Developing Employees Skills through Training - Example

Name Title Course Date Develop Operational Plan Strategic goal Operation activity Person/Title Measurement Timeline Employer of Highly Skilled People Implementing a new comprehensive recruitment policy Developing employees’ skills through training Human Resource Manager/ Operations Manager Profiles Performance Indicator Jan-April Expand market share in the high-end, high price point, luxury goods market Conducting a market research on our target customers Promotion and advertising Marketing Manager Demographic analysis of (potential customers) applying to become customers New customers acquired Jan-Feb Being the premium luxury goods manufacturer in our product category Manufacturing and producing innovative goods Implementing a Quality Control to ensure our goods are of high quality Inventory Control Marketing Manager/Quality Control Manager Rejection rate Customer Satisfaction Index Feb-March Increase the percentage of the productive capacity devoted to the manufacture of luxury goods Redesigning the existing manufacturing line to produce more goods Implement a program for improving labor as well as capital productivity Production Manager/Sales Manager Return on Investment (ROI) Cycle time ratio Feb-June Strategic Goal Employer of Highly Skilled People Operational Activity Developing employees’ skills through training Increasing the personnel and improving their skills; the recruitment will be conducted through an extensive training program, to make sure they have the required skills. The current personnel are knowledgeable about the organization’s required skills and their skills will be maintained and improved through continuous product development and skill training. The company will only employ the people who share the organization’s vision. In this regard, the organization will develop knowledge and skills among its workers by using training and development programs as well as career planning that will provide the workers with experiences in different tasks, businesses, areas and functions. Generally, teaching values is normally difficult since it entails a combination of taking good inputs by careful recruitment as well as selection programs. Additionally, it also requires wide training and communication of the organizational mission and values in order to encourage the behaviors that organization wants (Kaplan and Norton, 2008: p. 152). Implementing a New Comprehensive Recruitment Policy Recruitment will be conducted by the candidates going through a comprehensive recruitment program to make sure that they will be in position to offer superior product knowledge regarding the company’s products. Only the individuals who have a passion for luxury goods will be recruited and this means only people who share the business’ vision will be recruited: Compliance with collective bargaining agreements and hence it the company’s policy to adhere to each and every provision specified within the collective bargaining agreements. Job advertisements will have the job classification and a brief description of the position. The selection process shall include reviewing of formal applications and suitable administrator will be responsible for completion of at least two reference checks from preceding employers prior to making any attempt for hire and attempt to verify information like current salary, employment checks and titles (Nada 20). Person/Title The Human Resource Manager is responsible for recruitment of organizational employees through a successful training program. The operations manager will be responsible for providing training to each and every organizational staff and ensure the organization’s ability to grow. Human resource manager shall be responsible for establishing the scope and recruitment duration and needs as well. Additionally, human resource manager will also be responsible for advertising the available vacancies. It is the responsibility of human resources to receive, track and store all applications. Only applications that has been gotten and acknowledged by the human resource can be considered for interview. Measurement Profile performance indicator will be used to measure the employees’ productivity tendencies regarding the quality of their work, their initiative, teamwork and their problem solving skills. This measurement will help the organization in predicting how the employees respond to stress allied to work, frustration and conflict, in addition to their motivational tendencies. As a result, the profiles performance indicator of the organizational employees will give the management the information it can utilize in individualizing training and motivational efforts and communicate more efficiently with the employees. Additionally, it will provide feedback to assist the organization in building productive teams, developing efficient employees, training a strong sales workforce, improving customer service and easing work frustrations and interpersonal conflicts and eventually ending up with employees with high skills (Farris 5). Timeline This strategy will take about four months since the employees skills will have to be assessed after some period of time and thus the assessment will take place after the first quarter of the organization. As a result, this activity is estimated to end on April at the end of the organization’s first quarter. Jan-April Budget Wages $10,000 Employer payroll taxes (12%) 1,200 IRA retirement (3%) 300 Worker's compensation insurance (3%) 300 Total payroll cost: $13,000 Strategic