INTRODUCTION TO

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Assignment No. 07
Submitted to: Mam Kanwal
Group Members
Sami Ullah Warraich 16-Arid-1552
Abbas Tahir 16-Arid-1507
Case Study: Learning and Development at
Choc Co.
Online Case Study: Learning and Development at Choc Co.

Choc Co. is one of the world's largest confectionery businesses with significant market share in
many of the world's biggest confectionery markets, including many emerging markets. It has a
long and proud tradition, stretching back more than 150 years, including a long history of
developing its employees, which has remained part of its ethos during its progress to becoming a
global company.

Despite very positive sales figures over the last 12months, Choc Co. has prioritized
streamlining the business to make it more competitive and has placed a strong emphasis on
reducing cost over the next 18 months. Despite being keen to preserve its longstanding
reputation as a firm that is committed to developing all its employees, in respect of learning and
development, this ‘streamlining’ activity has focused on:

 Ensuring a clear return on investment in training activities

 Changing the way that learning programmers are delivered and being more creative in
developing approaches to learning
 Connecting training activities to the strategic needs of the firm.

The most important driver of the assessment of its training provision at Choc Co. is change.
Whilst performing well in the marketplace, senior management continue to express discontent
with levels of productivity and employee performance. Moreover, senior management has
determined that the company needs to become more flexible and adaptable to respond to change
in its market context, for example by an ability to adapt organizational structures to meet new
business needs or through the introduction of technological innovation. However, as a
traditionally minded employer, and with low levels of employee turnover at shop floor level,
Choc co. appears to have instilled in its workers a mindset of stability and steady progress, which
is at odds with competition in a rapidly changing global economy. Therefore, Choc Co. wants to
move towards a system of continuous improvement by creating a culture whereby workers are
empowered to implement small incremental changes, rather than have substantial change
imposed on them from time to time.

Identifying training needs

Traditionally, training needs analysis at Choc Co. has been ‘gap-led’. In other words,
training tends to be focused where Choc Co. identifies a gap in capability – for example, where
the introduction of new technology requires worker skill to be updated, company policy is
changed or a key worker leaves the firm, requiring training to be provided to their replacement.

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Typically this gap-led identification of need is conducted at a local level, with little reference
made to the wider national or international workforce.

Whilst workers can put themselves forward for training courses, including those provided
by local education providers, there is no formal channel for doing this and access to such training
often comes down to personal relationships and the constraints imposed by departmental
budgets. The culture at Choc Co. is very much one in which training needs are typically
identified for workers rather than by workers.

Delivery of training

Currently, the company runs a number of large training events each year designed to
update manufacturing staff on everything from health and safety changes, business strategy and
company performance to the adoption of new production technology. This is sometimes coupled
with skills training for these workers as and when appropriate. This has traditionally been done at
the specialist training centre at their largest production facility, which doubles as the company’s
headquarters. This practice partly stems from a time when the company only operated two
production facilities in the country. It now operates across six geographically dispersed locations.
Workers tend to view these training events as a bit of a waste of time, particularly when they are
delivered by consultants with little real understanding of working processes at Choc Co. It is not
unknown for workers to claim that the training they receive is outdated and tells them nothing
that they don’t already know.

The head of training and development, responding to a call to cut costs from the HR
director, is now of the opinion, however, that such long training programmers, often of up to
three or four days, are no longer the most cost-effective and efficient means by which to develop
the staff. Such training has the dual problem of requiring regular investment and repeat sessions
to cover workers on different shifts or at different plants, as well as leading to undesirable
downtime of certain aspects of production. In particular, the head of L&D is keen to reduce a
reliance on external training providers to design and deliver interventions to different workforce
groups, from senior management to shop floor workers.

Moreover, the company has historically not evaluated the impact of these events. In the
new era of cost-cutting and added value, however, the company is keen to ensure that the impact
of all training interventions, however big or small, is measured.

Employee development programmers

A major investment in L&D at Choc Co. is in its manufacturing apprenticeship scheme

and graduate development programmer, both of which are widely viewed as models of good
practice in the industry and beyond. These programmers are, however, under significant scrutiny
by senior management to better understand the extent to which this investment provides value to
the firm. One particular area under review is the turnover of employees who complete these
programmers and then leave to work at other firms.

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 Ray Barbie, the head of learning and development at Choc Co. recently attended a
seminar at a local university on ‘the changing nature of workplace HRD’. He was slightly
alarmed to find out that much of the company’s practice was seen as outdated. In particular, he
was interested in examining how some more contemporary approaches and techniques in HRD
could help the company both reduce costs and better performance through continuous
improvement.

Questions

1. What changes would you recommend that Choc Co. make to their current learning and
development provision in order to reduce costs and improve performance?

From my point of view, I recommend the following changes to Choc Co to reduce their
cost and improve performance with their current learning.

