, projector and few more (Obisi, 2011).

Organisation employees are the part of training program, the trainer can be hire from outside but the trainees always belong to the organisation trainees can be new employees or they can be existing employees.

The cost of training depends on the type of training. While developing a training budget both Direct and indirect cost will be included.

The Direct cost of training may include:

1. Fee of trainer
2. Cost of training material
3. Participants travel or accommodation cost

The indirect cost of training may include:

1. Participants wages
2. Temporarily replacement cost of staff, or productivity loss cost
3. Management time spend cost
4. Any other administrative and utilities cost (Obisi, 2011).

1. Management support: To develop knowledge and skill among employees it is important that the management will engage them in a learning process. If management will not take interest the trainees automatically loss interest and the training program goes in vain.
2. Perception and participation: A key challenge is changing the perception of the trainees. Everybody have their own believes and though process and it is very hard for trainer to change their mind set.
3. Finance: Finances is always considered as a barrier. In training and development program huge costs involve.
4. Conflicting Priorities: The conflict in priorities is also a challenge for the trainer because the priorities of every single person are different and it became very tough for trainer to change trainee’s priorities (Ishn, 2014). 

Conclusion

To conclude the training and development process of Wesfarmers is well planned and developed, the company is aware about the area where training is required, and for those areas the company has designed a proper training schedule. There are few barrier lies during training but the company is ready to face them. Training helps employees in improving their skills, knowledge and attitude related to their respective job and this will increase the productivity, turnover and potential market share.

References

Grohmann, A., & Kauffeld, S. (2013). Evaluating training programs: Development and correlates of the questionnaire for professional training evaluation. International Journal of Training and Development, 17(2), 135-155.

Obisi, C. (2011). Employee training and development in Nigerian organisaitons: Some observations and agenda for research. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(9), 82.

Berger, L. A., & Berger, D. R. (2011). The talent management handbook: Creating a sustainable competitive advantage by selecting, developing, and promoting the best people. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Woodill, G. (2011). The mobile learning edge: Tools and technologies for developing your teams. USA: McGraw-Hill.

Neely, A. D., Adams, C., & Kennerley, M. (2010). The performance prism: The scorecard for measuring and managing business success. London: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

MENT, T. N. A. (2011). Training need assessment: A critical study. International Journal of Information Technology, 4(1), 263-267.

Richey, R. C., & Klein, J. D. (2014). Design and development research. In Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 141-150). Springer, New York, NY.

Ishn. (2014). Barriers to successful training. Retrieved from https://www.ishn.com/articles/99233-barriers-to-successful-training.

Wesfarmers. (2018). Who we are. Retrieved from https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/.

Wesfarmers. (2018). Training and Development. Retrieved from https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/our-principles/people/people-development/training-and-development

Adsule, K., & Surkutwar, P. (2017). TRANING EVALUATION AT UNORGANISED SECTOR. International Journal of Research in Management & Social Science, 10.

Aguinis, H., & Kraiger, K. (2009). Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. Annual review of psychology, 60, 451-474.

Keep, E. (2014). Corporate training strategies: the vital component. New Perspectives, 109-125.

Malone, M. E. (2017). Training in language assessment. Language testing and assessment, 225-239.

Minnesota libraries. (2011). Designing a Training Program. Retrieved from https://open.lib.umn.edu/humanresourcemanagement/chapter/8-4-designing-a-training-program/.

Sung, S. Y., & Choi, J. N. (2014). Do organizations spend wisely on employees? Effects of training and development investments on learning and innovation in organizations. Journal of organizational behavior, 35(3), 393-412.

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