Legal Environment of HRM - Coca Colas Training and Development - Case Study Example

Training and development Student’s Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Training and development is a critical part of a company’s human resource activities. The ever-changing nature of work environment is the key factors that lead to the occurrence of this phenomenon (Odiorne & Rummler 2010). Such rapid changes often require employees that are knowledgeable, skilled, adaptive, focused, and flexible in terms of performance in their areas of specifications. The changing business trends and market competitions greatly demand the implementation of training and development policies. One such company is the coca cola company that is among the most successful companies around the globe. This case study seeks to analyze the manner in which training and development have impacted the coca cola company. The study will take into consideration the Coca cola Company’s training, development system, and the manner in which this has benefited the company’s corporate strategy. Coca cola’s training and development in perspective With over 38089 employees, the coca cola company stands tall to be among the top most drinks company around the globe. Despite the face of stiff competition as well as the increase in technology, the company has still had the largest market share across the globe and has equally established their presence around the globe (Hall 2008). To maintain the topmost position and the largest market share, the Coca-Cola Company has put in place a comprehensive employee training and development program. This program is aimed at ensuring that employees undergo regular job training and development on the most current issues in the market. In this perspective, the company laid emphasis on the levels of skills posses by the employees in their respective job positions. The company regards its human resource to be the greatest aspect of the business thus is the key determinants on the business capability. The employee training and development is equally a way that the organization motivates its employees towards attaining the greatest goals (Tesfaye et al 2013). Through training, the coca cola company aims at promoting an excellent performance culture across the markets, and this enables them to satisfy customers’ demands and expectations exceedingly, at the same time adding values to the company’s shareholders. The company’s major objectives are to attract, retain, and maintain talents that are necessary and relevant to the business development both in the current and future perspectives. The company achieves the above objectives by assisting its employees to expand both individually and professionally. The company also ensures the provision of god health to its members by looking into their safety and health well being. Relatively, the company has ensured that its employees are engaged honestly and freely, this makes them feel to very important part of the organization hence motivating them to work increasingly perfectly. Human rights have also been an aspect of consideration in the Coca cola Company’s dealings with its employees; the company ensures that all the employees, irrespective of their countries are accorded treatments that fall within their human rights perspective (Bodden 2009). The coca cola company regards the fact that they need to attract and preserve the best and most competent people and then invest in their development. In this point of view, the company attaches great significance on employee training and development activities. Thus, the company greatly focuses on employee internal talent management, employee development plans, manager’s leadership developments, as well as the employee performance management. As a company’s corporate strategy, training and development forms a major part in the organizational activities. The company seeks employees, recruits, develops, and finally rewards employees that have been trained and proved competent. Among the company’s corporate values are “Caring for our people," and the company fulfils this obligation by ensuring that the right persons are recruited, trained and then rewarded for their exemplary talents. Moreover, the company also has a policy that encourages the employees to be responsible for their career developments and reach their points of actualizations. The company equally devotes in training and development of its workers through sponsoring the employees to pursue their further studies, on job training and developing the competent employees through promotions. Coca Cola Company in addition has a career framework for its employees. This framework outlines the core areas through which aspiring leaders must prove competent before any promotion; these include management, relationships, business and financial results, growth and innovations, leadership, development of people, corporate social responsibility, and growth and innovations among others (Collis 2007). Consequently, for each of the defined area, there are standards set to gauge the performance based on satisfactory or none satisfactorily. Graduate recruitment has been on the constant move since the company seeks to develop its future through fresh and innovative team and work force. Most of these graduates undergo on job training (OJT). For instance, in the year 2012, the HBC Coca-Cola absorbed a group of 190 graduates and enrolled them for management trainee programs (Bodden 2009). The employees are then offered training on their respective careers and then developed in their fields. Moreover, the Coca-Cola University has been set up to provide learning opportunities that will enable the development of individuals both at personal and business levels. The university offers a number of diverse training which include: training classes in management areas such as customer leadership, consumer marketing and franchises leadership among others. There is also an e-learning program as well as a number of online resources such as books and articles that enlighten people on management and current marketing issues. Coca-Cola corporate strategies The major company’s goal is to maximize profitability and company growth hence creating values for the company shareholders. To achieve this, the company has laid down a corporate strategy that will enable them compete favorably and remain relevant in the market environment (Coloma, Gibson & Packard 2012). One of the corporate strategies includes transformation of commercial models into focusing on the customers’ values and using such values to capture the industry’s potential. The company also aims at using multi-segmentation strategies in the major markets with the aim of capturing distinct market clusters, increasing competitive intensity, and high consumption occasion. The company also aims to implement a well-planned packaging and pricing of products through a variety of distribution channels (Bodden 2009). As a corporate strategy, the company intends to drive product innovations relative to various product lines within the company, and achieve full operating potentials in all the commercial processes and models. To achieve the above stated goals effectively, the company intends to lay focus on more factors. Such include exploring new lines of beverages that will help in extension of beverage brands; developing