Reference no: EM132779862

Question

Macy One Corporation has operated in Sydney for the past 12 years, providing management consultancy services to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the Asia Pacific. These services have included providing strategic and operational business advice to executives and senior managers. Often the advice is to provide recommendations to resolve issues related to management including human resource management - essentially whatever these businesses need, Macy One provides.

A few months ago, a new CEO of Macy One, Sheryl Abbot, was appointed. Sheryl quickly convinced the board that the company could successfully expand if it consolidated its efforts in a few key areas. The board accepted Sheryl's proposals and approved a restructuring of the whole organisation.

Sheryl then consolidated the organisation into branches to cover just a few areas of the previous services:

· Strategic Business services

· Operational Business services

· Management and Human Resource Management services

· Training (A new function for Macy One)

To ensure the previously high standard of work continues, Sheryl plans to move the organisation towards becoming a Registered Training Organisation (RTO). By achieving this accreditation, Macy One would be in a stronger position to maintain and even to set standards in each of the branches.

Sheryl has no experience in this area, and so recruits a training manager and appropriate training staff. Sheryl received her management training at university and does not know what is required to conduct training within the wider vocational education and training sector. She is also aware that whilst some of her staff have formal qualifications most have gained their knowledge and skills while working on the job. Many of these staff members have been with the organisation since its inception 10 years earlier.

Sheryl is a great believer in open communication and conveys her plans to all staff. She does this in written form by placing plans on all noticeboards, and by sending updates via e-mail. Sheryl even conducted several morning teas that most staff attended. She found a lot of enthusiasm for the plans, but also some misgivings from staff who felt they were too old to 'go back to school' and learn their jobs all over again.

Sheryl was aware that this might be the case and was prepared to have individual discussions with staff to hear their concerns. She does not want to lose good operators and motivated staff. Meetings with senior managers highlight similar concerns. They are also concerned with the loss of productivity while staff are away from their jobs. However, to move to a higher standard, and add the training department to the organisation, Sheryl is aware that some training and development of staff is required.

Sheryl assures the managers that she will not force the staff to attend 'school' if they can demonstrate that they already meet the required standards. Sheryl and the managers now need to determine what the standards are and if there are any gaps in people's knowledge and skills. A specialist analyst is hired to help before training can begin.

The analyst identifies some gaps in knowledge, skills and abilities at Macy One Corporation. These gaps need to be addressed through training and development. The analyst found that there are many staff without the requisite knowledge and skills and that other staff can do their jobs but have no formal recognition of their abilities.

Some strategies have been presented to Sheryl. Having determined that training is necessary to ensure her staff are qualified at the appropriate level, Sheryl hires a training organisation to design programs for staff. These programs will be conducted in the workplace, both on and off the job during normal business hours.

Once the knowledge, skill and abilities have been developed, Sheryl plans to seek applications from within the organisation for members to join the training department, enabling the ongoing training of future staff, and maintenance and upgrading where applicable. During the transition period, Sheryl decides to use experienced employees as mentors. One of the first training programs planned is a coaching/mentoring program for all staff.

Once the training has been completed what forms of evidence could be gathered to assess the success of the training? Why have you chosen these sources?