Distance learning assignment

Introduction

The training topic that I have selected for the purposes of this paper is that of employee engagement. Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs and are committed to their company and put unrestricted effort into their work. For the purposes of this paper we will be analyzing how improving employee engagement for Autotech will lead to better company performance. Autotech is the leader in the online automotive sales segment and online automotive parts sales segment. This company has been around for over five years now and has given consumers a new unique way to purchase new or used vehicles and vehicle parts from a dealership completely online. This has given our target audience which is the busy consumer the convenience of conducting business completely online and avoiding any wait times when purchasing a vehicle or going through the process of purchasing parts and having them replaced on their vehicle. Our unique auto parts purchasing service also allows clients the ability to have their vehicle picked up and delivered directly to a dealer or the automotive parts repair store of their choice in order to save the client time. After the client’s vehicle has had the necessary parts installed on their vehicle then they receive either a phone call or notification to their Autotech application on their smartphone which informs them that their vehicle is ready. Now that I’ve given a brief overview of how our application works let’s look at how improving employee engagement in this company will help to fine tune our process so that we can service more clients.

The company of Autotech was born a little over five years ago when me and my team noticed from our previous experience in the retail automotive industry that the top complaints clients have regarding their experiences with their local automotive dealership is the long wait times they have to deal with while their vehicle is being serviced as well as the long wait times that come when trying to make an automobile purchase. The main other complaint was the inconvenience of having to drive all the way to their local dealer just to order a part. In thinking on how we could revolutionize these processes in order to make them more customer friendly we decided why not just eliminate the inconvenience of having to come into the dealer to purchase a vehicle, parts or service. This is how we developed the innovative company called Autotech. Autotech provides its clients with an all in one application that allows its clients to utilize vehicle pickups for any of their service issues on their vehicle as well as the ability to forego the dealer and purchase the new or used vehicle of their interest completely through our application or website. We have seen that our new services are growing in popularity and more and more clients are requesting our services. This has led to issues with employee engagement as there has been more pressure on the drivers, dealers and customer service representatives in our company. In order to rectify these issues, we have developed a strategic employee engagement action plan to get all the personnel involved with our services on the same page and working together so that the process can handle more clients and can run more smoothly.

The strategic impact of this type of action plan being implemented in to our company that we are expecting is to effectively link all of the moving parts that are a part of our services and reestablish positive relationships with the dealers that we currently work with so that we can be successful as our company continues to grow and we continue to service more and more clients. The long-term impact of this action plan being implemented could lead to much larger opportunities for our company such as the opportunity to expand internationally and gain more widespread credibility as being the top service in the market for online vehicle and vehicle parts purchases.

Our employee engagement training program will include all the personnel involved with our process. This includes any dealership staff that are involved in our process as well as the drivers and customer service representatives that help our clients both virtually through our application as well as on the phone. This training is very important to all the parties mentioned as in order to properly serve our clients we need to have a fast and effective system for purchasing vehicles and vehicle parts. This employee engagement training will also allow for employees to avoid making mistakes with part orders as well as with the shipping process of automotive parts and vehicles.

Our plan is for all dealership staff, drivers and customer service staff that we work with to be trained in many different areas in order to complete overall employee engagement. Our expectation for the individuals going through our training is to understand that the new methods for reducing client wait time and overall satisfaction will be much different than many of the processes in which drivers and dealership staff have been following previously. For example the old method of delivering vehicles to clients included drivers just delivering vehicles to clients without having to keep updates of how long the delivery took and in terms of the actual delivery the client was only told a range of 2-3 days in which they could expect to take delivery of the vehicle to their home. The old method created issues as sometimes vehicles were reaching clients later than the 1-3-day window in which they were informed by our customer service representatives. We found that many of the issues in this process came from the fact that drivers weren’t taking their pace serious enough when delivering vehicles and weren’t documenting their stops as required by corporate. Our new employee engagement system will require drivers to mark “stop” in their driver apps on their phone each time they stop in order to avoid situations like these. This also assists in keeping our drivers safer on the roads when making long drives to deliver vehicles to clients. Some expectations for our current drivers are to fully understand the importance of following these new employee engagement procedures as they are imperative to their safety. By drivers becoming more actively engaged in using the apps they use to communicate with corporate this will open a healthy channel of communication for employees and corporate. Other concepts that are current drivers are expected to already fully understand the consequences of not driving safely and not securing vehicle while transporting.

