Organization Overview
XYZ company is one of the leading retail networks for food products on the national market. It is the leader by the number of stores, sales volume, growth rates, and efficiency. In 2005, the first store was opened, and today the company’s network includes 69 stores located across the country. It is also the largest importer of food products on the territory of the local stores. To reduce the price of products for customers, the company carries out large volumes of direct supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy products as well as frozen fish and seafood.
The paramount mission of XYZ is to meet customers’ expectations and satisfy their needs by reducing costs for the purchase of quality goods of daily demand, carefully treating the company’s resources, enhancing technology, and rewarding employees as appropriate. The vision of the company may be identified as follows: ensuring a high degree of resilience and competitiveness of the company by maintaining all the systems at the required level, a timely and successful adaptation of the service to the requirements of changing environment and consumer priorities.
The strategic goals align well with both the mission and vision as they relate to the further growth of the network, including the development of the current business model on the existing markets and the targeted expansion of geographical presence. The improvement of logistics processes and investments in the IT system for the efficient management of stocks and transport flows along with the creation of a multi-format business model to satisfy customers with different needs and income levels are considered the strategic goals. More to the point, the internal goals focus on management, and employees strive to provide them with the most comfortable working conditions.
Due to the volume of the network, the company unites thousands of people from different regions of the country, who are interested in the common cause. The CEO of XYZ values the internal environment and encourages employees to participate in professional training. He states that “we correctly put priorities within the company, trying to establish an atmosphere of creativity and treating employees fairly. The keyword is the atmosphere. We should not complain about external problems, yet create an atmosphere of honesty and justice inside”.
Training Needs Assessment
Despite the effectiveness of the presented company, it encounters some problems in managing employees. From the organizational structure, the company consists of stores located in different regions, making decisions regarding production, marketing, and other operational decisions that are carried out as decentralized in these regions. However, the company’s management discovered that such a decentralized approach causes a serious problem. It does not allow XYZ to coordinate the creation of value on a universal basis to reduce costs in every possible way. The unite approach and production are not possible since, within the geographical organizational structure of the company, most decisions are made separately by units. The company’s performance is at risk due to uncoordinated actions in the field of developing new products, promoting the existing ones, etc.
Furthermore, when some decision is accepted in one unit, it sometimes contradicts the overall strategy of the company. This creates additional misunderstandings and conflicts between employees and their reduced motivation. Only twice a year, the representatives – one from each region and one from each product group – meet to develop a strategy for the company to promote new products for the next half a year. To activate this process, XYZ uses the organizational capabilities to accelerate the transfer of information within the network, providing better coordination between regional managers. This is insufficient to ensure proper collaboration and teamwork within the organization.
The main goal of the required training is the increase in employees’ motivation. It is essential to encourage employees to strive for the independent search for truth and critical perception of contradictory ideas, be able to analyze and project their activities, be capable of practical activity in solving professional problems, be prepared for constant professional growth and acquisition of new knowledge, and have a steady desire for self-improvement. At the same time, potential training should encourage employees to communicate and share values, thus working in a team and striving to increase the overall performance of the organization.
Training Process Model Application
People compose the key resource of any organization as everyone provides his or her valuable contribution to the work of the company, its development, and its success. The training process model described by Blanchard and Thacker (2013) involves the five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The first phase is also known as Training Needs Analysis (TNA) that starts with the identification of the Organizational Performance Gap. The Operational Analysis and Personal Analysis are also to be provided by a manager to specify key pitfalls and advantages of the company so that it would be able to plan the future change and training needs.
The second phase should focus on the specification of training needs. It is necessary to determine the level of competence required to fulfill each of the tasks affecting product quality and quality of management, assess the current competence of the personnel who are to perform these tasks, and develop training plans to reduce the differences between the required and existing levels of competence (Jen-Chia, Tseng-Chang, & Chen, 2012).
The definition of training needs should be based on an analysis of the current and expected needs of the organization to compare with the existing level of competence of the organization. Among the objectives of the phase of determining the training needs, there is the identification of training needs for staff. As a result of the design phase, a realistic plan, which is equally understood by the parties concerned, will be created to achieve common goals. This phase allows all members of the organization to focus on the movement in the chosen direction, and to direct all necessary resources to the identified goal. The future result directly depends on the accuracy and quality of planning.
The third phase of development implies the creation of the instructional strategy, including the order, timing, and a set of methods to be used. It is important to know the key purposes of training to have an idea of where and how an employee can use it. The significance of training, its main goals, content, format, and applicability to work (why, when, where, and how he or she will apply the knowledge and skills acquired and why their application is necessary) are to be explained to employees.
The fourth phase relates to the implementation of the prepared training and direct communication with staff. The activity of the participants in the training is not aimed at collecting information, but rather on including them in the process of collaboration (Proctor, Powell, & McMillen, 2013).
It is essential to give employees time to complete tasks, fill in questionnaires, or meet training needs assessment. As a result of training, the company’s managers should carry out the restructuring process, which will result in the introduction of a universal matrix structure, in which the company’s operations will be grouped simultaneously into three product groups and three regions. The solutions regarding investment and product development will be made by the regional managers in cooperation, and specialists will coordinate the process of communication. At this point, each of the regions will preserve the right to suggest any ideas on meetings that are to be provided once in three months.
The last phase of the Training Process Model is evaluation. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed change, it is possible to consider the accomplishment of the goals stated in the previous phase. One of the main goals of training is to teach employees to create similar plans together. In this connection, one should also evaluate the issues learned, benefits, gaps, reaction, and behavior with which employees encountered in the course of training (Saks & Burke, 2012). Both process measures and content measures are to be used to assess training outcomes and identify further needs.
Conclusion
To conclude, it should be noted that the training process model should not be changed in this case, since it meets all the specified needs of the company. Thus, it is important to identify how well training met the goals set and what the key lessons learned by employees are. By focusing employees on the mentioned issues and attendance of training, the company will improve the level of its performance and ensure the effectiveness of change.
References
Blanchard, P. N., & Thacker, J., V. (2013). Effective training: Systems, strategies and practices (5th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson. Web.
Jen-Chia, C., Tseng-Chang, C., & Chen, K. Y. (2012). The systematic construction and influential factors of training needs assessment. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(24), 31-41. Web.
Proctor, E. K., Powell, B. J., & McMillen, J. C. (2013). Implementation strategies: Recommendations for specifying and reporting. Implementation Science, 8(1), 139-145. Web.
Saks, A. M., & Burke, L. A. (2012). An investigation into the relationship between training evaluation and the transfer of training. International Journal of Training and Development, 16(2), 118-127. Web.