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Student Name: University of Derby Index Number: Learning Centre: Course: Term: Module Title: Module Leader: Assignment Submission Due Date: Status:

Lim Phang Soon 100211696 KU PENANG MBA T12011 Managing People Dr.Joanne Hee 3 April 2011 Active

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Executive Summary ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. started operation on January 1995.The core business activities of the ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. is to distribute IT products to the IT channel.ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. The main competitor of ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. is Ingram Micro which is running the same business with ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. achieved RM 1.0 billion of sales in year 2008 and it is the No.1 IT products distributor in Malaysia. Currently ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. do not have a comprehensive Employees development plan, it will seriously affect the organization growth. Without the training and development plan it is hard to retain talent due to the employees who do not have a chance of career advancement in the organization. Technology change rapidly the knowledge and skill of the employees are stagnant. The organization do not have high competency workforce and the organization will lose out competitive advantages to the competitor .It will cause the organization unable to archive the goals and increase the risk of organization failure. With the proposed blended training and development plan, it will help the organization analyze and indentify what are the skills and knowledge that are needed for the organization growth. Design and implementing comprehensive training and development program for the employees. Select the right employees to the training and evaluate the performance of the employees after training. Compare the result before and after the training, if the performance is improved after training that means the training and development plan is value added to the organization. Training and development plan is benefit to organization, employees and the customers. It will help to reduce the risk of organization failure, retain the talent, improve the productivity of the employees, and change employees behavior. To the employees, it will help to improve the employees career development and advancement. Customers will have high competency employees to serve them better and good after sales service.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE NO.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.0

INTRODUCTION

2.0

BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANIZATION

3.0

LITRITURE REVIEW OF EMPLOYES DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING CONCEPT 3

3.1

MODEL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT 3.1.1 Instructional System Design (ISD) 3.1.2 Human Performance Technology Model (HPT) 3.1.3 ADDIE VS HPT

4 5 6 7

3.2

CURRENT TREND IN TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

4.0

PROPOSED OF EMPLOYEES DEVELOPMENT PLAN IN ECS ASTAR SDN. BHD. 4.0.1 Identify Organization Vision 8 9 11 13 14

4.0.2 Indentify Training Needs 4.0.3 Training Objective 4.0.4 Training Model

4.0.5 Trainers 4.0.6 Selection of Employees That Need Training 4.0.7 Evaluation

15 15 16

5.0

ADVANTAGES OF TRAINING

17

6.0

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR

18

7.0

CONCLUSION

19

8.0

REFERENCES

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1.0 Introduction It is rapid change in the modern world, employees development is very important for an organization growth. The organization need higher competent workforce to work effectively and efficiently to achieve the organization goals. Employees development will help to improve the abilities of workforce in terms of skills and knowledge. It also will help to change the attitude of the workforce and motivate them to improve their morale and enhance the organizations competitive advantages to achieve the organizations goals The organization need to plan a comprehensive employee development program for the workforce. They need to select the right trainees, design the right employee development plan at the right timing to make the employee development plan successful. Because the organizing a training is costly to the organization. A successful employee development plan will help to improve the effectiveness of current job and also the skills and knowledge that needed in the future growth of the organization. Employee development helps the employees in their career advancement, the knowledge they gain from the training might not be use it immediately, but they might use it in the future. Therefore organization is able to retain the talent and reduce the risk of organization failure. .

2.0 Background of the Organization ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. started operation on January 1995.The core business activities of the ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. is distribute IT products including hardware and software to the IT channel.ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. carrying more than 40 brands of IT products including software and hardware. For example for hardware they have HP, Asus, Dell, Samsung, Apple and etc.for software they have Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec and etc...ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. The main competitor of ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. is Ingram Micro which is running the same business with ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. achieved RM 1.0 billion of sales in year 2008 and it is the No.1 IT products distributor in Malaysia.ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. has 380 employees in the whole organization, The company vision is to maintain Currently ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. does not have a comprehensive employees development plan for their employees; it is only base on ad hoc training provided by the vendors. These training mainly focus on product from the respective vendors to the sales person, in order to let the sales person have more knowledge on the products and able to sell the products. For those department that require the knowledge of operating the company internal system ,the functional managers or senior employees will provides guidance to new employees how to operate the company system.

