Case Study: Supporting Training at ABC Organization

ABC Organization is a logistics delivery service, employs over 1500 staff working throughout the nation. The majority of these employees work at one of over 20 major depots as drivers or operational loaders. The delivery and logistics industry is heavily monitored not only to ensure that flow of parcels can be tracked, but also for security reasons. ABC believes in growing their own people and promoting staff from within the company, several depot general managers started out as drivers or indoor sales executives. It is therefore important to ABC that staff have a meaningful career and development path. One of the challenges has been to change the attitude of line managers from ‘my job is getting parcels out’ to ‘my job is to develop my staff to do their jobs better’. As you might expect for an organization employing staff from drivers and loading bay operators to general managers and directors, providing the appropriate training to all is difficult.

ABC is committed to Investors in People (IiP) and has won awards for its training and development. The company firmly believes that individual learning, rather than directive training, is critical to business success. To quote from one of the managers, John Shipit, General Manager, “Training, developing and empowering your people gives you the freedom and the confidence to make changes quickly, affect your business positively and achieve results.” The benefits of this culture can be seen in better delegation, succession planning, and in reducing staff turnover – crucial when there is a national driver shortage. This view is articulated and promoted through the production of a people development charter.

All ABC managers will:

• remain actively committed to the development of ABC people
• work to build a company culture which encourages and supports learning
• lead by example in developing people
• recognize and respect the valuable contribution of our people

Your line manager will:

• actively encourage your personal and professional development
• provide you with regular feedback on your performance
• help you to continuously improve your skills and knowledge
• ensure your learning is linked to the success of your team and the company

You should:

• take responsibility for your own development and learning
• apply new skills and knowledge at your workplace
• know that whatever your job, wherever your location, you have the opportunity to develop

Supporting Training and Learning

A team of eight regional training officers, managed by a regional training manager, supports and audits the systems in place for training and learning. They must ensure that ‘what is promised’ happens. Their responsibilities include: monitoring and supporting line managers at depots; carrying out all internal audits; checking personnel files and appraisal forms. Line managers undertake appraisal training as part of their management training and carry immediate responsibility for ensuring all their staff have meaningful appraisals. The regional training officers support line managers but also check that appraisals take place annually and that any training needs that are identified are met. One of the key reasons for the success of ABC’s training and learning interventions is its evident alignment with the culture and practices of the organization.

Regular performance indicators on the training and learning efforts (for example appraisal forms completed and training requests met) are produced and discussed at management meetings. As John Strong, Head of People Development says: “It’s imperative that our line managers take their people management responsibilities seriously to enable them to develop their staff for success. The regional training officer’s role is to support and encourage line managers in their people management responsibilities as well as to report and assess how they perform against target.”

After reading this week’s case study answer the following questions.

1. Explain your understanding of the following statement and concept “growing their own people.”
2. Identify one challenge that ABC is currently facing.
3. How is training and development promoted and supported in ABC?
4. What methods does ABC employ to get the message across in order to engage as many employees as possible?
5. How are these training interventions supported in ABC?
6. Why do you think is ABC so successful in their training and learning interventions? Or are they successful? Is there any room for improvement?
7. How do training officers contribute to the training and learning intervention in ABC?
8. List the approaches for measuring performance. Should more be used? Why or why not?
9. If you were CEO for a day at ABC what would you do to ensure training was supported?

The requirements below must be met for your paper to be accepted and graded:

• Write between 1,250 – 1,750 words (approximately 3 – 5 pages) using Microsoft Word in APA style, see example below.
• Use font size 12 and 1” margins.
• Include cover page and reference page.
• At least 80% of your paper must be original content/writing.
• No more than 20% of your content/information may come from references.
• Use at least three references from outside the course material, one reference must be from EBSCOhost. Text book, lectures, and other materials in the course may be used, but are not counted toward the three reference requirement.
• Cite all reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) in the paper and list on a reference page in APA style.

References must come from sources such as, scholarly journals found in EBSCOhost, CNN, online newspapers such as, The Wall Street Journal, governmen