The Strategic Human Resource Development - RACQ - Case Study Example

SHRD- HRD plan Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 1 Strategic Human Resource Development 4 2 Human Resource Development Plan(HRD Plan) 4 1.3 Issues Leading to Employee Engagement 4 1.4 Outline of the Study 5 2. Recommendations 5 3. Implementation 10 12 4. Evaluation 15 5. Conclusion 16 References 18 Executive Summary This report is prepared for RACQ, an Australian company. The target audiences to whom the report will address to are the senior management team of the company. This means that the target audiences have complete knowledge regarding the internal organizational culture of the company. The issue that has been highlighted mainly is related to challenges that the employees are facing sue to an unsustainable organizational culture. The solution to this issue would be development of employee engagement plans. In this context, the strategic human resource development (SHRD) concepts have been utilized. Based on the strategic human resource development theories, training and development would be the most suitable way to solve human resource management issues. This would also help in complete employee engagement. Various training programs at different levels in the organization have been recommended and detailed implementation plan has been suggested for the senior management to understand the recommendations and its usage easily. Also the goal-oriented approach has been suggested for evaluating the after affects of the training programs. 1. Introduction 1.1 Strategic Human Resource Development The motive of Strategic human resource development (SHRD) is to incorporate an effective process through training and development. This would help in improving the ability of the employees to perform their task and increase the productivity of the company. SHRD is planned to assist companies in meeting the needs of their employees and also for promoting the goals of the company (Grieves, 2003, p. 8). 1.2 Human Resource Development Plan (HRD Plan) HRD Plans are strategic oriented plans, which indicates how the resources would be allocated, and ascertain the activities which needs to be funded, implemented, and encouraged, so that the employee development objectives are achieved. So the HRD plans include the design of the framework of the activities where assistance of the employees is essential to achieve the objectives or goals of the company (Werner, and DeSimon, 2011, p. 107-108). 1.3 Issues Leading to Employee Engagement After analyzing the organizational culture of RACQ, it has been identifies that certain challenges related to creation of appropriate organizational culture persist in the company. A culture of creativity, innovation, skill, etc should be triggered within the employees of the organization by the management, through right employee engagement plans. Employee engagement includes engaging employees to their job through motivation, performance appraisal, training, etc (Albrecht, 2010, p. 3-6). 1.4 Outline of the Study The aim of this report is to provide recommendations with relation to employee engagement for human resource issues in RACQ. Each recommendation would be analyzed by providing an implementation plan. This would assist the senior managers to understand the motive behind such recommendation and the evaluation of the effects that the implementation would have. Since employee engagement is considered as one of the best solution to achieve organizational goals with the help of human resource, so all the recommendations would be based on employee engagement. 2. Recommendations Table 1 includes the basic recommendations under employee engagement, to completely engage the employees, so that they fit in the organization culture of RACQ. The implications behind choosing such recommendations for the learning interventions are also explained below. Table: 1 Recommendations based on Employee Engagement Recommendations Activities Audience Duration Activities Objectives Program for building service culture Achieving excellence through service -Developing the right mindset -Developing skills for handling customers -Identify ways to improve customer services Non-managerial employees Enhancing leadership qualities through service -Describe the leadership roles for developing customer focused culture -Develop the quality to coach the employees Supervisors and Managers Building team culture Building teams within the company -Conflict management -Team management All employees Building teams within management -Identify the conflict management issues, leadership issues, etc RACQ management Team Leadership -Identification and evaluation of the roles of team leaders Supervisors and managers Solving Team Problems and Decision Making -Identifying the root cause of the problem, solutions to it and implementing it All employees Assertiveness Training Avoid misunderstandings and increase harmony All employees Management Development and Leadership Change management -Help in understanding the motive behind change -Identify the means and process for change -Application of different change approaches would be easy Prospective managers and Managers Performance management -Performance monitoring and appraisal Prospective managers and Managers Basic leadership and management skill enhancement -Identification of management and the leadership tools Prospective