Report purpose and Scope
Discuss about the Training And Development Plan Is a Necessary Aspect.
This report provides a suitable in-house training development plan which would address the performance gap in the organization caused by poor employee performance. Training and development plan is a necessary aspect of overall organizational development. Keep (2014) mentioned that each organization should be aware of the fact that training design is typically designed for better productivity, employee skill improvement and shape the future strategy of the organization. This report provides the training development plan for the organization Telstra Corporation Australia, which is a telecommunication service providers of mobile phone, internet, television, and a complete range of communication services. Recently, it is found that organizational productivity has been affected as the employees lack new skills and knowledge. The technology is rapidly developing but employees’ are not fully accustomed to the new technology and business practices. By identifying such needs, a training development plan suitable for covering the performance gap at Telstra, has been developed in the report.
The purpose of the report is to develop a suitable training development plan for Telstra Corporation on the basis of the training needs identified. The report show how each aspect of the training plan should be designed and implemented.
The report deals with a training development plan for Telstra Corporation. The plan aims to enhance employees’ skills and knowledge with respect to technology, communication and customer management. The plan does not focus on any particular department of the organizations but it primary focuses on the general level of employees of all department. The plan mainly emphasizes on the technical areas of Telstra’s operation, as their major service- telecommunication is based on technology. As it is an in-house training program, all activities are considered to be conducted within the organisational premises. The program plan in the report has been developed on the basis of the existing training and development theories. This means the program plan does not include any primary findings.
Telstra is located in Australia and known as a leading telecommunication and technology firm providing vast range of communication services being sustainable in telecommunication markets. The overall operating income of Telstra is around A$6.3 billion in 2016 and the employee base of the organization currently is around 36,165 (Telstra Corporation, 2018). The revenue recorded in 2016 is around A$27.1 billion. The major products of Telstra include fixed line and mobile telephony, data services and internet, and network service and pay TV (Telstra Corporation, 2018). The major goals of the organization is to expand the operation in the global market but present workforce of the organization is not trained enough to deal with the global operation.
Organization
In today’s competitive world, nothing remains static as innovation is visible on a regular basis into the market and this probably makes the organization to become dynamic in their business process and tend to implement the change so that they could be competitive in the market (Keep, 2014). However, the question is, how can an organization be competitive and acquire the dynamic market- it is the employees who are supposed to help the firm to become competitive in the market. As put forward by Valerio, Parton and Robb (2014) the large firms typically tend to provide training to their staff for effective utilization of their skills and they know the significance of training program impact on the company. Nonetheless, the small and medium size firms, do not feel much benefit as they concentrate on every single amount invested on the business. However, designing the entire training program appropriately may help to avoid such internal barrier. Li, Jin and Wang (2014) mentioned that knowledge management system in the training program should reside as a significant aspect because knowledge sharing practice often contributes to employee knowledge development in the workplace. For example, Schmitt (2014) mentioned that the sharing and creation of knowledge are usually believed to be the major sources of competitive advantage. So, an appropriate process and strategies used in a training program helps to identify and address such as knowledge gap. The following cognitive theory states how important the learning is and how it shapes knowledge of an individual.
According to the principles of cognitive learning theory, the trainers or the educators can focus on enhancing mental process instead of focusing on the physical actions. Such instructors tend to believe that there is a major role to expand their knowledge (Estes, 2014). In such context, the business owners or the organizations as a whole can use those approach to promote employees to enhance their strategic thinking practice as well as the problem solving skills (Hayes, 2016).
Likewise, there are other principles of training and development program which sates the process of about how employee cooperate with the training program to achieve the ultimate goals. For example, the constructivism learning theory tells how individuals how the individuals or the employees actively take part in their own learning and development. Hence, the employers need to identify that their employees bring back the work experience derived in past, cultural background as well as the personality to their current roles. Kadiresan et al., (2015) mentioned that when people take responsibility for their own career growth, the morality usually enhances and the level of job satisfaction also increases
Importance of the Training and Development Need That Was Earlier Identified
The major participants of training and development plan are the general employees of Telstra Corporation who lack knowledge regarding the use of new and installed technology in the organizations. In addition, the proposed training program also engages the employees of HR management for the purpose of developing their communication. However, hence, the general level of employees are referred to the employees of all department, who are working in the lower operational level.
General level of employees: The general level of employees such as the technical staff who deals with the operation of cloud services and internet, network service, mobility service and the consulting services
Engineers: As Telstra mostly deals with technology-based operation, engineers are the major stakeholders of its businesses. Providing knowledge and training program to engineers are highly necessary because the whole operation depends on the engineers. Therefore, to develop the state of technology-based operation, the engineers should take part in the training program.
