Approach Taken by Chris Parker, Essay Example

Critique the needs assessment approach taken by Chris Parker, Rockdale’s HR Director. If you “owned this problem,” describe the process you would have used.

The needs assessment approach taken by Chris Parker using the surveys make not have been the best approach.The idea of the survey was a good approach to determining why the Rockdale business results have been declining in the past few years. The employee’s feedback can be invaluable since they talk to the customers and have critical information on the buyer’s habits of appliances, ranges, ovens, refrigerators and washing machines. Chris Parkers plan using the survey of employee has merits such as learning about the   employees perceptions about the management styles, management polices producers and employee perceptions is important. However, the surveys to employees cannot answer why there are number absenteeism, employee turnover, and high turnover. The employees can share why they are unhappy in the work environment but the company needs to find the root cause for employee turnover. Chris Parker needs a more diverse plan that include the customer surveys, employee surveys and Human Resource support.

Chris Parker should have complete a two types of surveys: one for the employees which was completed but the second survey should include getting feedback from the Rockdale exiting and previous customers. The Rockdale existing and previous customers who can provide information about the poor quality of the product. The customer survey can provide valuable information such as identifying which products has the most defects and quantify the specific customer complaints to find some trends. The customers feedback can identify which products have the most defects and what type of defects need to be corrected. In addition, the survey of the customers can provide information that is specific to the customer complaints. In this case, both the customer and employee feedback would help the company determine the best training program to address all the deficiencies with the employees, management, internal processes and correcting defects in the products.

The secondary strategy that Chris should have utilize is allowing Human Resources (HR) to develop a survey and look at the reasons employees are leaving the company. They can take that information to building a quality training and retention program aimed at employee satisfaction.Chris Parkers plan is flawed because they do not have enough information to develop a training program for improvement with only survey from the employees. The analysis of the needs assessment needs to include the customer’s feedback to determine what type of external factors contribute to the employee training. The customers are want drives the sales of Rockdale Electric so the feedback from customers can reveal issues such as how is customer services with product defects, how does Rockdale perform in resolving the defects issues or what could Rockdale do better to retain the existing customers.

Chris Parker should have been concentrated more on the external factors because the unhappiness of the customer can ultimately cause Rockdale Electric to lose more customers leading to the closing the doors of Rockdale Electric. The best example is Kodak Film Company that received results from customers they wanted digital film options however, Kodak continue to use the old traditional way of processing film. As result, Kodak has lost a large portion of their Kodak customer base because they waited too long to make the changes.

Use the Model for Maximizing Learning (chapter 3, slide 5) to critique Parker’s approach to this particular problem. What would you have done differently? Does the Model help surface most of the problems? Having applied the Model to this situation, critique its general usefulness (i.e., What is it missing? What does it include, if anything, that may not be necessary?)

The current model utilize by Parker does not address both the employee issues and customer problems which will an additional survey from the customers to help diagnosis some of the external factors. There are several different strategies missing in Parkers plan that should be applied such as using the Human Resource department and internal training department instead of outsourcing.

The use of the Model for Maximizing Learning to critique Parker’s approach to the Rockdale internal and external problem with customers starts with determining what type of training program is best for the organization. The first issue is Parker cannot expect an outsourcing company to maximize learning for employees because the organizational learning is a continuous learning process that should be lead internally by Human Resources along with the training department. The same funding that was spent towards expensive consultants should be redirected towards building an effective and quality training program. In my opinion the first step would be the Human Resource and training department should choose the training design. The customers and employees are adults so the training design of andragogy would not work because this training method is geared towards children learning. The best training design would pedagogy because all the training will based on adults not children. Parker could have developed the training design with the Human Resource (HR) department and the training department to be based on the needs of

the Rockdale Electric Company. The training program should chose the type of instructional format will be used to maximize the learning of the employees.

The problem of Rockdale’s Electric product defects indicate that the employees that work to manufacture the product are not working towards quality. Parker should have implemented a pedagogy approach to training along with addressing other methods besides Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM is not a fix all solution to quality. The company as a whole needs to rethink the effectiveness of TQM because the outsourced company addressed with employees how to apply TQM but still they failed to improve operations. This a manufacturing environment which an alternative that may be more effective is using Just-in-Time (JIT). In order to maximize the learning the model has emphasizes training content. The training content show be transition to JIT because it evaluates the entire process flow of the manufacture to determine where quality is lacking and looking a process flows to determine why the employees have some many defects.

Finally, the Chris Parker should have used the model for maximizing learning training characteristics. This is critical to determine how the Rockdale should proceed with the training direction of employees. How the overall attitudes of the Rockdale employees in training and what was is their perception of the work environment which is critical. Rockdale needs real answers quickly therefore finding out if their perceptions of the working environment matches the employees is critical. The training characteristics portion of the program will help identify gaps such as negative events on the job, perceptions about training and more important is the employees willing to be trained and open for change. It is important that Rockdale find out what negative issues exist externally and internally because all the training interventions is useless unless they indentify the negative processes or issues and eliminate them. In addition, this training characteristic training can rebuild the relationship between the employee and the company. The employees will be motivated by the efforts of the Rockdale to address their needs and provide them with the best tools to succeed. The perception that Rockdale Electric is truly interested in their employees can go a long way in building a new training methods that are effective changing the business climate.

At the conclusion of “Winning with People,” the Rockdale Electric Executive Committee will want to know whether the training was a success. Design the best possible evaluation approach for this training intervention.

The best way to evaluate the “Winning with People” training model is a results-based intervention that evaluates the performance of the company is these identify errors prior to training and the results after the “Winning with People” training models.  The Rockdale Electric Executive Committee wants to know if the training program was successful and did the company make a good investment in the “Winning with People” training program. The evaluation should be three fold such as the type of delivery or training design, the responsiveness of the employees to the training and what was the impact of the training in defects, absenteeism, customer complaints and employee turnover. However, the most weight must be given to the end results of the training program. Was the program training successful in changing the perceptions of the employees about the quality and improving defects? Did the training improve any of the problem areas such as employee turnover, absenteeism, and customer complaints? The bottom line is the training did not improve Rockdale’s problems or eliminating them the “Winning with People” training was not successful.

What additional information (if any) would have improved the quality of your recommendations?

The company needs to utilize an alternative quality methods in addition to Total Quality Management which is Just-in-Time production methods. The quality issue with TQM can resolve some of the issues at Rockdale Electric but in a manufacturing environment it has been proven that JIT works because it evaluates all the processes from the moment the product is made in the factory to the moment the customer buys the product. JIT will help the company identify waste, eliminate defects, leveling control mechanisms and creating a flawless operation flow that produces zero defects.