Improving the Performance of Employees and Organisational Productivity: British Petroleum - Case Study Example

HUMAN RESOURCE (HR) – CASE STUDY OF BRITISH PETROLEUM TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 2. Training needs assessment: 3 3. Training evaluation:6 4. Exploration of the difference between training needs assessment and training evaluation: 9 5. Conclusion: 11 Reference List 12 1. Introduction: The current report deals with the human resource management function and their roles, prentices and significance in an organisation. The research has been conducted on British Petroleum (BP) and reflects the importance of the role of training evaluation and training needs assessment to manage performance of the employees effectively. British Petroleum is a global gas and oil company, headquartered in London, UK (Bp.com, 2014). Considering the revenue BP is the fourth largest gas and energy company of the world. The main business process within the organisation includes energy distribution, exploration and marketing, refining and marketing serving alternative energy source in the global market. As most of the task within the organisation is becoming more technical to complete business operation properly, it is very important for BP to forecast the exact training needs of its employees and planning the training program accordingly. In this context, an HR (human resource) manager plays a vital role in planning for organisational training needs of the existing employees. The report provides relevant data and information about the types of training methods that the company can use to improve the performance of its employees and organisational productivity. 2. Training needs assessment: Training needs assessment is a process that determines the training needs of the employees and conclude what type of training can be provided to increase employee’s performance (Preece and Iles, 2009). Conducting training needs is a crucial activity to improve performance and productivity of the employees. The purpose of the training assessment program is to analyse performance requirements, skills, knowledge and abilities needed by an employee to achieve organisational objectives (Bhattacharya et al. 2007). Mathematically it can be stated as: Training needs = Desired Capability – Current capability of the Participants The HR manager of BP should adopt need assessment training strategy to address resource needs (performance of the employees) to fulfill its mission and objective, improve organisational productivity and provide quality products to its consumers. Adoptions of need assessment program help the company to identify types of training needs of its staffs and thereby assist the company to put the training resource to superior use. Methods – A series of methods are available that BP can use in its training need assessment and collect data related to the job structure and tasks performed by their employees in need of training. Some of the common methods available to perform a training needs assessment are questionnaire method, individual interview, on-site observation and focus group. Questionnaire methods – Survey questionnaire is most commonly used method to evaluate training needs of the employees. In order to analyse the training needs of its employees, BP can design a survey questionnaire to gather personal information in various areas, including their professional skill level, whether they are facing difficulties to perform their jobs, types of problem they are facing to perform their job properly, key weaknesses etc. The assessment of staff’s knowledge and analysis of training needs can make the HR managers of BP to allocate the resource assessment in the most productive way (Werner et al. 2011). Using the sample questionnaire, BP can gather a range of information from trainees as well as supervision, co-worker and other staffs. Individual interview – In training need assessment program, interview sessions are generally recommended to obtain more detailed information and add qualitative values in the survey questionnaire. It helps the company to avoid misunderstanding and clarifying the right answer. On-site observation – The on-site observation gives opportunities to the HR managers to validate the original training needs assessment findings and design the training program according to that. The primary objective to gather information from on-site observation is to supplement information collected from survey questionnaire and interview methods. Strengths – In any organisation, training needs assessment is important at the beginning of any organisational projects. Operating in a global economy, a total number of 80,000 people are working in BP and thereby naturally, it has a diverse workforce in terms of culture, race, nationality and gender. In order to assess the success in the culturally diverse workforce, running the training program by conducting survey questionnaire, interview or on-site observation is required (Adegoke, 2011). It helps the organisation to recognize forces of diversity, constitute a global hiring practice, determine the appropriate compensation level and understand the weaknesses of their staffs in accordance with global pattern. In addition to that, assessment program will also help the company to identify and limit the barriers of access