Communicating and Reporting the Evaluation in Organizations - Assignment Example

The paper "Communicating and Reporting the Evaluation in Organizations" is a delightful example of an assignment on human resources. For preparing the article a visit to the HRD department of a reputed FMCG brand was made. There the HR manager was busy and so he called the HR executive with whom I carried on the discussions. From here, the following information was obtained-

Last year the company launched a new hair oil brand for which the management conducted a training program for the sales team. It included 50 employees who used to visit the market. Those people were continuously facing rejection from the market. The customers denied accepting the new product as it was related to their hair and customers refused to experiment with their hair with the application of a new product. Though the company had a reputed brand name, still the already established players in the hair oil segment gave tough competition to this company. As a result, sales started to decline. Therefore the training was arranged which amounted to $ 40000. For imparting the training two industry experts were invited and the training continued for a month. After the completion of one month, it was time to evaluate the results.

Discussion
Question 1
What were the primary purposes for communicating and reporting the evaluation findings?

Answer
The primary purpose of communicating the evaluation findings included the question, whether the training proved to be useful in increasing the revenues of the firm? For this specific evaluation, another month was given to the sales team. Their every day’s reports were gathered by the Sales Manager and were submitted to the General Manager-Sales (This is important to mention that there are separate General Managers for separate departments and in this particular case we have considered the participation of GM-Sales, GM-Marketing, and GM-Productions). The GM-Sales along with the General Manager- Marketing and General Manager- Productions, scrutinized the reports every day to find out-

Whether the sales team had improved and learned the ways of handling customer objections?
Whether they were able to implement the learning in the practical scenario?
Whether there were new issues cropping up?
Whether there were other things in the market environment that are hindering the revenue growth?
After finding the answers to these questions the managers used to prepare a feedback report.

Question 2
To whom (what audiences) did you communicate the findings to?

Answer
The feedback of the reports was again circulated among the sales team. This was done for-

Letting the team know what were their flaws?
Letting the team focus on their strong points.
Making the team aware of the forthcoming obstacles
Preparing the team for uncertainties
Question 3
Was the timing of the communication and evaluation reports considered? Please explain.

Answer
The timing was considered a significant part and it was highly considered in the process. It is believed that frequent communication is better for the progress of an evaluation process. Also, this makes the decision-making process simpler and quicker. In this particular scenario, timing played an important role as the day-to-day work of the sales team was based on the feedback from the General Managers which they could use before leaving for the market. Therefore the time they receive the responses, the better would be their performance.

Question 4
Please describe the format your organization used to communicate the evaluation findings.

Answer
Every day the sales team used to enter the office at 9.30 a.m. Then they used to collect the product samples from the office and used to leave for the market. They returned at 3.30 or 4 pm. This was the time when they submitted their reports which were collected from the market. These useful data were collected in detail and submitted to the Sales Manager. After that, the senior managers used to evaluate the data and the feedback was communicated to them the next morning when the salespeople entered the office.

Question 5
In retrospect, would you take a different course of action for communicating the findings of the evaluation report?

Answer
As per the discussion with the HR executive, it was concluded that the communication procedure within the organization was excellent as it was decided by the specialized and experienced team of senior management. However, the process is highly time-consuming. In place of evaluating each report individually, the implementation of a Working session would have been beneficial. Working Sessions are forms of the meeting where the key participants are brought together and are allowed to discuss their perceptions. This involves the sharing of ideas and solving problems on an integrated basis. Working sessions are an effective tool for enabling the trainees to learn new concepts at a greater pace and with improved efficiency (Russ-Eft and Preskill, 2009).