the beverage portfolio through strategic acquisitions and innovations; strengthening the company’s market abilities; implementing a strategy of selective packaging to help in increasing product demands, and replicating the best practices in the entire chain value. It is thus evident that the company’s corporative strategies require the implementation of a number of strategies to achieve the set goals and retain the company’s position in the market. The corporate strategy largely revolves around innovation, which entails discovery of new products and bringing them into the market. As the company aims to introduce its products to different markets, the market penetration strategies also need to be implemented (Westerman, 2001). Furthermore, technology is fast increasing and this changes the nature of market competition, as part of the company’s corporative strategy, the company ensures that it adopts the most current technological aspects to enhance their market competency. The above elements in the company’s corporate strategies require intensive skills. The workforce needed to achieve this level of market entry and demand ought to be competent and equally innovative to ensure the company competes favorably among other close competitors. The coca cola company has the largest market share and the company strives to maintain this position within the market paradigms. Impact of training and developments By incorporating a highly knowledgeable, competitive, and skilled human resource, the organization has been well positioned to make achievements and stay on top of the market competition. For years, Coca Cola has been the dominant market leader in terms of drinks and refreshments and these are attributed to the company’s use of training and development (Bodden 2009). Here are some of the impacts that have been brought about by training and development. Market leadership: through intensive training and development of its employees, the coca cola company has emerged to be the largest beverage company in the world. The products are in many countries around the globe with proper workforce put in place in different regions. Strong brand portfolio: through an innovative workforce, the company has put in place a powerful beverage portfolio to its consumers. Through this, the company has managed to get close to its customers, develop customer profiles that suite the environment and use it to come up with unique products that satisfy the demands within the given market (Romanova et al 2013). Channel marketing: the company through its competent workforce has managed to divide its market into various segments and developed targeted efforts for each of these segments. In this, the company has focused on the customer preferences and purchasing patterns within the segments and the company is thus capable of predicting the market demands for any particular segment. Client value management: the company has managed to transform its commercial models and made them focus on customer potential value. This new model has thus been rolled out and is under implementation by well-trained and knowledgeable staff members. Managerial expertise: the Coca-Cola management team comprise of highly skilled and developed management team. This group is placed in charge of managing the overall welfare of the company. The employees have been offered sufficient training as well as experience that enables them to make critical decisions in regards to management of company affairs (Bodden 2009). The management team has equally been well motivated and developed hence are empowered to achieve the overall company objectives. Sustainable development: this is one of the most important pillars that keeps the company on the move whilst developing strategically. The company, through its management team, has developed programs that improve the establishment and development of socioeconomic values. This is done by improving employee livelihood, promotion of healthy culture and finally supporting the surrounding communities. Full operational potential: achieving more with little resources is among the foremost keys to the company’s success. The company seeks to optimize the manufacturing and the distribution capacities continually to cope efficiently cope with economic and sociopolitical environments, which are ever changing. With this work force in place, the coca cola company has achieved a full operating potential, which enables it to operate in great market potentials (Bodden 2009). Through the competent and innovative team, the company has been well positioned to monitor its market segments, and then refine its channel marketing consistent with the preferences and the purchasing patterns of the customers. Conclusion Training and development, therefore, plays a major role in the fulfillment of a company’s corporate strategy. Whereas training and development prepare employees towards attainment of the task, the corporate strategies provide means and direction for attainment of the set goals and objectives. Through the training and development program, the company has been well positioned to execute its strategies of becoming the market leader globally and to penetrate deeper markets within the industry. It is equally evident that human resource provides the bridge between training and development as well as the company’s corporate strategies (Odiorne & Rummler 2010). Competent and knowledgeable human resource is thus imperative and offers the ideal solution when it comes to fulfillment of the corporate strategies. Training and development are, therefore, a significant step towards ensuring that a company has a knowledgeable and innovative human resource team that will competently work to attain the set goals. References Bodden, V., 2009,. The story of Coca-Cola. Mankato, MN, Creative Education. Collis, D., J., 2007., Harvard business review on corporate strategy. Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. Coloma, J, Gibson, C, & Packard, T 2012, 'Participant Outcomes of a Leadership Development Initiative in Eight Human Service Organizations', Administration In Social Work, 36, 1, pp. 4-22, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 April 2014. Hall, EW 2008, 'Changing the Way Employees Interact With Guests With Disabilities', Journal Of Disability Policy Studies, 19, 1, pp. 15-23, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 April 2014. Odiorne, G., S., & Rummler, G. A. ,2010., Training and development: a guide for professionals. Chicago, Ill, Commerce Clearing House. Romanova, G, Ugriumov, E, Verbin, Y, & Stojsavljević, R 2013, 'Managing Hotel Staff Development in the Course of Preparation of Large-scale Sports Events (Sochi Case Study). (English)', European Researcher, 64, 12-1, pp. 2787-2799, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 April 2014. Tesfaye, M, Abera, M, Gruber-Frank, C, & Frank, R 2014, 'The development of a model of training in child psychiatry for non-physician clinicians in Ethiopia', Child & Adolescent Psychiatry & Mental Health, 8, 1, pp. 1-16, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 April 2014. Westerman, A 2001, 'The Relation Between Corporate Training and Development Expenditures and the Use of Temporary Employees', Ethics & Behavior, 11, 1, pp. 67-86, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 April 2014. Read More