to training in regards to valuing gender, race, nationality and class. Weaknesses – The assessment of training needs is generally conducted through survey questionnaire, interview and on-site observation methods. Major disadvantages of collecting information via survey questionnaire and interview are scope for little provision and time consuming. In order to collect relevant information from several groups within the organisation, the HR managers of BP have to distribute the survey questionnaires which may require a substantial time. They might also face difficulties in analyzing and quantifying the collected information (Laird and Naquin, 2008). Further, if they opt for performance appraisal method as a means to training assessment method, it may invalidate the appraisal result because of biasness of supervisor. Considerations – The training needs assessment is an ongoing process that deals with gathering data and based on that they implement training strategy to improve performance of the employees to accomplish the objectives of the organisation. The HR manager of BP can execute this strategy to identify the problem areas of their staff and on the basis of that provides the most appropriate training to direct the organisational success (Kozlowski, 2012). The company gives greater emphasis on the product quality and therefore needs to drive continuous focus on culture, skills and capability of its staffs. BP could adopt training needs assessment program to achieve organisational goal as it helps increase skill level of its employees. However, BP might face difficulties to implement needs assessment methods due to time and cost factors. 3. Training evaluation: Training evaluation is a systematic and a continuous process for accessing the value of a training program, event or activities. Results of training evaluation are generally used to guide various components around the training program, evaluation and elimination (Buckley and Caple, 2007). The training evaluation program generally measure the usefulness of a training program by observing and analyzing the group dynamic, performance of the employee and the organisation. Training evaluation process gives the trainer an opportunity to measure their performance, observe and generate internal satisfaction. The HR managers in the organisation play an important role to form training evaluation activities at BP. The evaluation of the training session gives them an opportunity to analyse effectiveness of their current training strategies, future changes and logically concludes the training. Methods – Several methods that BP can follow to evaluate results of any training program are: Measurable business improvement – The main objective of implementing training session is to generate business improvement (Evaluationfocus, 2014). In order to measures the efficacy of the training programs after their initiation in the work process of a firm, a company has to identify and analyse the performance of the employees based on the performance indicators. As key indicators to measure business performance, BP can include an increase in sales, a decrease in appointment cancellation, an increase in profit and so on. Return on investment –The formula of ROI is ROI =  Return on investment (ROI) is an evaluation of monetary benefits obtained by an organisation in return to the specific investment on the training program. ROI basically measures the extent to which an organisational benefit exceeds the training costs. BP can use ROI structure to calculate its total investment and measure the coverage to which it has achieved its desired performance improvement. Strengths – The execution of training evaluation procedure is important for an organisation like BP to manage team business operation throughout the globe effectively. It helps to analyse how well the training programs are fulfilling the skill gaps of the staff and bring in desirable changes that have been implemented through the training session (Saks et al. 2011). With the training evaluation, the HR management team of BP can provide feedbacks regarding the performance of their employees and methods employed by the trainers. In addition to that, utilizing this method, BP also can quantify further training needs for their employees. Weaknesses – The training evaluation is generally measured by measurable business improvement and return on investment methods. The main disadvantage of this method is that it is intangible as most of the terms related to employee performance are not measurable in monetary values (Phillips, 2012). This advantage may cause a significant barrier to implement this method. Conversely, business performance also depends on several factors, such as innovation, internal process of innovation, financial measures and customer satisfaction (Buckley, R. and Caple, J., 2007). Improvement in employee’s performance does not guarantee same level of progress in all these areas. Thus, sometime it might fail to provide accurate account for increase in productivity and training cost component. Considerations – There are basically three principle reasons that signify the importance of training evaluation in BP. The implementation of training evaluation program will help the company to improve training needs of their employees and identifies the ways in which further improvement can be made (Han et al. 2006). Conducting an effective training evaluation program enables the organisation to gather relevant data, based on which they can take decisions for change and ensures the ways in which they should develop their training program to enhance organisational value. However, today’s training evaluation procedures address a range of issues including contextual factors that affects ability of the individual to perform pleasingly beyond the traditional limit of training. 