Benchmark Assignment – Training and Development

Training and development prompts a change within an organization. The goal of training is to identify areas for improvement and develop materials and opportunities to educate employees in order to support growth.

For this assignment, you are required to develop a small training exercise. Review your needs assessment and previous observations conducted on your work environment to help identify one area for improvement that would benefit a part of your organization. This training exercise does not need to be implemented, but should include at least one deliverable that you could use during the training exercise. As you are reviewing your organization, consider employee engagement, systems, procedures, communication, and the culture within the organization. These are suggestions for possible areas that could benefit from a training exercise. The training must include the following:

1. What goal is the organization trying to accomplish?
2. What processes or procedures will change after the training?
3. Describe the strategies or actions involved in the training exercise to meet established goals. What is the expected performance or applications after the training? How will the strategies drive successful business results and improve employee performance?
4. How will the organization provide support to the employees receiving training? To new employees? Does this support consider strengths and weaknesses within the organization?

You are required to develop a written description (1,000 words) including one visual for your training exercise. Be sure to take time to analyze your work surroundings and identify a need for further training and development.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

 

Read pp. 13–22 of the SHRM report on Retaining Talent (pp. 2–11 of the report).

Consider your current job or one you used to hold. 

To what extent did you experience the three types of connections that foster “embeddedness” described in the report: links, fit, and sacrifice? 

How did your experience influence your longevity with the organization?

Include at least one citation and reference in your initial post and respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

Michelle, Elena, and the Mobile Manufacturing, Inc. (MM) board of directors know how important it is to understand the environment in which it is operating. They hired you—a highly-regarded marketing consultant—to bring a fresh perspective to the marketing plan. You are scheduled to meet with Michelle and Elena next week to discuss the environmental conditions that are relevant to introducing the new product.

As you prepare for the meeting, you consider all of the possible environmental issues. You recognize that Elena brings an interesting perspective to the process because she has experience designing mobile phones for the Eastern European market, and she is pushing for a new product that can be marketed worldwide. On the other hand, Michelle is more concerned with the domestic marketplace and is worried that trying to market a new product anywhere outside the United States—much less worldwide—could be very risky.

You sit down to start your work on the marketing plan, and you begin by drafting some goals that the marketing plan needs to address.

Walking through the halls at MM, you ponder the job that lies ahead. Coming out of her office, Michelle spots you and heads in your direction.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says. “Have you settled into your office?”
“Yes,” you say. “I’m eager to get started.”
Michelle enters your office and takes a seat in a chair. “I’m scheduled to make a presentation to the board at the quarterly meeting next week. I know it’s short notice, but I was wondering if you could pull together a 30-minute presentation for them?” she asks.
“What would you like me to present?” you ask.
“As you know, you and Elena have been brought on to revitalize the product line for the company. Your role is to create a winning marketing plan that will allow us to capitalize on the new product that Elena is designing. The board would like you to discuss some of the issues that you will be considering as you develop the marketing plan for the new product. I know they’re especially interested in your thoughts on the global market.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” you say.

Consider the environmental variables (i.e., technological, demographic, economic, political, and cultural variables) that you must include in your marketing plan, and answer the following:

• Which of the environmental factors do you feel is the most critical, and why?
• What might someone with an opposing viewpoint think is the most important?
  • Given this opposing argument, how would you argue your opinion?
• What solutions should be considered as you seek to develop a sense of ownership of your plan?
• What solutions would you recommend to the board, and why?
• Is a compromise feasible?

400 WORDS 2 REFERENCEs

Word Length: 1,000 words (10% leeway). Students should aim to produce an answer of the recommended length and may be penalised for answers which exceed the word limit by 10% of the recommended length.

Task:  

The client legal advice will require students to provide a written advice to a hypothetical client in relation to a specific factual scenario (or scenarios) that draw on common issues that arise in practice. Students will apply their knowledge of employment and industrial law in order to provide this advice and to answer the specific questions about that factual scenario. 