3.0 Literature Review of Employees Development and Learning Concept Training According to Dr.Leonard Nadler Training is learning that is providing in order to improve performances on the present job.(Janis 2010). Training is more emphasis on the skill .It provides knowledge of skills to new or existing employee to perform their daily job in order to archive the company goals and objective. For example a new sales person will have the knowledge how to sell the products that the company caring after the traning. Development Development is an effort to improve the employees abilities that the organization need in the future (Fitzgerald 1992). For example the management of the organization will identify those potential employees that will become the future managers or leader in the organization. Then create a training and development plan to improve their abilities and skill, so that they can continue to lead and grow the business of the company. Learning Technologies change rapidly and customer demand keeps on increasing. Learning will help the employees keep on capture new knowledge to perform their daily job effectively and efficiently. How much that employees will learn is depends on the employees behavior. If employees have a good learning behavior, they will always provide a creative and innovative idea to the organization. Different Between Training, Development and Learning Most of the training of an organization always used in conjunction of development, but it is different approach of employees development. Figure 1.1 summaries the different between training development and training.

Training Focus Current jobs Individuals employees Time Frame Goal and Objective Immediate Fix current skill problem

Development Current and future jobs Work group or the entire organization Long term (future plan) Prepare for future works demand

Learning Behavior change of employees Work group and whole entire organization Along the way Change the Behavior of employees

Scope

Figure 1 Different Between Training and Development Training is mainly focus on current job for example the organization will send the new sales person to a products training so that the sales person will have more understanding on the products that the company caring and able to sell it to their customers. Development focusing on both current and future jobs. The research shows (Bartz ,Schwandt & Hilman 1989) Training helps to improve the skill of individual employees that have skill gap on their current job .Development focus on the improvement and enhancement on the abilities for the workforce in whole entire work group or organization. Training helps to improve the skill of the employees that needed by the organization immediately Development is a long-term abilities improvement plan for the employees the employees might not utilize the skill immediately but they might use it the future. Training will only fix the skill problem that organization facing currently, a good training will increase the productivity and improve the employees performance. The goals and objective of development is improving the workforce abilities to prepare for the future works demand in the organization. It is no time frame for learning, learning is along the way while the employees is working ,they keep on learning and gain experience during working time. Every employee in the organization has to learn continuously in order to have more competitive advantages toward the competitor. 3.1 Model of Training and Development There are many successful models of training and development that can improve the skills, abilities and increase the effectiveness and efficiency level of the employees in the organization. Instructional System Design (ISD), Performance-Based Instructional Design (HPT) is the popular model that most of the organization uses it for their training and development plan.

3.1.1 Instructional System Design (ISD) This model was designed by US military. It is to improve the efficiency and effectives level of the workforce and it also help to improve the humans performance as well(Rothwell & Kanzanas , 1992).There are many types of different model for ISD, but the most similar model with Instructional system design is ADDIE Model. ADDIE model is to create an instruction and follow to instruction to improve the level of effectiveness and efficiency of workforce. According to Rothwell and Benkowski (2002) ADDIE have 5 phrase, the steps are illustrated in figure 2

Analyze

Evaluation

Design

Implementation

Development

Figure 2 ADDIE Model Analyze The first step of ADDIE model is analyzed. In the analyze stage company goals and objective need to clearly defined. Then indentify the job performance and the skill that needed from the employees in order to archive the company goals. Find out the skill and performances gap that will affect the company growth. Analyze the employees education level, experiences, skill and performance as well as their attitude, then indentifies who are the employees that need to training in order to improve the productivity the environment of learning also need to be analyzed.

