King’s Training Programs

Kings Company is a small manufacturing enterprise located in a mid-sized city in upper Midwest. The company seems to have a paralyzed human resource department, and it is facing more dilemmas, which affect both the external and internal environments. As it is indicated in the company’s case study, the human resource branch is characterized by mishaps that require immediate responsiveness. Apart from the set strategy to increase performance, the Human Resource Development (HRD) was assigned with the duty of updating and improving the company’s management system performance. However, the company is evaluating the feasibility of the all the human resource programs and activities, such as employee’s relation, to improving the productivity. The paper seeks to assess the effectiveness of King’s training program goals, management of employee’s exit, changes needed in HRD procedures, policies, and practices. Finally, the paper will outline how HRD should demonstrate return on investment in an attempt to prevent curtailment in the training budget.

Kings responded to a management training program with a comprehensive set of goals. The five stipulated goals aim to (Gill, 1996):

1. Create opportunities that develop skills, enhance knowledge, and enrich the organization.
2. Develop and promote an enabling environment, which fosters diversity and opportunities to all the employees.
3. Avail quality and cost-effective training, aimed at increasing both employees’ and organizational productivity and enrichment.
4. Provide continuous leadership and support to the successive organizational efforts.
5. Design effective communication tools to respond to customers’ needs as well as to facilitate general organization’s communication

Some of the goals were working at the initial stage, but later they started to fail. For instance, Kings came up with the “Talk-to-the-Boss” program as a tool of communication, which will allow employees from all management levels to air their grievances without fear of being misunderstood. In the end the “Talk-to-the-Boss” program failed, because workers became contemptuous of it. However, the company did not abolish the program with a purpose of maintaining its mission and goals (Gill, 1996).

Another goal, which appeared improbable, is the aim to provide continued leadership and support to the successive organizational efforts. The HRD manager Scholl together with the employees’ relations manager Shaun worked out a strategy that would help to adopt the knowledge of employees that might be leaving the organization. In this respect, the leaving employees were supposed to pass valuable leadership experience and information to the staying employees through a system of exit interviews (Chinn, 2009). The process was successful for a while until some exit interviews did not generate positive exchange. A notable example in the case is a retirement party of the previous HR manager Mrs. Margo Honduras, during which most employees of the department treated her leave with a sigh of relief. Another underachieved goal is the aim to develop skills, enhance knowledge, and enrich the organization. Initially, Kings had a defined tuition reimbursement benefit, which encouraged employees to continue their academic studies. Later, the benefits coordinator Mr. Dugas, Karla decided to cancel this program within the scope of the cost decrease strategy (Wilson, 2012).

Kings can decrease the expanses by evaluating the effectiveness of the set goals and responds. For example, the Talk-to-the-Boss” program could be made effective if the communication channel was made formal. An official communication would be achieved by using either a suggestion box or by conducting regular weekly meetings of the employees and the management. The program failed as it was characterized by informal discussions headed by Salty Warner during the lunch breaks. To overcome the difficulty of creating continues success of leaders upon leaving of the valuable employees, the company has to introduce a system of apprenticeship. The outgoing, experienced employees should be set to work with new and inexperienced workers for a short period to boost their knowledge and general performance. Finally, to improve the employee’s motivation, the company has to restore the tuition reimbursement benefit. The plan is vital as it provides employees with an opportunity to continue their studies in the interest of the business (Wilson, 2012).

As much as important goals have failed to materialize, Kings has special measures to meet these objectives. The company is planning a massive labor cut, which can impact it negatively as it can undermine the morale as well as the job security confidence among the remaining employees (Chinn, 2009). Through exit interviews, the human resource department has managed to obtain the transfer of knowledge from experienced employees upon their leaving. Exit interviews are beneficial for the employees and the organization as a whole. While talking to the departing employee, the next worker obtains a chance to exchange knowledge and even gets a brief update on the current projects and the issue of contacts. The HR department is aware that a good exit interview ought to provide vital information about Kings Company that will be useful for improving the working environment, systems, processes, and culture (Chinn, 2009).

As noted above, Kings’ exit interview program has not been effective due to poor employee relationships. However, through the exit interview program the remaining employees get a chance to learn the reasons behind the departure of previous workers. The reason can cause havoc in the company if it is deemed to be negative. It is important that the feedbacks obtained during the conversations are often constructive, and Kings can use them to improve the manager-employee relationships, accelerate participating managers, and indicate how to retain staff. It is important for Kings company to practice the exit interview strategy as it creates good relations and mutual respect, as well as eliminates recriminations between the departing employees and the organization (Farnham, 2015).

The HRD has put an effort in improving the development of employees through predetermined set of HRD procedures, policies, and practices. The methods seem to be ineffective considering the squabbles recorded inside the HR department. Nonetheless, HRD has room for improvement to develop the employees’ performance. According to researchers, a company can develop its productivity through, coaching and mentoring, employee promotion, and job enrichment. The HRD can send senior employees to participate in coaching and mentoring programs to improve the quality and quantity of work (Wilson, 2012). A mentor helps junior employees to rediscover their capability as well as boosts their confidence. During their development programs employees will also feel as a part of the company. Additionally, they will have a sense of recognition when their skills and excellent performance is rewarded. However, the promotion process should be conducted with high care in order to ensure that employees are promoted according to the order of merits. The job enrichment program will be vital as it usually increases the employees’ authority and power within their current positions. As a result, employees get a feeling of professional development when they are involved in the committee work.

Trainings can be expensive to Kings Company, especially, if the number of employees is high. This cannot be an excuse for not conducting management training development programs. Kings can attain a positive return on investment by minimizing unnecessary training expenditures. Kings has to cut its extensive staffing to have a manageable number of employees in the program (Fitz-Enz, 2009). The fewer the number of employees, the lesser is the total training expenditure. Additionally, the company should not outsource training services to external companies but use senior employees as coaches, mentors, and supervisors. The bottom line of attaining a reasonable ROI is to have a gain from training investments higher than the cost of the training. Thereby, if the strategy is aimed at minimizing the cost of training, Kings will have a realistic training budget (Fitz-Enz, 2009).

In conclusion, the company is not moving towards the right direction because it has a predetermined set of policies and procedures in all the sections except for the human resource department. The HRD has established the goals for the training programs, and they can be achieved if the HRD manager Mr. Scholl ensures that the goals are in harmony with the set of policies and procedures. Kings has a proper plan to decrease the staff numbers, and the HR department has to ensure that there is a pass of knowledge from experienced employees who will be leaving to the retained workers. The strategy will also reduce the cost of trainings, thereby improving the ROI. A good training program should be able to guarantee that company makes a profit with an experienced team of employees.

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