Assignment.

HRM592 Course Project Sample II.docx

Omnicare Minnesota: Training Needs

HRM592 – Training and Development

Professor Robert Graver

Keller Graduate School of Management

Table of Contents

Overview of Organization …………………………………………………………………...2

Executive Summary ……………………...………………………………………………….2-4

Analysis of Data Collected & Identified Training Need .................................……………....5-6

Training/Intervention Strategy……………………………………………………………….6-7

Training/Intervention Cost …………………………………………………………………..8-9

Training Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………..9-10

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………10

References…………………………………………………………………………………….11

Organization Overview

Omnicare Minnesota operates as a long-term care pharmacy in the state of Minnesota. The company is going on 35 plus years in business and is headquartered in Ohio. Omnicare services nursing homes, assisted livings, group homes and the Ramsey County Detention Centers including the adult and juvenile centers as well has the workhouse and detox. Omnicare process roughly 30,000 prescriptions per week (Omnicare, 2012).

Executive Summary

A training needs assessment was performed on five pharmacy technicians; one from each of the five departments within the front-end at Omnicare. The five departments are the following: triage, order entry, compliance, intake and medical records. Each employee gets similar training as all departments rely on many of the same processes. Each department is responsible for maintaining resident medication and ancillary information, medication requests and following up with nurses; physicians and on occasion the resident to make sure problems are solved.

Although each department needs to learn such programs as document imaging and document typing, training is inconsistent and very self-taught by the new employees. Also, cross training is not evident which causes issues when employees are on vacation, sick or have a day off as other department employees are unable to help out in struggling places. This was discovered by my observations as the front end manager, my employee training questionnaire and personal interviews with each of the five employees. Each employee gave me roughly the same answers to my questionnaire, brought up similar answers to the interview and my observations were consistent across the entire front-end departments.

Based on the results from the above mentioned data collections, the need for cross training throughout the five departments is essential to all employees. Learning the skeleton version of the computer system and how things run in each department is what will lead to the success of the company. Since all of the employees that are hired need to be registered with the State of Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, having pharmacy experience is already there. What differ are long-term care pharmacy rules and regulations versus hospital and retail settings.

All employees are hired for a particular department. They learn their department and then if the need arises, they are thrown into other departments when a major problem is already unfolded. That training consists of a ten-minute crash session to get them set up, and then they are on their own. Omnicare’s theory with this is, at least it is a body. I disagree with this approach and have the following recommendation for a training intervention in the form of cross-training.

My first recommendation is too identify which departments follow each other in processes. This will allow employees to be able to start in one department, know the second and also understand how the departments work with each other. For example, triage takes the incoming phone calls and the routes them to the order entry department. With this recommendation, order entry would then be cross-trained in triage as they end up with the final product anyways.

My second recommendation is to identify key processes within each department to ensure that other employees are getting trained on processes that will help them help the department as much as possible. The key processes to teach should not be as in depth as those that are taught to department specific hires. These processes can include, answering the phone, processing refills, adding a patient into the system (not adding the insurance), typing narcotic requests and typing in corrections. These main processes if taught to each employee would ensure that each department would have necessary back-up if someone was out sick, on vacation or the department find themselves struggling to get their work done.

My third recommendation is to choose a department topic to focus on each week to ensure that employees retain the information as there is a lot to remember with five departments. This will help assess how the training is going, what subjects need to touched on more frequently and more in depth and to evaluate how well the training process outline is being utilized. Problems may come up that need to be remedied, but to be able to tweak such a document will be easy to do.

The expected benefits of implementing a cross-training programs are, all employees will have a well-rounded knowledge of how the pharmacy works and how an order makes its way to the back of the pharmacy, productivity will increase as more employee will know components of each department to help out and employee satisfaction and morale will increase with an increase in job rotation and sharing of the responsibilities. Since all employees are working for the same reason of getting medication out to our residents so they continue to live a quality life, being able to end their day knowing that they helped the resident in more than one area will help with self-satisfaction.