Design The second steps are design. The organization need to select the instructional strategy and plan the learning outline. Leaning objective need to determine by the organization, it is base on the knowledge, skill, performance, attitude of the employees. The training tools and material need to be properly selected to archive the learning objective. Learning objective need to clearly deliver to the employees and how they are going to be measure after the trading. The performance of the employees during training will be clearly written down; it is to ensure that the employees will achieve the learning goal. Development The third steps are development. The trainer will create a training and development structure to let the employees to achieve the learning goals. The training material and training program will be reviews and monitor closely, revision of the training program and materials will perform if necessary to ensure that the training program is successful and fulfill the organization needs. Implementation In the implementation stage, it will identify what kind of support needed to make the training successful. It will make sure that all training equipment is ready and ensure the training process is on the track. The performances of employees and the trainer during training will be evaluated. It evaluate the employees whether they able to archive the learning objectives. It also evaluates the training method and the presentation skill of the trainer. It is to ensure that both parties work well to achieve the learning objective. Evaluation. The final stage is evaluation. It evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of the training .It also evaluates the performance result of employees after training. The most important thing is it evaluates the return of investment of the training program. 3.1.2 Human Performance Technology Model (HPT) Keeps and Stolovitch (1999) described that HPT is a systematic and systemic approach use to increase the employees productivity level and achieve the organization goals.HPT helps to identify the problems of performances and skill gap. Then design and implement a system to
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overcome the problem and archive the company goals and objective.HPT are not only focus on training ,it also focus on others performance improvement plan for employees when training is unable to solve the performance problem of the employees. HPT model illustrated as figure 3. (Van Tiem,Mosely and Dessinger ,2004) Sometimes training is very costly to an organization and it might not deliver the result that organization requires. By using HPT it can directly apply to solve the performance problem.

Needs Assessment
Organizati na l Analysis Workforce Performance

Evaluati n

Figure 3 HPT Model Van Tiem,Mosely and Dessinger (2004) 3.1.3 ADDIE VS HPT There are a lot of similarities within ADDIE and HPT but ,the main different of HPT and ADDIE is ADDIE mainly focus on the training approach and HPT focus not only on the training it also offer other performances improvement for employees. In both of ADDIE and HPT model also have the evaluation ,but the different is the evaluation part of ADDIE is at the end of the process for HPT it perform at the middle of the process. It evaluates every step in HPT model to ensure that the process is on track and reduce the time frame and cost of the organization in order to archive the company goals.

Environmenta l Analysis

Actual Workforce Performance

Needs Analysis

Gap Analysis

Cause Analysis

Design and Devel ent

Implementati n

3.2 Current Trend in Training and Development E-learning The research shows (CIPD 2005 ,p.14) E-learning is one of the most important training and learning tools for the organization. The training materials of E-learning can be use time to time continuously. Employees have a flexible time and place to access the training program. It has unlimited numbers of trainees that need training. On top of that it helps the organization to reduce the training cost. It also reduces the time of arranging training program to employees. On the Job Training The research shows (Barron,Berger and Black 1997,p33) nearly 90 percent of the organization conducting on the job training. All the training will base on the employees daily task. Senior employees will coach and provide guidance to the new employees so that the new employees able to perform the job task. It is good for one on one mentoring .The senior employees can observe and provide feedback to the new employees so that they can perform better. It is not suitable for workgroup training. 4.0 Proposal of Employee Development Plan in ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. Employees development plan is very important for the growth of the organization.ECS Astar Sdn, Bhd. need a group of workforce that can work effectively and efficiently to archive the organization goals. The organization also needs creative and innovative idea from employee for the future growth. In order to produces higher competency workforce the organization need a comprehensive training plan. Following is proposed processes of employee development plan for ECS Astra Sdn. Bhd.