managers and Managers Better training skill -Assistance in understanding the theories and approaches for utilizing them in the workplace Prospective managers and Managers Communication expertise improvement Programs Business English -Train on basic grammar rules to enhance language quality -Boost confidence while communicating with others Recognized employees Presentation skill enhancement -Increase the managerial interaction with audience -Develop action plans and presentation tools efficiently Identified employees Business writing skill enhancement -Assist in documentation and communication Acknowledged employees Personal efficiency Stress management -Develop stress management plans -Develop the ability to cope stress Identified employees Personal efficiency enhancement workshop -Assist them to identify their individual goals and objectives. -Monitor their activities -Create strategies Identified employees Time management -Explain and assist them in managing time effectively Identified employees The HRD has certain motives behind implementation of the learning interventions such as training programs for establishing the recommendations stated in table 1. 1. Enhancing the service quality: The aim of RACQ is to sustain and attract customers, so satisfying them is a critical issue. The company believes that the service quality by the frontline sales to the external customers as well as by other employees to the internal customers have a major impact on the quality of service and satisfaction of customers. So it is essential to devise a plan for training and development that would ensure the demonstration of the desired behavior expected from everyone within the organization from back office, frontline to members of management (Reid, Barrington, and Brown, 2004, p. 98-102). 2. Building team culture: RACQ recognizes that the ability to succeed depends on commitment; focus on outcomes, collaboration, and accountability. To make these things happen, RACQ needs to; Sharpen the skills of the leaders for leading teams efficiently Ascertain norms for collaboration and team interaction Enhance everyone’s capability to communicate explicitly Train everybody to solve problems and improve performance Build an efficient coaching atmosphere 3. Including proficiency based assessment for performance management system: RACQ must support the manifestation of the competencies for bringing out high performances through trainings. The gaps in the competencies should be identifies through performance appraisal and a 360 degree analysis survey or training is required. Results of the present year should be evaluated and identifies, and accordingly priorities for training or coaching should be set for the next year (Wilson, 2012, p. 414-416). 3. Implementation The above recommendations for training and development have been stated on the basis of its priority in RACQ. The training would be given with the motive that the target participants would be demonstrating specific skills after going through the training. So based on this idea an implementation plan can be drawn. 1. The training manager should first brief the concerned managers regarding the training, so that the manager can understand and appreciate the content and also formulate their role for demonstration of the desired performance or behavior. 2. Every employee or participant of the different training sessions must submit a training completion report to their respective managers, which would contain the understandings of the participants from the training and the commitment to utilize those skills in the workplace. 3. The facilitators are also responsible for submitting a report highlighting their observations and recommendations for the managers. 4. For encouraging the employees and motivate them to achieve desired results, merit points can be given to them during training sessions. 5. The HRD managers can encourage the usage of various learning tools for the employees, than just traditional class room trainings for enhancing efficiency (Kumar, and Hansra, 2000, p. 119-124; Cengia, 2012, p. 1-2). A flow chart in figure 1 has been drawn to simply represent the implementation of the recommendations stated above in a diagrammatic form. This would help the RACQ senior managers to quickly go through the path or process that can be followed to implement training programs for effective employee engagement. Further a schedule for training program has been stated, which would include hypothetical number of training participants and cost to be born for those trainings. This is just to show the framework for implementation planning. Figure: 1 Table: 2 Training Programs Target Date Training Participants Duration Cost Per Personnel Cost Per Batch Total Cost Program for building service culture Achieving excellence through service Jan: [ 3-4, and 25-26] Feb: [7-8, and 19-20] March: [18-19] 150 Managers 18 hours 5000 750,000 3,750,000 Enhancing leadership qualities through service April: [9-10] 50 Managers 18 hours 5000 750,000 750,000 Building team culture Building teams within the company March [13-14] 200 Employees 18 hours 5, 000 1,000,000 1,000,000 Building teams within management April [17-18] 10 Senior Managers 18 hours 11,000 110,000 110,000 Team Leadership May [9-10] 50 Managers 18 hours 7,000 350,000 350,000 Assertiveness Training Oct [14 -15] Oct [29-30] Nov [8-9] Nov [28-29] Dec [12-13] 