Management staff: The organizations need a proper and routine supervision of the operation that go on at regular pace and to do this, the management staff such as HR managers and supervisors, who keeps track of employees’ work, absenteeism, goal set and others relevant activities should gain knowledge about how the entire flow of operation should be managed by aligning organizational goals.
The proposed training program may help the participants in several ways. Following are some of the ways that employees can gain benefit from the program.
Addressing weaknesses: Each employee is weak at some particular skills and not all employees could be perfect for a position. So, if employees’ skills match and the employers can reinforce its skills by training and assigning them with activities, it is certain that employees will work hardtop stand on the expectation.
Fostering development: The major goal of the organization is to increase the growth rate for the efforts they put on and growth can be achieved if the workforce of the company pays an adequate amount of attention to development. However, this may require skilled employee to deal with the situation. Thus, providing training to workers means providing the space to learn and enhance.
Enhancing employee satisfaction: This is a highly necessary aspect because the employees feel confident in deriving new skills. Training and learning program helps the employees to perform task easily and they could innovate new strategies to implement the tasks. This could build some extent of satisfaction in employees.
Cognitive Learning Theory
Conducting the Needs assessment |
Resources Required |
Who will I need to consult |
Who will I need to Inform |
Start Date |
Completion Date |
Notes |
Organizational assessment – Organizational assessment is referred to the overall effectiveness of the organizations, which may include all departments of the organization |
The completion of this activity may require adequate amount of resources such as finance, technology, human resource and other associated resources |
To implement this activity as a trainer I need to consult with HR executives of Telstra, operational managers, board members and other shareholders in the business |
Human Resource department of Telstra Corporation, Operational manager, CEO, presidents and other board members |
03.07.20118 |
31.12.2018 |
Hence, the trainer and the respective parties in involved in the program need to be aware of the act organizational assessment may cover each aspect of the organizational operation |
Individual need assessment – Individual assessment is require to check how the employees are preforming with the process. This assessment might help to know the skills and competencies |
This assessment is a major one, thus, resource ay include finance, human resource, digital projector for explaining the note and other aspects, laptop and other recording devices |
As a trainer I need to consult with the human resource department of the organization, the operational manager and the account department of the organisation |
To complete this activity, the human resource department of the firm should be informed about the initiative. In addition, the other parties such as operational manager., business heads, and board members need to be informed |
30.11.2018 |
28.02.2019 |
Individual assessment is an important aspect because the goal of the training program is to enhance the skills and knowledge of the employees. So, human resource department of the organisation should ensure that each participant involved in the training program take part in the program. |
Task assessment –Task assessment helps to identify he individual task or the job responsibility. This initiative is required to learn about how the individual is performing their duties |
Data storage device such as personal computer or laptop, notes, performance tracker excel sheet |
In order to implement this initiative as a trainer, I need to consult with the employees whose task will be assessed, performance analysts, production manager and human resource manager of the organization |
To complete this initiative, I need to inform the employees first, and then team leaders, production manager and the human resource managers of the organisations |
21.08.208 |
31.12.2018 |
This assessment initiative is mainly designed to learn how learn whether the current practice of performing organizational activities are appropriate enough to deal with the future challenges and goals of business |
Ensure employees readiness for Training |
||||||
Online skills assessment- It is certain that employees might not feel ready to take this corporate learning but their skills proficiency may tell a different story; thus, an online test assessment is required |
The resource may require personal computer for doing the questionnaire, laptop, projector, internet and fiancé for the mentioned devices |
To conduct this initiative, I need to consult with human resource department of the organisation, I should also inform the operational manger and the employees |
When implementing this initiative, I need to inform the human resource department of the organization and the organizational heads of Telstra Corporation |
05.06.2018 |
30.06.2018 |
This initiative will be conducted before the actual training starts. This initiative is designed just to know whether the employees are ready to take the learning program. |
Create the Learning Environment |
Development of a learning environment may require a large amount of financial investment, large space for learning |
I need to consult with the human resource department of the organization |
I need to inform the employees, particular, the participant and human resource managers o the organization |
11.09.2018 |
11.01.2019 |
This initiative may include the process of knowing whether there is a proper learning environment |
Ensuring Transfer of Training |
Training materials such as audio and video devices, projectors and other technological application to measure the outcome of training |
I need to consult with human resource department of the organization |
I need to inform the employees and the human resource department |
01.06.2019 |
30.11.2018 |
Transfer of training will help to learn the readiness of the employees towards the training initiative |
Developing and Evaluation Plan |
Excel sheet for evaluating the performance of the plan, laptop for keeping the data |
I need to consult with the human resource department and performance analysts |
I need to inform the performance analysts, evaluator and the human resource manager of the firm |
02.05.2019 |
07.09.2019 |
This is an evaluation plan where the overall result of the training program will be assessed. On the basis of the modification further improvement steps will be taken |
Select Training Method- On the job training method will be selected for the plan |
None |
I need to consult with the HR department, operational manager |
I need to inform the employees about the training method, human resource department of the organization |
01.01.2019 |
20.01.2019 |
This initiative is about the selection of the training method |
Develop and Deliver the Program |
||||||
On-the-job Coaching Training Delivery method will be followed to deliver the training program |
NA |
To select this method, I need to consult with human resource manager, performance evaluator and the participants who are involved in the training program |
I need to inform the Human Resource Manager of the organization and the participants |
05.11.2018 |
05.12.2018 |
Table 1: Training and Development plan
- To enhance technological skills and knowledge of the employees
- To enhance the overall productivity of the organization
- To enhance a more sophisticated human resource practices
The training program is designed by the above presented theories such as cognitive and constructivism learning theory. The cognitive theory helps to emphasizes on the mental process of the employees because in training program, employee mental satisfaction is highly required than physical action. Likewise, the constructivism theory helps here to know whether the employee take part in their own learning and development program.