Ide fy Organization Vision

Identify Traning Needs

esign Program

Training Objective

Training Method Trainers

Implementation

Fi 4.0.1 Identi

4 for EC Ast r Employees Development Pl n

Organi ati n Visi n

Vision of EC Ast r Sdn B d. is to maintain t e largest IT distri tors in Malaysia. In order to maintain t e stat s ECS Astar Sdn. B d. need to archive the following goals: High Quality of Products ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. needs to provide high quality products to client in order to earn c lient trust and confidence to the products and increase the company sales revenue.

mployees Selection

Evaluation

Marketing and Branding ECS Astar Sdn.Bhd. needs to spend more budgets on create market awareness of the products that the company carrying. For example publish in the newspaper, TV program advertisement and etc...The company also need create more promotion to attract the customers. Service The company need to provide the best service to their customers in terms of reducing the turnover time of warranty ,reducing the respond time to customer when they facing technical issue. Provide the best after sales service to satisfy the customer and ensure the customer continue support the company. New Market Penetration The company needs to increase the customer base by penetrating into the new market and also in the competitor territory. The company need to maintain and grow the existing customer and increase their market share into others industries. Challenge of Archiving Organization Vision The challenge that might cause the organization fail to archive their vision is penetrate into the new market. It is due to the company lack of high competency sales person. Capability of Sales Person The current sales person in the organization is servicing only the existing customer, the reason that they given is they do not have enough time to penetrate the new customer while they servicing the existing customer. The current sales person only act as an order take in the organization they are not doing their job well. They seldom promote the new products to the customers; they only sell upon customer request. They only hard push on the fast moving products and seldom promote the low demand products to the customer. They seldom provide solution or alternative products to the customer when facing stock shortage issue. It is due they lack of products knowledge.

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4.0.2 Identify Training Needs It is important for an organization to identify the skill, behavior and performances gap of the employees, base on the gap the organization can design and develop a development plan for the employees in order to increase the working competency of the employees and reduce the organization failure. Skill Gap of Sales Person in ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. Skill Current Performance Self Control Self Confidence Result Orientation Initiative Problem Solving Networking Customer Service Orientation Figure 5 Sales Core Competencies Rating: 1- Very Poor, 2 - Poor, 3 - Moderate, 4 Good, 5 Excellent Refer to the sales core competency report of ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd.; it is still have many areas that the sales person needs to be improving. The self control, self confidence and customer service orientation level of the sales person are meeting the organization requirement. There are four skills that the sales person needs to be improving which are result orientation, initiative, problem solving and networking. Result Orientation Sales person should improve the performance by meeting all the goals that set by the company and themselves. They should keep track their sales performances from time to time find out the reason that makes them cant hit their target. They should improve their sales approach to bring in more sales revenue to the organization. They should set challenging goals for themselves, so that they can keep learning new knowledge to archive the goals. They should also focus on the products that can bring more profit to the organization.
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Required By Management 3 3 5 5 5 5 4

Area To Be Improve

3 3 2 2 2 2 3

Initiative The sales person should pay more attention to look for sales opportunity and react fast to grab the sales. They should spend longer times and be patient to approach the competitors customers. Problem Solving The sales person should analyze the problem and test on the alternative solution and provide the best solution to the customer. Networking The sales person should build rapport with the inactive and competitors customer; try to look for opportunity to approach them to deal with the organization. They should maintain the easing customer and expend their networking to approach more customers.

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Skill Gap

Skill And Behavior to Training and Be Improve Development Needs

Training and Non-training Methods Class Room Training, HR to Perform The Task

Trainer Selection

Result Orientation

Tracking Skill, Motivation

Operating The System And Close Monitoring The Sales Performance, Revise the CNB Package

Internal Trainer

Initiative

Motivation, Successful Revise The CNB Selling Skill Package. Submit Sales Report With High Accuracy in Sales Forecast Product Knowledge ,Problem Solving Skill Product Training, Coaching and Mentoring, Role Playing

HR to Perform The Task, Class Room Training

Internal and External Trainer

Problem Solving

Class Room Training, ELearning, Functional Manager to Perform the Task

Internal and External Trainer

Networking

Market Management

Update Customer Database

Class Room Training

Internal Trainer

Figure 6: Training and Development Plan Sales Person 4.0.3 Training Objective The objective of the training is to improve and enhance the skill and behaviour of the exiting sales person. The training will improve the 4 areas of the sales person that mentioned in the needs assessment: result orientation, initiative, problem solving and networking. The organization should allow the sales person to involve in the training goals setting, so that they will be more motivated for the training, because they have the ownership of setting the goals.