The cost of the training program includes the online portion, management input, help desk staffing, and maintenance. The scenarios and group work will incur a small cost. The total amount of money to train is $4,200. This group work cost includes learning materials per groups of two to three employees.

Analysis of Data Collected & Identified Training Need

A needs analysis was conducted on each of the five departments that encompass the front-end of the pharmacy at Omnicare Minnesota. The organizational, personal and task analysis that was performed all indicated the need for a cross-training intervention. The data was gathered through the use of employee questionnaire/interviews, observations and company data sheets on productivity of employees.

The need for cross-training is very high with Omnicare due to the high volume of work that the multiple departments are responsible for. The personal analysis which was conducted through a questionnaire and interviews, gave a strong indication that employees felt that their training was average, but nothing special. Training the employees how to follow an order from start to finish will give them the satisfaction of helping a resident receive their medication timely instead of starting the process or being the middle man and not knowing where it is going next. Furthermore, the more employees know about the front-end the more the company has to use as resources when training new hires.

The task analysis was conducted through examining company productivity records. Since the average orders-per-hour typed was lower than the company is expecting, this would indicate that there is not enough work for all technicians to work on and if cross-training was to become a permanent training topic, the productivity numbers would be considerably higher as there is more work for the technicians (especially in order-entry) to work on. This would also help with the issue of lack of trained department staff for back-up if an employee is out sick, on vacation or leaves the company.

The organizational analysis was conducted through employee/department observations. These observations gave me the knowledge that employee are frustrated with the messages they are receiving from the top down. Corporate officials like to see that the work is getting done and done quickly. The on-site officials have the same goal but focus more on accuracy. Getting order’s typed fast and accurate is sometimes very hard for the technicians. If cross-training was evident, there could be more than just the department employees jumping in and helping getting work done. Triage employees could help type when they have a lull in phone calls and vice versa throughout the front end.

Training Intervention Strategy

Identifying the learning objectives is important because it determines what knowledge, skills and attitude they should acquire after then end of the given training (MGMT/CORP OPS, 2013). The following is a list of learning objectives that need to be taught:

· Given a task within one of the five departments, the employee should be able to perform the task without difficulty

· Given the knowledge the employee is given in training, the employee should be able to judge and identify greatest need for their assistance

· Given the training the employee receives, the employee’s productivity numbers should increase by 20% over the next six months

· Given the new added responsibilities to each employee, the employee’s should work together to accomplish the workday goals while fostering positive attitudes

The three most common types of learning styles include, auditory, visual and tactile (Unknown, 2013). Since the front end at Omnicare has many employees, including each style into the training is a good way to make sure that all employees are given the best opportunity to learn. The training will be conducted using all three of these styles. The easiest way to accomplish this is through online training. This will appeal to the auditory as they are able to listen to the training, visual because they are able to look at the words and pictures on the screen and the tactile as there are demonstrations on the screen at checkpoints in the training to make sure everyone is catching on.

The instructional method that will be used is a combination of group work and simulations. After all have completed the online training and can correctly identify what is expected of them, the second half of the training will consist of group work with various simulations. An example would include… “If xyz was to call and ask for a refill, what information would a triage technician need to retrieve from the caller?” As a group, they would decide and then they would practice the phone call. Using group work will be beneficial because they are able to bounce ideas off of each other and help each other if they are stuck.

Each learning objective will be touched on through the online training and with the simulations. There will be no more than three employees to a group, usually only two. The employees will be placed with each other from different departments so they are able to break down processes even further using their own knowledge. This will not only help others learn quicker, but the morale of the front end should improve and help create a positive environment. Employees also may find out and identify a department that they would be interested in transferring too if there was ever an opening or extra shifts open. The more all employees know about each department, the more inclined they are to participate and help out when needed.