4. Exploration of the difference between training needs assessment and training evaluation: Training needs assessment is the initial stage in designing the training and development plan in an organisation, while the final step is training evaluation (london.ac.uk, 2014). The training needs assessment basically identifies skills gap of the employees on the basis of their ability to perform the organisational tasks effectively (Roehling et al. 2008). It basically provides information that BP can utilize for improving skill and ability of its staffs. Conversely, training evaluation strategy reflects the final result of the training investment. It includes reactions of the participants in context of the training programs and how well the employees are able to transfer the training lessons in their job performance. Initiating a training evaluation procedure facilitates a company to ensure whether its employees are able to put their learning experience in their respective workplace or in the regular work routine or not. Figure 1: Training and development program (Source: Roehling et al. 2008, p. 210) In order to establish a clear alignment between individual performance and organisational objectives, BP should implement a proper training and development program. In the training assessment session it should analyse training needs that are very essential to enhance morale and organisational performance. After investing a sufficient amount on the training and development program, the final phase is to conduct a subjective evaluation of the training process (Hendry and Pettigrew, 2008). The evaluation method determines the extent to which the HR management team of the company has met the training needs of its employees. If the outcome of the training program fails to achieve the desired outcome, then it includes a new cycle of training need assessment. Thus, training needs assessment and training evaluation is a continual process for the company to effectively manage performance of its staffs and therefore organisational productivity. 5. Conclusion: The current report focuses on analyzing the importance of various types of training program that BP can implement to direct performance of its employees. The researcher has critically examined types of training and development program that are vital prerequisites for improving organisational productivity. The training needs assessment is the preliminary step to initiate a training and development program and is basically structure out basic foundation of the training program. Furthermore, training evaluation is the concluding step that computes final outcome of the training course. Training and development agenda based on these cyclical schedules ensures constant high performance level of BP. Reference List Adegoke, B., 2011. Effect of Training on Employees Productivity in Public Service Organisation, 4th ed. Boston: Unwin-Everyman. Bhattacharya, M. Gibson, E. D. and Doty, H. D., 2007. The Effects of Flexibility in Employee Skills, Employee Behaviors, and Human Resource Practices on Firm Performance, Journal of Management, 31, pp 622-40 Bp.com 2014. About BP, Available at: [Accessed: 11 November2014] Buckley, R. and Caple, J., 2007. The Theory & Practice of Training,5th ed. London: Kogan Page Evaluationfocus. 2014. Why bother with training evaluation? Available at: , [Accessed: 11 November2014] Han, J., Chou, P., Chao, M. & Wright, P.M. ,2006. The HR competencies-HR effectiveness link: A study in Taiwanese high-tech companies, Human Resource Management, 45(3), pp.391-406 Hendry, C. and Pettigrew, A., 2008. “Patterns of strategic change in the development of human resource management” British Journal of Management, 3 (3), pp.137-156 Kozlowski, S. W. J., 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Organisational Psychology, Volume 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press Laird, D. and Naquin, S. S.,2008. Approaches To Training And Development, 4th ed. New York: Nova Publication. london.ac.uk. 2014. Chattered Management Institute. Training Needs Analysis. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed: 11 November2014] Phillips, J. J., 2012. Accountability in Human Resource Management, 6th ed. London: Routledge Preece, D. and Iles, P., 2009. Executive development Assuaging uncertainties through joining a leadership academy‟ Journal of Personnel Review, 38(3), pp. 286-306 Roehling, M. V., Boswell, W. R., Caligiuri, P. and Feldman, D., 2008. The future of HR management: Research needs and directions. Human Resource Management, 44(2), pp.207–216. Saks, A. M., Haccoun, R. R. and Haccoun, R., 2011. Managing Performance Through Training and Development, 4th ed. London: McGra-Hill Higher Education. Werner, S., Schuler, R. and Jackson, S., 2011. Human Resource Management, 11th ed. Hampshire: Cengage Learning Read More