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4.0.4 Training Methods Training On the Job Training This training can be delivering while the sales person is perfuming their daily job. Training timetable should be establish and evaluate the training progress from time to time. The sales manager can easily monitor and evaluate the sales person performance. Then the manager of the department will provide guidance to the sales person and coach them this training method will help the company to save their time and cost of the trading. E-Learning All the learning material will upload into a web learning portal; employees are able to access the portal anytime at anywhere Role Play The sales team will share their sales experience through the role playing. It is a very realistic training to the current job, the sales team will rotate to act as a customer and sales person in the training. They can learn how the others service the customer .They will give some comment to each other and provide opinion to overcome the issue. Non-training Revise the Compensation and Benefit Package HR needs to review and revise the compensation and benefit package of the sales person. It is to ensure that the sales person perform better and increase the revenue and profit for the organization.

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4.0.5 Trainers Internal Functional Manager of the department will be the best trainer for the sales person, because they know the sales person job function well. They provide guidance and coach their subordinate by reviewing their sales performance. Analyze the skill gap and behaviour of the sales person, base on the gap create a suitable employee development plan to improve the skill and change the behaviour of their subordinates. External Product managers from the respective vendors will be the best training for product training. They will transfer the product knowledge in term of selling point and technical skill to the sales person, so that the sales person able to promote their products. 4.0.6 Selection of Employees That Need Training It is important to select the right trainees, because the training cause is costly to the organization, so the organization needs to retain the trainees after the training. The existing sales person of ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. Should go for the training the existing sales person they can improve their skill thru the training

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4.0.7 Evaluation After the employee development plan has been design and implement, the organization should evaluate the performance. The most popular model of evaluating training program is Krikpatricks four level of evaluation (Kirkpatrick 1983) which is reaction, learning, behaviour and results. Figure 7 illustrating how does the organization evaluate the training program. Level Reaction 1 Reaction can be measure by trainees satisfaction. After the trading they will receive a questionnaire to evaluate the trainer presentation skill, material of content and the training environment. What knowledge the trainees gain also will be evaluated. Level Learning 2 Learning measure by the knowledge, skill gain from the training. It is mainly focus on a test after the training. It is to test the understating of the trainees for the whole training concept Level Behaviour Behaviour is measure by the 3 working attitude change .It can be measure by comparing the performance of trainees before and after training. Level Results 4 Result is to examine the impact of training on the entire organization. It can include increasing the trainees productivity, reduce head count turnover and improve the ability of trainees. Figure 7 Evaluate Training Program for ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. This step is to evaluate the performance of workforce after revised their compensation and benefit package. This is to evaluate whether it is an impact to the organization after training. Sales person will deliver the accurate sales forecast. This is to evaluate the skill of operating internal system and close monitoring on the sale performance This step is to evaluate the performance after role playing ,coaching ,mentoring, and product training due to it is a external trainer will be conducting the training

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5.0 Advantages of Employee Development The result of the training will reflect the advantages of the employee development plan. Sales Person Their skills and behaviour will be improve and become more motivated after go through the entire tanning programme. Their selling capability also will be improved. Training also will increase the sales person qualification level and it will really help them in their future job advancement, Organization The profit and revenue of the organization will be increase with the high competency sales person. The business of the organization will continue to grow. It will reduce the risk of organization failure. Training will highly motivate the sales person, and they will continue sell more. Consequently the organization can retain the talent by reducing the head count turnover. Customer The customer will have a high competency sales person to service them. The person will not only act as an order taker but they will act as a consultant to the customer they will provide free consultation to the customer in their business strategy and propose the best solution to the customer when it is necessary. 6.0 Critical Success Factor Management Support The most important thing to make the training success is management need to be supportive in order to make the training programme success; without management support the training will fail .Because management is the final decision maker without their approval the training cannot go through. Budget The Management need to allocate training budget to make the training programme successful, without the budget allocation the training will fail. Because budget is needed to implement

