Evaluation Of Methods For Identifying And Meeting Organizational Learning Needs

Organizational Background

Produce a report which evaluates the methods used to identify and meet learning needs with reference to organisational factors, including complying with policies on equal opportunities and factors to do with the target audience.

With the expansion of organizations and increase in competition, Human Resource Management has evolved as a critical business functions. One of the objective of HR managers is to ensure that a culture of organizational learning and development could be established. In order to develop a culture of learning and development, it is important that organization and HR managers should take the inputs from employees and other stakeholders. In an organizational setting, different employees could have different learning needs and it is important that a learning environment should be created that could address to the needs of different stakeholders. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the methods used to identify and meet learning needs with reference to organizational factors, including complying with policies on equal opportunities and factors to do with the target audience. As a part of this report two learning interventions would be discussed that could optimize the organization performance.  A brief organizational background can be discussed as:

The organization for this report is a small IT (Information Technology) company based out in Sydney. The company has an employee strength of 90 people. The company was established by Sam in 2012 and known as Weblogica. The company provides IT services it various clients in Australia. The services include website development, maintenance, mobile application development, etc. In recent times, there has been an increase in the demand with e commerce and mobile commerce. With an increase in demand, the demand for software engineers have also increased and company is struggling to keep the talent on board. The attrition rate has been high for the company and it has also struggled to get the talent from outside due to high cost. Sam realizes that he must develop strategies and policies so that employees remain committed and motivated to work for Weblogica.

 Sam realizes that employees are leaving the company due to two main reasons. One of the reasons is the external opportunities and the second reasons is the lack of development in the organization. There are very few training and development programs for engineers and work culture is not very good. Engineers are expected to work 50 hours per week, as work pressure is high. Sam believes that he has little control over external environment. However, he can manage the internal factors. The two examples of learning needs that needs to be address by Sam can be discussed as:

• Training and Development programs for employees so that employee can learn grow and develop in same organization
   
• Focus on a flexible organizational culture so that employees can attain a work life balance
  The target audience for both of these organizational learning are engineers in the organization that would work day and night to keep the projects on track. These learning needs have aroused because Weblogica has been able to increase the business but it has not been able to increase its employee strength. Moreover, attrition rate has been high and it means that limited number of employees has to do a large amount of work.

Meeting Organizational Development Needs

It is important for Sam to address these learning needs immediately. Weblogica is a small company as they are fortunate enough that market is growing. In order to have organization grow along with industry, Weblogica must focus on employee growth and employee development. It is important that Sam should realize that its employees are its biggest assets as company would not be able to fulfil any business unless it has got talented and committed employees. The organizational performance could be sustainable only when it has loyal employees who are willing to remain attached with the firm. It can happen only when organization also cares about employees. It can be said that employees should get a feeling of self-belongingness while working for Weblogica.

 Any plan for organization and employee learning does bring additional investment and this plan would also have cost considerations. However, it is expected that Sam would be able to get good return on its investment as market is growing. In long term, the focus of organization should be to create a community of practice. It is a group of people who share a craft and/or a profession. With this community of practice, the existing employees would be able to learn from the experiences of other employees.

The following approach and intervention strategies would be used to meet organizational learning goals:

Analyze: The first step would be to analyze other and large companies in same sector would be studied to do benchmarking. The benchmarking would help Weblogica to define the current state and target state. It would help to do the gap analysis.

Design: A training and learning plan would be designed for employees. This training plan would be developed based on the gaps identified in the analyze phase.

Develop: Employee feedback would be taken and training plan would be developed. There could be some modifications in the training and development plans based on the feedback from employees.

Implement: Weblogica is a small company of 90 employees, there would be one instance of implementation. Out of 90 employees, 80 are engineers. These 80 employees would be divided into a group of 20 each. It would be a random group formation.

Evaluate: Feedback from employees would help to evaluate. The evaluation would also help to design future intervention plan.

Methods	Advantages/ Disadvantages	Where most useful?	Suitability for small team of 80 engineers	Evaluation
Skill Matrix	Systematic way to understand training need. Different stakeholders can contribute at the same time	Large organizations which have multiple teams and groups	Yes, it is suitable. However, better alternatives are available for small group size of 80 employees	It could be used
Interview	Effective way but time consuming	Very small Team	No, this option is not recommend for 80 people, as it would take lot of time.	It should be avoided
Group discussions	Efficient way	Small Organization	Yes, it should be a preferred option	It should be used

Possible Learning Interventions	Key Features and Methods	Suitability for your target audience	Evaluation
Web based Coaching	Efficient way to reach large group. A web based training program for 30 hours	Group size is small (80). It is suitable but not the best of method	This could be used
Classroom based training	Interactive and most useful method but time consuming. An instructor with 20 engineers. So, a total of 4 batches	The group size is small. This is the most suitable method, as employees would get personal attention.	This should be used
E-learning	Self-learning material to focus on self-learning and growth	This is recommended for large group size	This should be avoided

Evaluation model	Description	What is the model most useful for?	Suitability
Kirkpatrick	Kirkpatrick’s four levels are designed as a sequence of ways to evaluate training programs. Four levels: Reaction, Learning, Behavior and Results	It is most widely used in mid-size and large organizations where team size is bigger and a formal way to evaluate and feedback is required	It could be used
CIRO	The CIRO approach to evaluate training impact is and another 4 level approach which is originally developed by Warr,Bird and Racham. It is unique was to classify evaluation process. Four Levels: Context evaluation, Input evaluation, Reaction evaluation, Outcome evaluation	It could be used in both large and small setting with both formal and informal organizational design. It should be best suited for a small team size of 80 engineers. It would help to monitor the progress and performance of employees	It should be used

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, the learning intervention that appears to be best in this case is ‘Classroom teaching’. Weblogica would arrange the training program for a small group of 80 employees. It is important that this training should be more interactive in nature and this would not be possible in an e-learning environment. Therefore, Weblogica should use the method where employees can interact with each other and discuss their issues and suggestions. Another method that could be used should be Web based coaching. This method is not as good as classroom teaching but this is definitely better than e learning. With the classroom method, the group of 80 engineers would be divided into 4 batches. Each group of 20 employees would have an instructor. As a part of training sessions, Sam would also take the session for these employees. Sam should also realize that training and development should not be a onetime activity for Weblogica but a continuous activity.

References

CIPD Research Report (2005) : High performance work practices: linking strategy and skills to performance outcomes. Downloadable from:

www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/research/high-performance-work-practices.aspx

Fairhurst, P. (2009).  Learning and development: perspectives on the future . IES opinion

www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/op19.pdf

CIPD Factsheet (2015) Learning and Development Strategy

www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/learning-talent-development-strategy.aspx

Equality and Human Rights Commission (2009): Performance, training and development:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/your-rights/equal-rights/disability/disability-in-employment/performance-training-and-development

CIPD Learning and Development Survey (2014) downloadable from:

www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/survey-reports/learning-development-2014.aspx

Mindtools: Learning styles: understanding learning preferences

www.mindtools.com/mnemlsty.html

VARK- The Vark Questionnaire: how do I learn best?

https://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/

Businessballs: Free VAK learning styles test

www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm

CIPD Factsheet (2015) Identifying Learning and Development needs

www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/identifying-learning-talent-development-needs.aspx