Goal Expand market share in the high-end, high price point, luxury goods market Operational Activity Conducting a Market Research A market research will be conducted to know our target customers, and know their needs so as to understand the external factors that could affect the organization’s success of broadening the market share. The market research will also entail researching on any changes in the luxury goods market in order to identify the available market opportunities. Information that will be obtained through market research will assist the organization in focusing on its product developing efforts and also the organization sales and marketing strategies with the sole aim of increasing the market share. Promotion and Advertising The operational activity promotion and advertising which will increase customer base, selling more to existing clients, selling into new markets and lastly focusing marketing efforts to retain customers. Therefore, the key goal will be to maximize market share through selling more to existing customers as well as potential customers. The marketing efforts to retain customers will include promotions, whereby the most essential promotion strategy will be through WORD OF MOUTH. It is well known that word-of-mouth marketing can be any business’ best friend or worst foe (Cullen, 12). Additionally, the organization will also be advertised through media and internet to reach more customers. In advertising, the company will use internet, radio, and television as the medium of advertisement. Additionally, about 6,000 brochures will be printed for increasing awareness within the market regarding the organization (Michael, 45).  Other promotional strategies that will be used include price deals. Normally, in price deals, the buyer is saved the money when a product is bought. In this case, the price deals will include discounts as they will encourage trial usage of the organization’s products and thus new customers will be recruited and also it will convince existing customers to increase their purchases. Basically, customers learn regarding price discounts through advertisements and this will include television and newspaper advertisements. Another form of price deal that will be offered is the branded pack. Here, the organization will give an extra amount of the product free every time a person buys a standard size of the product at the normal price (Michael, 45-46). Person/Title The marketing manager will oversee the successful promotion of the organizational products. The sales procedure should be innovative. The marketing manager should utilize targeted prospecting and pre-approach qualifying methods and establish the type of new customers who will find value in the organization’s products. It is also the responsibility of the marketing manager to assign the organization’s marketing employees to conduct a thorough research (Porter, 28-30). Measurement Increasing market share will be measured by the demographic analysis of potential customers applying to become customers as well as the number of the new customers acquired. This will show if the organization has achieved its objective of gaining market share through the number of potential customers and the newly acquired customers (Farris 6). Person/Title This goal will be carried out by the marketing manager. This is because the marketing manager has the responsibility of creating important messages through words, images and initiatives that deliver upon the promises/benefits an organization aims at making with its clients. What’s more, the marketing manager will also ensure that messages and images are delivered constantly by all organizational members. Timeline This activity will take about two months and therefore it is estimated to end at February 2013. Budget Strategic Goal Being the premium luxury goods manufacturer in our product category Operational Activity Manufacturing and Producing Innovative Goods Offering innovative products: This will involve the long wave of value creation of the organization’s products and thus the organization will be able to effectively manage a multiyear product-development process and also develop a capacity to reach entirely new classes of customers. The organizational marketers should make sure that the recognition value of the organization’s brands is always high as this will lend a sense of wealth to the consumer, and this only comes if other people around the consumer recognize the brand to be a top luxury brand. Accordingly, the marketers should aim at aligning its products with the most popular and successful celebrities (Porter 46-48). The marketers should also add customized value to the organizational products as this will make customers feel that they are getting something better than the normal variety of available luxury goods. Moreover, since most consumers of luxury goods prefer accessing the luxury products before anyone else, the organization’s marketers ensure that they reach the customers faster than the competitors to not only get a share of their money but also to constantly provide innovative products that serve to differentiate between the customers. Accordingly, the organizational marketers are supposed to endeavor provide newer luxury goods to the customers, according to their changing needs. Additionally, the marketers should ensure that all customers are given a high-personalized attention to prevent customers from switching to brands that satisfy their needs better. Therefore, the marketers should aim at ensuring that celebrities are