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the web-base training system, purchase and prepare training material, hire external trainers to provide training to the employees Culture The culture of learning in an organization is one of the most important factors that will make the employee development plan successful. The management should implement reward system to encourage more employees to learn and develop themselves. The management can compare the employees performance before and after the training .If it is an improvement on the performance the management should reward them by giving them extra incentive, trip and etc... With the implementation of the reward system the employees will be very motivated to participate in the training that arrange by the organization

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7.0 Conclusion It is very important to implement a comprehensive employee development plan for ECS Astar Sdn. Bhd. Without a comprehensive employee development plan for the employees, it will seriously affect the future growth of the organization. The organization do not have high competency workforce to work effectively to enhance the organization competitive advantages and achieve the organization goals. It is hard to retain the talent due to the organization do not have a career development plan for their employees. It will demoralize the employees due to the employees do not have career advancement in the organization. The knowledge and skill of the employees are stagnant. They do not have new knowledge and skills to compete with the others competitors and it will affect the organization growth. There are many training model being practice out there for example ADDIE and HPT .With the new proposed blended employee development plan ,it will helps to analyze what are the knowledge and skill needed for the future growth of the organization. Design a comprehensive employee development plan to improve the competency of workforce. Organization need to select the right person to the training to ensure that training program is successful. Krikpatrick Four Level of Evaluation is the most common model of evaluating the training program, it will ensure that the employees will gain knowledge and learn new skills to perform the current and future job of the organization. In order to make the training program success management support is very important because they are the final decision maker to approve the training program and allocate budget to support the training program. Changing the culture of learning within the organization is also one of the main factors to make the employee development plan successful.

(3781 Words)
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8.0 References Alexander, S.(1996) Training you can build on,Computerworld, 30(3), pp 77. Barron, J. M, Berger, M.C,& Black , D.A.(1997).On-the job training ,Kalamazoo,119,pp33. Bartz,D. E.,Schwandt,D.R., & Hilman,L.W.(1989).Differences between T and D, Personnel Administrator, 34, pp.164-170. Campbell, J.P, Dunnette, M. D, Lawler,E & Weick, K E. (1970) Managerial behavior , performance and effectiveness. New York : McGraw-Hill. Cannel, M. (1997) Pratice makes perfect, People Management,3, pp 26-33. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2005) What are the main benefits of elearning? Training and development,pp.14. Clegg, W. H. (1987) Management training evaluation, Training and Development Journal, 4(12), pp 65-71. D.M.Van Tiem, J.L. Moseley, & J.C.Dessinger (2004) Fundamentals of performance technology. 2nd. Edn .:ISPI. Driskell , J . E ,Willis, R. P.& Copper, C .(1992) Effect of overlearning on retention. Journal of Applied Psychology ,77 , pp 615-622. Fitzgerald,W.(1992).Training versus development, Training & Development,46 pp.,81-84. French, W. (1990) Human resources management, Boston: Houghton Miffin. Geber, B. (1990) Simulating reality ,Training, pp41-46. Janis Fisher Chan (2010) Training fundamentals. San Francisco : Pfeiffer. Kirkpatrick,D , (1983) Four steps to measuring training effectiveness, Personnel Aministrator,28(11), pp 19-25 . Larid, D. (1985) Approaches to training and development, MA ; Addison-Wesley. Monoky, J. F. (1996) Master the coaching call, Industrial Distribution, 85(6), pp 112. Mayer, S. J.,& Russell, J. S. (1987) Behaviour modelling training in organizations, Journal of Management ,9, pp 21-40. Rothwell, W., & Benkowski, J. (2002) Basic principles of instructional systems design. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. Rothwell, W. J., & Kazanas, H. C. (1992) Mastering the instructional design process.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

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Stolovtich, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (1999) Handbook of human performance technology.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publications.

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