Training and Development of Hanks Home Pizzas - Assignment Example

Introduction to the organization Hank's Home Pizzas - Background: Hank's Home Pizzas was started by the senior Hank over four decades ago more out of boredom and love for eating pizzas rather than an eat out with a purpose. Hank's pizzas, when started were an extremely modest two table eight packs capacity neighborhood gossip and eating place. The most common customers were the Second World War contemporaries of Mr. Hank. Hank's Pizza corner at that time served as a place for the seniors to hang out and exchange gossip. While pizzas were baked on old fashioned ovens, kettles of tea brewed continuously with cups and cups being doled out fueled the gossip. That was how it all started. The place did undergo some change towards the end of the second generation Hank's tenure. This was more out of necessity to survive, thrive and make it a source of living while facing intense competition from the mushroomed pizza corporate. They opened one more store in the town, introduced contemporary and extremely upbeat customer seating facilities; added washrooms modernized the kitchen with the state-of-art equipment, introduced computerization, and changed the lighting and created an ambience which is ideal for an excellent meal. The upgrade Hank's pizza store could give any pizza corporate outlet a run for its money. The third generation Hank joined the father after finishing an MBA. His first setout was a mission for the business. The mission is to be the first and the only eat out choice of the town and also expanded the number of outlets from two to six, business multiplied four times over a period of six years and there seemed no looking back for the Hank's pizza store. But still something bothered the junior most Hank and he constantly felt that there were losing out business to other pizza chains stores. Hank with his latest management knowledge did try and put an effort to figure out what was amiss with the business while managing the operations of the business. Good amount of time was spent balancing the cash books, ensuring there were no stock outs and creating innovative marketing plans to increase pitfalls and ensure return customers. But still there was something amiss. To identify the problem and find solution for it, Hank III hired a management consultant and gave a free rein to them to identify the problem. On studying Hank IIIs style of functioning, it became evident that Hank III was looking at the business from the operations perspective and not from the customers' perspective. The consultants deputed mystery customers to identify and rate customer experiences at various store locations. The consultants, after a four week study identified that the customers were comfortable going to a specific store and undertook focus group studies to identify the reasons thereof. (Keerti) Focus Group Studies - What are they Focus group is a form of qualitative research. In this method of research a group of people are asked about a product of an idea from their individual perspective focusing on various attributes. (Wikipedia) A great deal of information can be achieved by conducting focus group studies. (Free Management Library) They came up with an astonishing fact which did not strike Hank III till then which was that the customer experiences were not uniform across the six stores and the expectations built at each store of the next possible experience was different and hence the strong customer location loyalty was being built which was good for an individual store but harmful overall to the business. To arrest this trend the consultants recommended that there be training department set up and train the different categories of staff so that the Hank's Pizza store delivered uniform customer experiences and WOW at all store locations and they identified the following training programs be conducted as a pre-cursive before embarking on a new marketing initiative. 1. The customer promise 2. Managing Customer experience 3. Customer orientation 4. Service orientation 5. Service with a smile 6. When and How to say NO 7. Team management 8. Customer management Training Need Analysis A training need analysis was required to be carried out. The necessity for a training need analysis is to determine the actual requirements of the training, determining the existing skill sets of the staff that are currently on the job and also determining the training gap. Training gap can be defined as the difference between the required and existing skill levels. Skills may comprise of knowledge, attitude and aptitude and skills. The consultant identified/defined the ideal KSA matrix vis--vis each job position in the organization and did a skills inventory of all the personnel matched against their roles. The differential between the desired KSA and the existing KSA defined the gap, thus creating a need for training. Before the beginning of the training programs, the consultants also recommended that a learning style inventory be administered and identify the dominant learning styles to ensure that the training delivery happened in line with the dominant learning style required. Learning Styles - An Insight: Learning Styles can be simply defined as the ways of learning. There are basically three types of learning styles followed by the learners. They are: Visual Learning - Visual learning means learning through seeing. People, who follow this style of learning, do learn effectively by seeing the body language and