partnered with at the correct time, and therefore eliminating any likelihood of competition and delivering the proper appeal message to the intended audience (Porter 45). The answer to the above mentioned aspects can come from State-of-the-art Product development. Introduction of a Research and Development department will assist the organization in developing the most appealing products to the customers. Usually, the outcome for any strategy formulation approach is to develop a direction that differentiates the organization’s position and products from the competitors in order to create a sustainable competitive advantage that results to better financial performance (Hrgarek & Bowers 25-26). Inventory Control Successful management of the inventory will ensure that the organization always has adequate stock to make its productions and therefore always produce high quality products. The physical movement of the stock will be reviewed at the end of every week, on Sunday. Since the business has just been established and it is still small, minimum stock levels basic method will be used as the inventory control method. In this method, extra stock will only be ordered when the existing stock level reaches 50 units, which will be the minimum stock level. Whenever the inventory of certain material reaches 50 units, additional stock will be ordered. This will ensure efficiency in materials usage and also effectiveness will be achieved since average stock level that will be held, which means it will neither be too low or too high. Furthermore, minimum stock maintenance will prevent storage of excess and idle stock so as to avoid business funds from being tied up unnecessarily and also it will decrease storage costs (Nada 12). In addition, the business will use the ABC classification system in managing its stock. Here, items will be grouped in accordance with the annual sales volume and this will be done in order to identify the small number of items that will account for most of the sales volume and that are the most valuable ones to control for efficient inventory control.  A computer-based financial management system will also be used and with this system, it will be possible to review the sales and marketing activities regularly. Moreover, this will make it possible for us to analyze the profitability of sales of different clients. As a result, we will be able to reward personnel basing on achieved profits and not only on sales (Nada, 14-16). Implementing a Quality Control to Ensure our Goods are of High Quality Ensuring effective quality control of the company’s products will ensure that the products sold are of high quality. Producing high quality products is one of the aspects that the organization will use as a competitive advantage in offering the highest quality luxury goods. Outline scripts will be developed to aid the sales staff in managing inquires. This will ensure that all incoming customers’ enquiries are handled in the same manner and meet high standard. We will also encourage our customers to give the feedback regarding our products and services particularly in:  The organization’s ability to manufacture high quality products The reactions of the customers after buying our products (Nada, 18). Person/Title The Quality Control manager will have the responsibility of ensuring that the organization gets superior quality assurance through indispensable measurements and that the organizational products are of high quality. The Quality Control manager will ensure that all products that end up in the market are of high quality and thus the organization will end up being the premium producer of luxury goods. Additionally, the marketing manager will has the responsibility of ensuring that the recognition value of the organization’s brands is always high. This will be accomplished by adding customized value to the organizational products as this will make customers feel that they are getting something better than the normal variety of available luxury goods. Measurement The measurement for this strategy is the “Customer Satisfaction Index”. This will measure if the organizational products are of high quality and satisfactory to the customers. The measurement will encompass a statistical procedure through suitable tools and answers from ad hoc questionnaires (Kaplan & Norton, 56-59). Rejection rate will measure the level of products that are rejected in the final stage of the production process as a result of some errors. This will help in assessing the efficacy of the production process in producing high quality goods (Farris 8). Timeline This aspect will be measurement after two months to ensure that the customers are satisfied with the organizational products and that the organization is offering the best products in the market. The overall rejection rate of the production process will also be done after two months. Therefore, it estimated to start on February 2013 and end on March 2013. Strategic Goal Increase the Percentage of the Productive Capacity Devoted to the Manufacture of Luxury Goods Operational Activity Implement a Program for Improving Labor as well as Capital Productivity The organization will implement a program for improving labor as well as capital productivity. This will be accomplished through lean manufacturing. Since the organization is a manufacturer of luxury goods, a few steps will be taken to increase energy productivity because normally energy costs can take as much as 20% of the organization’s production costs. One, the organization will adopt the methodology