Identification Of Learning And Development Needs: A Case Study Of British Telecom Essay.

Produce a report which evaluates the methods used to identify and meet learning needs with reference to organisational factors, including complying with policies on equal opportunities and factors to do with the target audience. Your report should provide an account of two examples of learning interventions and should address the following:

1. A description and justification of methods used to establish the learning needs, including reasons for rejecting alternatives

2. A description and justification of the design of the interventions to meet the learning needs, including reasons for rejecting alternatives

You should make reference to academic research and literature and organisation practice to support the justifications and evaluation.

Training Needs Identification

Identification of learning and development needs (L&D) entails the evaluation of staff capabilities together with a comprehension of existing and anticipated gaps in skills and knowledge. This assessment could be undertaken at the organisational, individual or team level. The present report conducts an analysis of L&D requirements in British Telecom by using a range of methods. British Telecom (BT) is a leading communications service provider in the world, serving customer needs in the UK and over 170 nations across the globe.

In BT, the majority of the staff members work from home, and the teams are scattered all across the country. They are virtually managed. One of its department named the Flexible Working Services (FWS) is based in the UK and Netherlands with 13 employees dispersed in the two nations. They are in charge of product support, and hence perform in touch with many products at BT. This team communicates and collaborates through virtual meetings. The team members participate in monthly and weekly “all hands” FWS conference calls. Particularly in pressing circumstances, which might happen in such virtual conference communications, emotions have a very instrumental role to play in team communication. Such emotions are pertinent for reflecting on and reconstructing experiences from work and acquiring insights from them to improve their regular work (Abdul, 2015). Hence, a need has been determined to enhance the non-verbal communication of team and reflective learning at both team and individual level.

Apart from this, the employees of the customer care department need training related to call-handling techniques and customer relations. There is a transformed focus on needs of the client by BT, and it requires its customer handling staff to be more abreast of consumer needs and how to address them (Weber, 2015).

Thus, the two training needs identified for two different audiences are:

FWS team members – Non-verbal communication skills and reflective learning training

Customer care staff – How to manage customer relations and call-handling

It is very important to address both sets of needs. Firstly, the non-verbal communication skills are crucial because they tend to be trusted more than words when they conflict. It becomes quite difficult to form trust within a team operating in a virtual environment. Hence, non-verbal cues are very critical because if this is not managed effectively, the loss of information because of the absence of non-verbal communication could result in misunderstandings, frustration and ultimately lead to conflict among the FWS team members (Stasi, 2013). There is a genuine learning need here which can be addressed by L&D solutions, and the needs pertain to both team and individual level.

Training Needs Assessment Methods

Secondly, as far as training related to customer service and call handling is concerned, it's unarguably imperative because it not only adds value for the consumers, but it drives sales and will give British Telecom a competitive edge. This training is in alignment with the company’s goal of increasing customer satisfaction which will help lead to augmented organisational performance. Here the need pertains to organisational level (Foster, 2013).

The ADDIE L&D framework will be employed to help inform the approach to identification, meeting and evaluation of learning needs pertaining to non-verbal communication and customer relations. The table presented below highlights the evaluation of methods that could be most suitable for identification of the learning needs.

By delivering the above learning experiences to the target audience, British Telecom will create a High-Performance Working (HPW) culture; wherein there would be trust, lucid communication lines and transparency. HPW is basically a general approach to organisational management which intends to stimulate higher employee commitment and involvement to attain higher performance levels (Mabey and Thomson, 2012). These training needs assessment methods and interventions when put into place, and integrated are likely to result in better performance of employees.

The proposed learning intervention for delivering non-verbal communications training is through interactive training course designed for the team. The advantages of this technique outweigh its cost of implementation in the sense that it will enhance the professional performance of the team members. Moreover, as there are only 13 people to be trained, it would not require much time to deliver and then assess. The learning intervention proposed for imparting customer service training is automated training. This would require using an e-learning software which can be used to impart training to a bulk of employees. It is relatively easier to organise, impact and assess. The cost of implementing this learning intervention is much less than the potential benefits British Telecom would reap from its implementation. Also, the platform could be used any number of times without having to take out time to lecture and then evaluate.

The principles of adult learning theory need to be applied here. The team members in case of FSW team and the customer service reps in the second case should be involved in the planning as well as evaluation of their instructions. They should be allowed to make reasonable mistakes as this is the cornerstone of learning activities. As the learners would be more interested in getting training on things that have direct relevance to their jobs hence the training would be problem oriented instead of content oriented (Pappas, 2013).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that training needs in British Telecom i.e. non-communication skills and customer relationship abilities are identified through interviews and surveys respectively. Training for these skills could be imparted via interactive training courses and automated learning respectively. The CIRO model could be used to evaluate training outcomes.

References

Abdul, R., 2015. Change Management in British Telecom BT Since Privatization. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.robabdul.com/changemanagement/change-management-in-british-telecom-bt-since-privatisation/>. [Accessed on 12^th June 2017].

Foster, S., 2013. HR Ready: Creating Competitive Advantage Through Human Resource Management. Lulu.com

Gupta, K., 2011. A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment. John Wiley & Sons.

Kraiger, K., Passmore, J., Santos, N. and Malvezzi, S., 2014. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Training, Development, and Performance Improvement. John Wiley & Sons.

Mabey, C. and Thomson, R., 2012. Developing Human Resources. Routledge.

McGoldric, B. and Tobey, D., 2016. Needs Assessment Basics. 2^nd ed. Association for Talent Development.

Pappas, C., 2013. The Adult Learning Theory - Andragogy - of Malcolm Knowles. [Online]. Available through: <https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles>. [Accessed on 12^th June 2017].

Pelayo, R. and Veronica., 2015. Design and Application of Quantified Self Approaches for Reflective Learning in the Workplace. KIT Scientific Publishing.

Stasi, C., 2013. Effective Communications in a Virtual Team. The Open University.

Stufflebeam, D. and Coryn, C., 2014. Evaluation Theory, Models, and Applications. John Wiley & Sons.

Weber, Y., 2015. Development and Training at Mergers and Acquisitions. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 209, pp. 254-260.

Werner, J. and DeSimone, R., 2011. Human Resource Development. Cengage Learning.