200 Employees 10 hours 3,000 600,000 3,000,000 Performance management Training on Performance Management Dec [20-21] 50 Managers 18 hours 5000 250,000 250,000 Total Cost 9,210,000 4. Evaluation Evaluation is a critical part of any successful HRD training and development programs. The framework should be prepared in such a manner, that information can be easily generated in relation to the impact of the training, and the learning on the employees. Also the contribution of such trainings on the work in the organization has to be evaluated to measure that how the cost borne by the company for training the employees was fruitful for them. So a cost benefit analysis can be drawn to understand it better. RACQ should evaluate the outcomes of their training utilizing various ways available for evaluation. The purpose would be to determine that whether the training has been successful enough to achieve the desired objectives of the company. Here we would be suggesting RACQ to follow the Kirkpatrick model for evaluating the outcomes of the recommended training programs. Kirkpatrick model is a goal-based theory (Kirkpatrick, 2009, p. 176-177). It is also known as a four level model because of the four components, such as Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results. Reaction includes gathering the data on the reactions of the participants after the training programs (DuBois, 1993, p. 231-233). This can be done by distributing questionnaire among the participant after the training to answer the questions. Otherwise the participants can be asked to submit an after training report containing a detailed analysis of the training learning (Thackwray, 1997, p. 17-20). Leaning includes understanding or evaluating that the objectives to conduct the training session have been fulfilled or not. Behavior deals with the changes in the way of working or behavior that could be seen in the participants of the training session. Finally the results are compiled, which includes the impact of such training on the organization in financial and nonfinancial terms, the improvement in the quality of work generated, and also the efficiency of the employees. In this context RACQ can follow the model to evaluate each training program, the cost incurred for those, the performance enhancement that has been notice among those employee due to such trainings, the benefits (financial and non-financial) the company has been able to derive, and the improvement in the organizational culture which was the major issue. 5. Conclusion This study is based on the recommendations, which includes the HRD plans for RACQ, which is facing challenges in maintaining a sustainable organizational culture. The motive was to analyze the SHRD theories and approaches for recommending appropriate training and development plans or programs for RACQ. Not only are the programs suggested, but a detailed implementation framework for initiating and completing those training programs has also been described through diagrammatic representation. The training programs were mainly service culture, team building culture, leadership skill enhancement driven. Each of these criteria formed the basis of the training programs that were designing in this study. The implementation plan was explained through a flow chart which roughly describes step by step process of implementation. Also a hypothetical cost of training along with the target dates and duration table has been formulated so as to give an assumption to the senior managers of RACQ, as how to proceed with the training and development plans. The last step is the evaluation of the training programs that has been designed and implemented. Evaluation is very critical because the training programs are very vital for the organization in terms of finances and performance. The Kirkpatrick model for evaluation has been utilized here so as to assist RACQ in evaluating the after effects of the training program. The four step model covers all the aspects that a company requires while evaluating training and development programs. References Albrecht, S. L., 2010. Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and Practice. Cheltenham, Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cengia, G., 2012. Employee Engagement. Resource management [e-journal] Available through: BNP Media [Accessed 10 October 2012]. DuBois, D. D., 1993. Competency-Based Performance Improvement: A Strategy for Organizational Change. Massachusetts: Human Resource Development. Grieves, J., 2003. Strategic Human Resource Development. California: SAGE publication. Kirkpatrick, D. L., 2009. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. California: ReadHowYouWant.com. Kumar, B., and Hansra, B. S., 2000. Extension Education for Human Resource Development. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Reid, M. A., Barrington, H., and Brown, M., 2004. Human Resource Development. 7th ed. London: CIPD Publishing Thackwray, B., 1997. Effective Evaluation of Training and Development in HE. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Werner, J. M., and DeSimon, R. L., 2011. Human Resource Development. 6th ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Wilson, J. P., 2012. International Human Resource Development: Learning, Education and Training for Individuals and Organizations. 3rd ed. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Read More