To deliver the method of training program designed for Telstra Corporation, On-the-job Coaching Training Delivery will be implemented because this method is a one method to help employees in gaining new skills. On-the-job is referred to an approved person training which an individual requires the necessary skills to successfully accomplish the task.
When providing the learning activities to the participants, the trainer must be aware of the fact that he/she should not hurt the morals of individuals. The trainers must have to follow human ethics and corporate ethics
In order to evaluate the training result, both formative and summative evaluation methods have been followed. Formative evaluation method helps to evaluate a training program during the development stage with the purpose of making the modification in early stage and this could certainly help to enhance the program. On the other side, this method helps to evaluate the result of the training program after the program which has been designed to deliver information on its effectiveness.
Activities |
Cost |
Purchase of the devices such as computer, projector, wall screen, laptops, and related goods |
AUD$20,000 |
Hiring of trainers and instructors |
AUD$5000 |
Infrastructure expenditure |
AUD$10,000 |
Productivity loss |
AUD$8000 |
Total |
AUD$430000 |
Table 2: Budget for the plan
Even though the entire training program is designed to fulfil the skills gap of the employees, there are certain areas in which the management may not provide the adequate support. For example, the training program may include a long-period such as a year but the management of the organization might not agree with such time-taking initiative.
Training program is developed for a particular number of people but it is certain that not all individuals take part in the training program. Some individuals may resist to change.
The whole training program should be conducted considering some of the steps such as paying attention to high value activities. This means that activities that provide high value such as sharing relevant technological skills to employees. Considering the priority order, all important tasks will be conducted first and then emphasis should be given to the secondary activities such as evaluation and monitoring of program. To avoid the conflict in the internal workplace, there should be some particular individual as the reporting person. Selection of multiple leaders for reporting could lead to chaos and conflict. Thus, only specific leaders such as operational manager and human resource department will be reported.
References
Estes, W. K. (2014). Handbook of Learning and Cognitive Processes (Volume 6): Linguistic Functions in Cognitive Theory. Psychology Press.
Hayes, S. C. (2016). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Relational Frame Theory, and the Third Wave of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies–Republished Article. Behavior therapy, 47(6), 869-885.
Kadiresan, V., Selamat, M. H., Selladurai, S., SPR, C. R., & Mohamed, R. K. M. H. (2015). Performance appraisal and training and development of human resource management practices (HRM) on organizational commitment and turnover intention. Asian Social Science, 11(24), 162.
Keep, E. (2014). Corporate training strategies: the vital component?. New Perspectives, 109-125.
Li, M., Jin, L., & Wang, J. (2014). A new MCDM method combining QFD with TOPSIS for knowledge management system selection from the user’s perspective in intuitionistic fuzzy environment. Applied soft computing, 21, 28-37.
Schmitt, U. (2014, March). How this paper has been created by leveraging a personal knowledge management system. In 8th International Conference on Higher Education (ICHE) (pp. 16-18).
Telstra Corporation (2018). Telstra – mobile phones, prepaid phones, broadband, internet, home phones, business phones. [online] Telstra.com.au. Available at: https://www.telstra.com.au/ [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Valerio, A., Parton, B., & Robb, A. (2014). Entrepreneurship education and training programs around the world: dimensions for success. World Bank Publications.
Al-Qudah, M. K. M., Osman, A., Ab Halim, M. S., & Al-Shatanawi, H. A. (2014). The Effect of Human Resources Planning and Training and Development on Organizational Performance in the Government Sector in Jordan. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 4(4), 79.
Tangthong, S., Trimetsoontorn, J., & Rojniruntikul, N. (2014). HRM Practices and Employee Retention in Thailand–A Literature Review. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 5(2), 162.
Werner, J. M. (2014). Human resource development≠ human resource management: So what is it?. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 25(2), 127-139.