In terms of information that dealership personnel should already be aware of prior to training is how to properly treat clients that have stopped by the dealership to pick up their vehicles as well as how to deliver all the delivery information to each client in regards to their specific vehicle by doing a complete delivery. Each dealership consultant will be expected to email a checklist of all features discussed with each client as well as what questions they answered for each client to our corporate headquarters. Our customer service representatives are expected to understand a variety of basic concepts before our new employee engagement training begins such as how to properly greet a client when they call in or go online to our online portal to seek out assistance with searching for a parts order or a vehicle order. They are also expected to fully understand how to use the current software system which is currently in place to document any issues which clients have when they receive their automotive parts or the vehicle that they have purchased and how to effectively get them set up with the dealer closest to them that will help service any of their vehicular issues.

After our new employee engagement training is implemented employees should fully understand many different new concepts which will help them become more productive in their individual job role. According to the article title How Employee Engagement Can Drive Success in Your Car Dealership by Engagement Multiplier the success of the sales in any automotive dealership starts with having great culture. If employees in a dealership don’t feel appreciated or feel like they are an important part of an organization then they tend to start to look for other opportunities (Engagement Multiplier). This article states that employee engagement isn’t the same as team building which most automotive dealerships already practice, but instead it gets employees unified through a shared purpose (Engagement Multiplier).

We have decided that the duration of our training program will be three months and we have chosen this time frame in order to give all of our employees enough time to fully learn new concepts that will make in order to make them more capable in their new job responsibilities. Our training program will be very different for each department and each training program will focus on refining each department in order to eliminate any issues or hold ups which are currently causing errors in the accuracy of our delivery process and delays in vehicle delivery’s and auto part delivery’s. In terms of how many training sessions that we will offer we have decided that we will have at least two training sessions for each topic per department. This will give all our employees an ample opportunity to get involved and learn each new topic that will be covered during each training session.

We have decided that we will divide parts of our training program up online and offer other parts of the program in class with instructors. This gives all the participants to learn the hands-on tactics which will be offered in the classroom as well as other very important information such as updated policy and procedure information online through our all new eLearn classroom portal. Our eLearn classroom portal will also give users the ability to learn updated safety information for hauling vehicles, dealing with adverse weather or how to make deliveries on a tight deadline.

All the dealership personnel and customer service representatives who will actively be working with our clients who are receiving our auto parts and vehicles will also have to complete both online and classroom training. These individuals will also have the choice of attending one of two training sessions offered at different times on different days. This will ensure that all personnel in these departments are able to attend at least one of these training sessions. The in-classroom training sessions will focus on effectively answering client questions regarding their vehicles, or auto parts that they have purchased and how to deal with unsatisfied clients who aren’t satisfied with the vehicle they have purchased. Other areas the in-classroom training will address are how to manage clients who have received auto parts that are damaged or defective or clients who have accidentally ordered the wrong auto parts online. For dealership personnel there will be an exclusive training session that trains employees on how to fully help clients with delivery process such as bluetoothing a phone, setting the client up with safety assist and training the client on how to use different systems in their vehicle such as navigation and adaptive cruise control. The online training for these two departments will consist of learning the new software that will be implemented in order to completely document all customer complaints and how to assist clients in navigating the company website so that they can easily order the vehicle or auto part of their desire. Other aspects of this training will include how to cancel incorrect vehicle and auto part orders online and how to assist clients who are experiencing technical making purchases online.

Now let’s look at how incorporating different distance learning strategies into our new training program design can be successfully completed. Distance learning by definition is defined as method of study in which lessons are broadcast or classes are held by correspondence over the internet and without in person interaction from their peers or instructors (Layton, 2017).Sometimes this means that classes can be held in a different country and students still have the ability to participate since all classes are held online. Distance learning has broken down barriers in the education space since now learners from all over the world can learn together, share ideas and collaborate. The best part of the distance learning is its flexibility which makes it much more convenient for the students(ezTalks).  This type of learning has also made it much easier for students to learn about different cultures without even leaving their current country.