for lean-value-add identification since this will assist the organization in mapping energy consumption at each step of its operating procedure. S a result, this will assist the organization in computing the thermodynamically minimum energy needed and assess the actual consumption relative to the theoretical limit. Accordingly, this analysis will indicate where the productivity energy is wasted and how to avoid such losses. Secondly, the organization will also extend its lean program in order to improve energy efficiency through optimizing energy integration in both heating and cooling operations. For example, the organization can change its production process t release more heat and faster as well and this can facilitate faster evaporation and therefore reducing the energy utilized within the ensuing drying phase by a high percentage. Again, the company can use a lean-energy approach in order to do away with waste and capture saving through optimization of the interface between producers (Michael, 2010, pg 20). This can be accomplished through improvement of consumption planning and ensure that demand will not pass the threshold and it will be achieved through product design as well as value recovery of the products. Redesigning the Manufacturing Line to Produce More Goods The exiting assembly line should be rearranged numerous times whereby several iterations will be performed in all production work stations in order to do away with the idle time and reduce the number of work stations, keeping the precedence works logical and eventually furnishing the station time. This means that the production line will be redesigned through rehabilitation and reshuffling of the work stations along with workers and utilizing the newly time study data, keeping ;east possible idle time in all work stations. Eventually, there will be an assembly line with a flow oriented production system whereby the productive units will be aligned in serially. Owing to the high costs of building and maintaining an assembly line, one model will be produced with varying elements on a sole assembly line. The production line should be designed very carefully to maintain the balance efficacy at maximum level. By redesigning the production line process, all idle time as well as unnecessary delays will be eradicated and all bottlenecks in the production line will be eliminated and thus increase the production rate with significant amount of profit margin (Hannan 2). Person/Title The production Manager has the responsibility of making sure that the production process is carried out efficiently. The production manager also has the responsibility of formulation the appropriate changes in the production process. Measurement The measurements will include Return on Investment (ROI) and cycle time ratio of the production process. Return on Investment (ROI) will provide a tangible assessment of the performance of the redesigned manufacturing line to indicate if the new manufacturing line has achieved its objective of increasing production rate effectively. Cycle time ratio will encompass process time on how production units are produced as well as delay time, where a unit of work is spent waiting to take the next unit. This will also measure the efficacy of the production process (Farris 12). Timeline Redesigning of the production is evidently going to take some quality time thus it is estimated that the entire process will take about five months. Therefore, the estimated period is that the process will start on February and on June 2013. Feb-June Conclusion The above mentioned strategic initiatives form the key part of programs and actions that the organizational managers should take to ensure that the set organizational goals are achieved. The strategic goals will enable the organization to achieve its vision and thus the organization is supposed to screen and choose organizational goals though valuating their effect after accomplishing targeted performance for strategic goals and measures. All strategic goals require complete portfolios of strategic goals for the organization to achieve its set targets. Woks Cited Farris, P. Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc, 2010. Michael, H. Marketing Strategy. London: Cengage Learning, 2010. Nada, R. Operations Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Pinson, L. Anatomy of a Business Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Business and  Securing Your Company’s Future (6th Edition). Chicago: Dearborn Trade, 2008. Tourism Research Australia, State of the Industry, 2010. Hrgarek, N., & Bowers, K. Integrating Six Sigma into a quality management system in the medical device industry. Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences, 33,1, 1-12. Business School Press, 2009. Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. Having trouble with your strategy? Then map it. Harvard Business Review, September-October, 2000. Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. How to implement a new strategy without disrupting your organization. Harvard Business Review, March, 100-109, 2006. Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. The execution premium: Linking strategy to operations for competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2008. Porter, M. E. Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Free Press, 2005. Hannan, H. An Investigation of the Production Line for Enhanced Production Using Heuristic Method. International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology. Vol. 1/ 5, 2011. Read More