Training Intervention Cost

The amount of money it will take to set up and train the employees is roughly $100 per online session. There are 30 employees x $100 = $3,000. The IT fees for the project for maintenance and help desk staffing is roughly $500 for four weeks. The fees for upper management input are $350.00 and the amount for materials is also $350.00. There is no charge for computer use or classrooms. Since the trainings are already established for new-hires, it would be a matter of combining important aspects of each module and creating five basic training modules; one for each department.

The amount of money that is being paid to employees for overtime on each bi-weekly pay check is on average $306 – the average hourly pay is $17.00 x 6 hours (paid at 1.5 times regular pay) of overtime per week equals $153 in overtime pay per employee per week. That equals a total of $9,180 in overtime costs each pay period to the company. If the training was implemented, that calculates a ROI of 2.18. This means that for every hour spent on training, over two dollars is acknowledged through benefits. The following is a breakdown of the monetary costs for four weeks of training:

The company will not only see a benefit on the bottom dollar, they will also see a benefit with the productivity and morale with the employees. There are going to be employees whom will resist change and resist the need to learn more, but for the most part, many employees will be eager to learn. Given the right resources, tools and support, the employees will not only put out a great product or service, there newly found (for some) respect for the business and each other is going to reflect in other operations such as customer service. This cross-training program will also relieve the stress and pressure that some employees feel when work is not getting done timely. Omnicare, being in the long-term care pharmacy business, can be fast pace, hectic and stressful. The number one goal of all employees is to make sure that each and every patient is receiving their medications quickly so they are able to live a quality life. According to a study done by two university professors, “…cross-training increased mental model accuracy and decreased tension among team members (Ellis, 2011).

Training Evaluation

Once all training has been completed, evaluating how well the knowledge learned transferred to the workplace can be achieved through both employee and productivity analysis. To gage how well the training met the objectives, the employee will rate the training based on how they thought the training went. For example, when the online training is over, the employee will rate the objectives on a scale of one to five, with five being the best. The questions would include, “How well did the training completed meet the objectives outlined”.

If the employee chooses that they thought it went well and they are able to comfortably say that they could help in each of the departments, then the next document to analyze is their productivity. This is going to give hard facts on how the training went and how well it got transferred to the employee and then onto the floor. Since each department task can be tracked to each employee, having management and the training and development team analyze a random sample of productivity from before and after will give great insight to what was retained and what would need to be touched on more next time.

The other evaluation that could take place is how prepared the employee is if they had to pick up a shift or jump in to help out in one of the departments. This could be done by role-playing. The employee could be told at the last minute to jump into triage (example) to answer phones. A seasoned triage team member would be able to listen to the conversation through a training headset to make sure that nothing goes drastically wrong and help if needed. If the training was as successful as it should be, the team member should have learned the basics to answering the phones. If not, either the employee or their training needs to be re-evaluated.

Conclusion

Training for companies is inevitable with the changing world of technology, policies and procedures. Making sure that employees are kept up to date, able to do their job and also able to contribute to the company on a larger scale, through cross-training, is a great way to ensure that the employees are happy and enjoy coming to work. Reporter Lynda Rogerson described cross-training best,

“"Cross-trained employees usually feel that their jobs have been enriched, and they often suggest creative and cost-effective improvements. Cross-training can lead to productivity gains that help you stay competitive." (Cross-Training, 2011).

References Cross-Training. (2011). Retrieved from References for Business, 2nd ed.: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Co-Di/Cross-Training.html Ellis, A. &. (2011). Reducing the Negative Effects of Stress in Teams Through Cross Training: A Job Demands-Resources Model. American Psychological. MGMT/CORP OPS. (2013). Why are learning objectives important? Retrieved from ask.com: http://www.ask.com/question/why-are-learning-objectives-important Omnicare. (2012). Productivity Report:2012. Cincinatti. Unknown. (2013). Different Learning Styles. Retrieved from YourDictionary Education: http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/different-learning-styles.html

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