facial expressions of the teacher. Unless they see the teacher's body language and facial expressions, they cannot fully understand and learn the concept being taught. Visual learners always prefer to sit at the front of the class room in order to avoid any kind of visual obstructions that may disturb them. Visual learners learn more from visual displays. Auditory Learning - This style of learning requires people to learn through listening. People who follow this method of learning tend to learn more by listening to lectures, getting involved in discussions etc. Auditory learners try and understand the underlying meanings of speech through listening to voice tone and pitch etc. Reading a text aloud and making use of tape recorders help these kinds of learners to benefit more. Tactile/Kinesthetic Learning - This type of learning involves learning through moving, doing and touching. Learners who follow this approach of learning learn through hand-on approach. They always benefit through practical learning rather than theoretical means of learning. They always tend to actively explore the physical world around them. (LdPride.net) They also went on to recommend that all these programs beginning with an induction, where Hank III personally spend half a day with the new joining could be capsule into "Hank's Pizzoma - a necessary qualification to have before they went on to become a manager in the Hanks store." Devised Training Program All the staff underwent a two day program designed and conducted by Singapore's Service Quality Institute. Service Quality Institute is a join venture between Singapore Airlines and Government of Singapore. The essential philosophy which is extremely practical of the Institute is that each and every customer's experience, however minor, is by design and not default which means every moment of the customer stay at Hank's Pizza Store was mapped, experiences created (situations created for those experiences); customer service statement generated which was owned by all the staff. The initiative was owned by every staff member of Hank's Pizza store and hence the implementation of the ideas generated during the training program was not that much of a challenge for Hank. They also recommended that the training conducted be evaluated using Kirkpatrick's model for training evaluation with a new initiative in place. The Kirkpatrick's model of training evaluation is explained in detail below. Kirkpatrick's Training Evaluation model Donald L Kirkpatrick, Professor Emeritus, University Of Wisconsin (where he achieved his BBA, MBA and PhD), first published his ideas in 1959, in a series of articles in the US Training and Development Journal. The articles were subsequently included in Kirkpatrick's book Evaluating Training Programs (1975 and since revised), published by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), for whom Kirkpatrick previously served as president and with whom he maintained strong connections. Donald Kirkpatrick has written several other significant books about training and evaluation, more recently with his similarly inclined son James, and has consulted with some of the world's largest corporations. Donald Kirkpatrick's 1975 book Evaluating Training Programs defined his originally published ideas of 1959, thereby further increasing awareness of them, so that his theory has now become arguably the most widely used and popular model for the evaluation of training and learning. (Donald Kirkpatrick's Learning Evaluation Model 1959) Kirkpatrick's four-level model is now considered an industry standard across the HR and training communities. Kirkpatrick's model for training evaluation is comprised of four levels which measure the following: Reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the training Learning - the resulting increase in knowledge or capability Behavior - extent of behavior and capability improvement and implementation/application Results - the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee's performance Applying the Kirkpatrick model, the initial reaction of this trainees were ranging from somber acceptance to astonishment at the wide range of possibilities and also marked eagerness and anxiety to improve customer satisfaction levels among the staff. Learning - The staff designed situations that led to engineering various customer experiences right from the time a customer stepped into a store till the time the customer left the store. Behavior - Over a period of 12 months the Hanks' staff behavior towards customers and clientele underwent a remarkable shift and every staff member right from the parking assistants till the chef was to bend backwards within the given ambit to ensure customer WOW. Results - Over the next 18 months Hank III quadrupled the turnover, multiplied the bottom lines over 300%, reduced staff attrition by more than half, achieved 100% customer returns and most importantly managed to close 30% of the other pizza outlets in town. He was well on his way in achieving his vision. Bibliography 1. Donald Kirkpatrick's Learning Evaluation Model 1959. Businessballs.com. 1959. 12 November 2007 . 2. Free Management Library. Basics of Conducting Focus Group Sudies. 24 March 2006. 12 November 2007 . 3. Keerti, Dr. B. Head- EMployee Engagement Rajyalakshmi. 3 November 2007. 4. Kirkpatrick, Donald. Evaluating Training Prgograms. 1975. 5. LdPride.net. Learning STyles. 11 September 2006. 12 November 2007 . 6. Wikipedia. Wikipedia. 20 August 2005. 12 November 2007 . Read More