A bibliography is not required and there is no requirement to set out answers in a letter format. Please use appropriate legal referencing [but note that full citations are not necessary: you can use an abbreviated statute name eg FW Act, s311 (when referring to the sections of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth))].

Before commencing preparation for this task, it is strongly advisable for students to read the UTS Law Faculty’s Guide to Written Communicationhttp://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/law-form-guide-written-communication.pdf . This guide has a section on writing a legal problem question (which is the same aswriting a legal advice).

Turnitin: 

Essays must be submitted online through the turnitin application on UTSCanvas by the due 

date. All essays will be subject to an originality check through turnitin and the results may be 

used in the assessment of the essay. Please use the “UTS: Law Assignment Cover Sheet For Online Submission” 

No extension after assessment handed back: Please note that extensions will only be granted on the basis of illness, misadventure or disability.  Extensions will not be granted for a date after the assessment task is handed back to students. 

Avoiding Academic Misconduct: 

It is the responsibility of each student to not commit academic misconduct (including attempts by students to procure ghost written material, cheat, plagiarise or otherwise act dishonestly in undertaking an assessment task or assisting other students to do so) in the completion and submission of assessment assignments. Students must submit original work (student’s own work and not previously submitted for assessment) for each assessment task. 

Please see the employment and industrial law 79034 subject outline for more information on academic misconduct by students. 

Assessment grading criteria 

• Correct identification of important legal issues.  • Correct application of relevant cases and statutory materials • Succinctness, precision, clarity and persuasiveness of writing and arguments  • Correct advice on the appropriate action to take 

  

Select or create an organization for the authentic assessment. In this first assignment, you will begin to develop a training needs analysis (TNA) for your chosen organization. Company is Seventh Sense, a retail CBD company that is doing badly. 

Provide information about the organization and its needs regarding the training issue:

This should include general, high level information about the company in terms of product/services, size, geography, workforce attributes, etc. The training issue is the problem or challenge (could be deficiency OR need based on a predicted change in the operation, workforce, etc.). Here this should be “high level”, focused on the organization (not specifically the individual workers yet).

Determine the group or individuals who will receive the training:

This should include information about the target audience as it will impact the training developed – including demographic information, type of work, location of work, etc.

Identify the training issue:

This is a continuation from item 1. Here you will focus more on the individual workers and/or teams.

NOTE: the training issue should NOT be that they lack training. It should be tied to a performance deficiency or need. 

Provide a training needs assessment questionnaire:

The questionnaire should provide insight into the training need/gap; therefore it should focus on the training issue itself – choose questions that provide insight to the issue. In a sense, the questionnaire helps you identify and analyze the “why” (e.g., if you are addressing a performance issue, the questionnaire would help you hone in on the real issue).

SUGGESTION: think hard about using questions that ask how the audience “feels” about something – you want to obtain the most tangible and useful information.

NOTE: you will NOT administer the questionnaire! 

Your questionnaire should be included as an appendix to your paper – inserting questions within the narrative of your paper does not suffice.

Explain how the questionnaire will be utilized and will lead to the development of training outcomes/learning objectives within your written report:

Here you will essentially validate the questions posed in your questionnaire – if you can’t do that, you should probably revisit your questions.

You will probably not have the time or resources to implement the questionnaire or compile all the organizational and training-specific information necessary to complete the TNA. (If you are able to get real data and results, great! Otherwise, be creative and fabricate results.) The goal is to understand how a TNA is done effectively and to practice completing one.

(Assignment 2 items below)

Include at least three training outcomes, based on the TNA

Identify the expected performance of the group or individuals as a result of the training

Identify performance gaps and detail how training can help close those gaps

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-business/chapter/developing-employees/

https://trainingindustry.com/wiki/content-development/addie-model/

https://simplifytraining.com/article/creating-a-custom-training-plan/