Organization, Sporting Goods Store, Research Paper Example

Abstract

The Big 5 sporting goods corporation has developed a broad employee training program that is customized for every store’s position. All employees in the corporation are offered reference and orientation materials that emphasize on excellence in selling skills and customer service. The corporation has a tiered training curriculum that entails individual instruction, seminars and performance evaluations to encourage consistency in employee progress. This enhances employee engagement to guarantee that employees’ performance is aligned with the organization’s objectives, improves in profitability, and gives a competitive advantage over its rivals in the market.

Introduction

This paper posits to explore and develop an employee appropriate training program in the perspective of the Big 5 sporting goods corporation.  Big 5 sporting goods corporation is a top sporting goods retailing corporation in the United States. The Big 5 sporting goods corporation has developed a broad employee training program that is customized for every store’s position. All employees in the corporation are offered reference and orientation materials that emphasize on excellence in selling skills and customer service. The corporation has a tiered training curriculum that entails individual instruction, seminars and performance evaluations to encourage consistency in employee progress. (Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation, 2011).

The Five-Step Process to Develop the Appropriate Training Program

Implementing an employee training model that incorporates several capabilities in one umbrella requires that the model aligns training, responsibility assignment, responsibility scheduling, quality assurance as well as career development. Such a model would ensure that the employees acquire the requisite skills to provide service quality to customers (Allen et al, 2006).

Such a model must be based on the following five steps namely:

Step 1: Plan

Step 2: Deliver

Step 3: Control

Step 4: Analyze

Step 5: Develop

Step 1: Plan

Communications channels in organizations are not homogeneous and neither do they require the similar skill sets for effective customer interactions. A good employee training model recognizes this fact, and therefore forecasts schedule employees based on authentic trends across the different contemporary communication channels. By facilitating employees to communicate via the appropriate conversation channels, these communication channels become instruments that guarantee that resources are consistently aligned by connecting schedules with developmental plans, skills and training.

Step 2: Deliver

Employee expertise levels should be assessed from the initial stages when the employee is hired to the time the employee leaves the organization. A good employee training model presents employees with a developmental path via constant coaching and monitoring. Tracking skill progression is a centralized technique that has the capability to generate updates for training programs, personnel management scheduling, and routing stratagem to guarantee client interactions and responsibilities are assigned to the employees best suited to handle them.

Step 3: Control

Once the organization has implemented a plan and defined the key performance indicators (KPIs), a good employee training model ensures that the organization meets the service level agreements (SLAs). The organization may also leverage these instruments to present its employees with scorecards to enable them to monitor their individual progress commensurate to the specific goals they are assigned.

Step 4: Analyze

The organization requires to establish what requisite skills individual workers posses or do not possess. This is vital for routing clientele to the appropriate customer service representative. This also facilitates successful identification of and addressing of any gaps in personnel skills. The organization can institute best-practice benchmarks and implement interactive tests, appraise quality scores from documented contacts as well as screen captures, and execute consumer feedback surveys. These should be correlated to attain a 360-degree perspective of employee performance.

Step 5: Develop

Once the organization establishes the existing skill gaps as well as best employee practices, the organization require to address these areas by vigorously creating, scheduling and managing tailored coaching and training programs.

Conclusion

The principle behind an employee training model is to: Proactively discover workforce needs; acquire the accurate insight into employee gaps and profiles; present the appropriate training at the appropriate time to guarantee that the right people are in the right roles. With an employee training Model, organizations have the potential to filter out low-tier performers, and continue motivating the top-tier performers, and focus on moving mid-tier performers into the top tier by means of appropriate (Hargrove, 2000).

References

Allen, T.D., Lentz, E., & Day, R. (2006). Career Success Outcomes Associated With Mentoring Others: A Comparison Of Mentors And Non- Mentors. Journal of Career Development, 32, 3, 272-285.

Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation. (2011). United States Securities and Exchange Commission Annual Report Pursuant To Section 13 For The Fiscal Year Ended January 2, 2011.

Burke, Kay. (2002). Mentoring Guidebook. “Starting the Journey” (Ed), Arlington Heights, Ill: Skylight Professional Development, Second Edition, 2002

Hargrove, Robert. (2000). Masterful Coaching Field Book. Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer. It Builds The Business Case For A “Coaching Mindset” And Develops A Method Called The “Five   Step Coaching Model.” ISBN: 0-7879-4755-5