Assignment 4: HR Training Class

Assignment: 4

Brooke L Dunn

Dr. Sandra Bryant

HRM 530 –HR Training Class

May 24, 2014

Justify Needs Assessment CS training w/ 5 ways would expose deficiencies

The benefits of training needs assessments are:

· Puts training needs in context of organizational needs (business drivers)

· Validates and/or augments sponsor’s ideas about the need for training

· Ensures training design will respond to need

· Identifies non-training issues influencing performance

· Ensures survival of training function

· Establishes foundation for post-training evaluation

Hints for Discovering Needs

When looking for learning and training needs, or when problems arise, there are several instruments that may be used to locate the actual symptoms:

· Immersion: Work with the employees to gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities they face on a daily basis.

· Literature research: Analyze budget documents, quality control documents, goal statements, evaluation reports, scheduling and staffing reports, or other documents for existing problems.

· Interviews: Talk to supervisors, managers, Subject Matter Experts (SME), and employees.

· Observations: Watch the job or task being performed.

· Surveys: Send out written questioners.

· Group discussions: Lead a group discussion composed of employees and/or their managers.

Some questions that might be asked to determine training needs are:

· What are your employees doing that they shouldn't be doing?

· What specific things would you like to see your people do, but don't?

· When you envision workers performing this job properly, what do you see them doing?

· What prevents you from performing a prescribed task to standards?

· Are job aids available and if so, are they accurate? Are they being used?

· Are the standards reasonable? If not, why?

· If you could change one thing in the way you perform your work, what would it be?

· What subject would you like to see your workers trained on? What would you like to be trained on?

· What new technology would benefit you the most in the performance of your work?

· What new technology would you like to see invented to help you with your work? Why?

Regardless of which method you choose and what questions you ask, the data gathered must accurately reflect the specific tasks now being performed. The information gathered will be used as the basis to select the tasks that need to be trained. (Clark, 2010)

One common thread in all classes that we do is customer focus and doing the right thing, he explained. Its a major cultural focus to just do the right thing, regardless of rules, regardless of things that are put in place. The learning that is supported with that and the selection of courses that we choose have to do with how customer-focused are they as opposed to process- or business-focused. By empowering employees to do the right thing, Southwest ensures high-quality customer service and drives up productivity. It encourages altruism, teamwork and shared effort in its employees. 

Develop training implementation plan and determine method (presentation, discussion, case study, discovery, role play, simulation, modeling, or OJT)

Definitely want to use Presentations, discussions, discovery (?), role play, simulation (systems), modeling (?), and OJT to gear employees up to start their customer service experience in a call center.

To me this is a trick question. In reality the type of method that is used in training is based on the subject at hand and the purpose of the training or objectives. For example, if new company policies are being introduced then often times that needs to be done in a presentation format outlining the changes followed by a Q&A. Now if you are training to become a pilot, then that training would require more than presentations. This is the best example of simulations that I can think of. The military also uses simulation training when training Tankers, Submariners, and Divers to name just a few occupations. This allows the most scenarios to be covered without anyone getting hurt in the learning process and equipment not being damaged. Discussions would be a good fit for learning subjects like philosophy, art, or any subject that may have different vantage points that would lead to observations that one may not have gained if they only listened to a presentation and getting on person's view. Another instance discussions come in handy is when training different departments within an organization and trying to get the departments to understand each others processes, reason for doing things, and discussing ways to better serve each other and the customers. And finally, case studies are relevant mostly to those in professional positions that need to understand where certain conclusions have come from. For instance, a case study that finds people need 8 hours of sleep every night is a hypothesis. The case studies purpose is to prove that hypothesis or perhaps relay a different conclusion then what was anticipated. Case studies are most relevant in positions that deal mostly in scientific or statistics type occupations. People that rely on experiments and collection of data in order to learn what the case study has to reveal.

Justify Methods Chosen

Propose 2 ways to motivate employee who has no interest in training class

Southwest philosophy is to hire for attitude and train for skill, and having a process for assessing and developing needed skills for the job is a part of the learning management strategy. If somebody wants to go somewhere or become something, they try to provide them the source of training and education to let them achieve their personal goals. They are putting together, and they have put together, the infrastructure to make sure that these people can achieve their dreams

Develop survey to collect feedback from employees who attend training

Want to do survey after class and then again after 30 days on the job to see if there is anything that would have been helpful now that they have been in the driver’s seat for a while now.

One thing that I hope has improved is their online component. From the article it seems that they have a lot of outgoing expenses that could be prevented with the introduction of let's say tuition reimbursement, services like skillsoft, and online training components vs having every subject having to have a presenter. The article was written in 2003 and so that's 11 years ago, which of course is a lifetime when it comes to the ever changing technological tools at our disposal. I did notice when looking at top training companies that Southwest was not in the top 125 this year. So it maybe that Southwest did not embrace technolgy driven traning and has hurt their overall training program. It also could be due to the changes the industry has had to endure since 9/11 and the recession.

http://clomedia.com/articles/view/southwest_airlines_employee_education_takes_flight/4