 The first changes are the choc co-employees must receive in-depth training to
complete an everyday task. They can reduce the training cost of the company for
their employees. Complying with federal regulations and ensuring that workers
can follow strict guidelines regularly is vital, but unnecessary tutorials could be
eliminated.
 The second changes are the choc co may have hired outside professionals to
develop and provide tutorials to workers, developing in house materials can help
your firm save money. It is important to ensure the quality of any training
materials your company creates on-site. Review past tutorials to fully understand
what information should be included. Additionally, reach out to staff members
and managers for feedback, as these professionals can provide valuable insights to
company officials.
 The third changes that the choc co wants new hires to become valuable
contributors, and on the job, training can come in many forms. While your
business could have used an extensive training program in the past, options such
as job shadowing and mentoring could help new staff members. Experienced
personnel can offer guidance to new hires, and the hands-on training could deliver
immediate results for your company. Business professionals who hit the ground
running can provide assistance in several ways. These specialists will learn
exactly what it takes to accomplish regular tasks and become comfortable with
their peers and work environments. Companies also can enjoy reduced training
costs by eliminating specific programs from their budgets.
 The fourth solution that will be helpful for the choc co are the Plenty of online
avenues are available to firms that want to reduce their annual expenses. Many
companies invest in the webinar, web conferencing and video conferencing
solutions, as these platforms enable team members to receive training from
multiple destinations. Innovative software can have far-reaching effects on your
business. Companies could employ more remote workers, which could help their
firms eliminate many of the costs commonly associated with managing offices.

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 2. Discuss how e-learning, competency frameworks and improved knowledge-sharing at
Choc Co. might help to cut costs and make the HRD activity at Choc Co. more strategic.

E-learning might help to choc co with different points.

 E-learning can save times without decaying learning benefits for choc co.

E-learning allows you to log on when you can and complete your training in a timely
manner. By logging in and completing your training in a few hours, it saves the extra
hours and sometimes days that you would normally spend in a classroom or even
travelling to and from the event.
 E-learning can minimize travel costs for choc co.

In the computer-based training program, you do not need an on-site instructor. It is up to

the learner to access it when they wish to. That means you do not need to pay for travel
and accommodation for the trainers.
 E-learning minimizes time away from work for choc co.
 E-learning can cost-effective for choc co.

E-learning can naturally be much more cost-effective than classroom-based learning, as it

does not require learners to travel to be in the same place or invest in special
equipment and learning resources for each module of their course
 E-learning provides more consistent course delivery for choc co.
 E-learning can offer more individual instruction for choc co-employees.
 E-learning can increase training results in less employee turnover for choc co.

3. How might the firm seek to ensure a return on investment for its learning and
development activity?

One of the things many companies struggle with is ensuring that the training they invest in for
their employees is effective. We know from research that having opportunities for development
is a key contributor to employee engagement; and with employee engagement levels at an all-
time low, we need to do everything we can foster it and encourage high performance. But with
budgets stretched even tighter these days, it's more important than ever to make sure you're
getting a return on your training investments. Here are a few practical tips for making sure your
training investments are effective.

 Make sure the development activity has a content

So often, what we do in our work doesn't have a context. We have responsibilities and goals, and
even competencies that are specific to our role or identified as core to the organization, but we
don't understand how any of them contribute to the organization's success.

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It's the same with our development activities. Many employees don't really understand how the
training they're signed up for relates to their performance or their job. So, they go through the
motions of taking the training, without really being engaged or accountable for the results.

You can change this scenario by making sure employees have a context for their learning. You
should link or tie all assigned training activities to the employee's performance of a specific goal
or competency, either to address a performance gap or to expand their
knowledge/skill/experience so they can accomplish their goals. This is even more effective if
the employee's goals are linked to higher-level organizational goals, so they truly understand
how their work contributes to the organization's success.

By making sure employees understand why they are assigned a particular learning activity, how
it should impact their performance, and why it's important to the organization, we give them a
context and value for their learning and increase their engagement and commitment to their
growth and development.

 Consider the employees learning style

We all learn differently and have a preferred or dominant learning style. One of the common
models breaks out four styles: auditory (learn by hearing), visual (learn by looking),
reading/writing-preference (learn by reading and writing), and kinesthetic (learn by doing). But
there are many other models that categorize and explain different learning styles.

What's important is to understand how your employee learns best, and then look for training
activities that cater to their preferred learning style. Sending a kinesthetic learner to a lecture will
likely be less effective than sending them to a hands-on training session, or letting them work
side-by-side with a mentor on some practical tasks. Assigning reading materials to an auditory
learner will be less effective than giving them a podcast or having them attend a webinar. You
may need to do some probing or experimenting to help your employee figure out their preferred
learning style, but once you've identified it, do everything you can to cater to it; your
organization and your employee will reap the benefits.

 Measure the effectiveness of training in term of improved on-the-job performance

We've traditionally measured the effectiveness of training with pre-and post-testing. Many
organizations also look to "training satisfaction" surveys that ask the employee if they think
they'll apply the things they've learned to their job. While these can certainly give us an
indication of what an employee has absorbed and retained from training, they don't really tell us

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if the training has had an impact on their on-the-job performance - and that's really what we're
after the improved on-the-job performance.

So, what if you looked at and compared performance review ratings before and after training and
looked for improvements? If you've tied the employee's development activities to the
performance of a specific competency or goal, you should expect to see a correlative
improvement in performance review scores. That would be a far better measure of training
effectiveness. And ideally, you would look at performance review score improvements not just
for one employee, but for all those who took a particular course or training activity.

When it comes right down to it, that's the true measure of the value of your training - did it
improve employee performance and in so doing support improved corporate performance.

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