Human Resource Development: Importance And Strategies For Aldi UK

Write a report for the CEO of Aldi UK in which you address the following issues:
1. Identify and evaluate three methods of identifying the capability gaps of existing staff with a view to developing them for future store management positions.
2. Compare and contrast coaching and mentoring in the workplace against a formally structured management training programme, in terms of the effectiveness of developing existing Aldi staff for future management positions as part of the planned expansion, ensuring you provide a detailed analysis and evaluation of each option.
3. Provide a concise and precise set of final recommendations and a conclusion, in which you summarise and justify your main findings.

Identifying Capability Gaps in Existing Staff for Future Store Management Positions

Human resource development basically refers to the process of providing training to employees through work shop, classroom lectures and many other sources in order to enhance existing skills (Werner and DeSimone, 2011). These training will not only help in development of employee as an individual but it will also help the organisation to attain success by using skills and talent of its staff members. Employees are considered as the asset of the organisation. No organisation can exist for the longer period without developing their employees (Swart et.al. 2012). However there are many industries which do not pay much attention to human resource development. On the other hand, few sectors understand its importance as a result they provide proper training to their team members so that they can brush up their existing skills and endure new skills in them.

As there are many people working in the Aldi UK so, the development needs to be done in the systematic way after the formulation of appropriate strategies. Managing the employees with the use of strategies is completely new in the field of human resource management. In order to simplify this process many policies, plans, rules, regulations are developed by the enterprise (Peppard and Ward, 2016).

Three methods of identifying the capability gaps of existing staff with a view to developing them for future store management positions

Every organisation wants to expand its business after the certain period but in order to peruse the same they need to enhance existing skills of their employees so, that company can easily adopt changes and have complete knowledge regarding new tools, equipment and machinery used by the organisation.

Aldi being the 5^TH largest retailer of grocery products in UK has many employees working in 700 plus stores. All these employees have some capabilities on the basis of which they are selected but now as the organisation is planning to expand its business by increasing the number of stores to 1000 it required more employees. Considering the fact that the existing staff members are lacking behind in the capability that is required by the organisation so, training session should be organised by the organisation that can help existing staff members to complete the capability gap and help Aldi to expand its business efficiently.  

Complete process is followed within the organisation in order to recognise the gaps between actual requirement and existing capabilities present in the employees. The process involve three basis steps-

Methods for Identifying Capability Gaps in Existing Staff

Identifying the existing skills – it involve complete process in which leader make the list of all the skills that required. List may vary from one member to other depending upon the type of work performed by the worker. In order to carry on this process a leader sit with the line managers to know what are their expectations towards their team members. This list will help the organisation in taking decisions that which training sessions needed to be organised so that employees can complete the gap ( Sekaran and Bougie, 2016).

Ask around – in order to know that how the staff members are working company can take the feedback from the all those number of people with whom they contact like leaders or customers (Landsberg, 2015). As in ALDI employees have to face customers therefore on the basis of their reviews they can fill the gap between the capabilities can easily be analysed. Apart from this ALDI can adopt the culture of filling feedback slip within its departmental stores because it’s been considered that customer fill the form only if they are very impressed by the services or vice versa.

Each and every individual knows where they are lacking behind in the knowledge so, by preparing appropriate question sheet of skills staff members can self-analyse the areas where they are lacking behind. Further on the basis of this they can be trained.

Adopt different ways to test them and their performance in the organisation – organisations like ALDI required the employees required some common skills in their employees such as, good convincing capability, ability to attract customers, proper communication skills and many more. Therefore by conducting different test capabilities can easily be analysed. Three different ways in which it can be done are-

• Giving specific role to play – in order to evaluate how the employees are face to face dealing the customers or on calls role play is the best option among all because employees will show their best image when they know that their performance is been accessed by their concern leaders (Garg, 2017). Apart from this it will provide the clear view that hoe they are dealing with the customers.
• Practical test - these tests are conducted to see that whether the team members will be able to perform the task as per the expectation of ALDI or not. It is very important that at the time of joining the organisation employees show be cleared that what is been expected from them and if in and case leaders or their concern heads find that employees are lacking behind them additional training should be given to them for the same (Smith, 2017).
• Theoretical test – it won’t be easy for the Aldi with the large employee size to judge each and every employee individual so, written test is one of the appropriate ways that can be adopted by the organisation to know the skills and capabilities present in the employees. In this test employees have to and certain questions and further their performance will be evaluated on the basis of their test (Petty et.al. 2017).

Coaching basically refers to the method of providing a proper direction along with the instructions to complete the project with the aim of developing an employee so that later organisation can use their services. On the other hand mentoring is the complete process in which employees are given proper support and are encouraged to learn new things so, that they can develop their overall skills and deliver their best to the organisation (Lancer, Clutterbuck and Megginson, 2016).

Both the mentoring and coaching are totally different from each other because mentoring is the on-going process that last for the long period of time. At the time of mentoring leaders try to deliver the information and conduct the meeting in an informal manner so that they can make the employees feel comfortable to ask queries (Garvey et.al. 2017).

Structured Training Program for Employee Development

Main focus of mentoring is on the career as well as personal development. In the beginning agenda is fixed by the mentee and later mentor provide the support as well as guidance so that employees can be prepared for the future rules (Passmore, Peterson and Freire, 2016). As the mentor has more experience as well as educational qualification are high as compared to mentee that’s why he is given senior position in the organisation so that he can deliver knowledge that they had derive from the experience so they mentee can also grasp opportunities present in the business organisation. Although employees are working from the long time in ALDI but still mentoring is essential to keep them up to date so that they can work in good coordinated way with the fresh blood that will enter in the organisation through the process of recruitment.

If the employees have mentor over their head they feel secure and are not at all afraid to undertake new responsibilities because they are sure that their leaders above them are there to support them whenever the need arise. Although depending upon the type of organisation leaders decide that whether they should conduct, formal or informal mentoring but in the case of ALDI as it has become the 5th biggest grocery retailer in the UK so they adopted formal mentoring process in order to develop their existing employees to accrue managerial position in future.

Coaching is slightly different from mentoring as it involve it is basically a type of relationship that has specific duration along with the set schedule which focuses on developmental issues. However in coaching does not required complete information about the area in which the employee is specialised until unless it is focused on the specific skills. Main focus is paid on attaining specific as well as immediate goals of the ALDI. Coaching is becomes important specially in the case of ALDI because as there is a need to develop informal relationship with the employees so that they can freely ask the questions related to the quality of services they have to deliver to the customers and many more. Therefore it can be said that coaching and mentoring are totally different form one other but still both are essential for the company in order to train existing staff.

Structured Training programme

Structured training programme has complete description of time in which activities need to be done in order to attain well defined goals established by the owners to the organisation. Such type of programme can help the company to attain success by developing the employees (Ford, 2014). If the organisations follow this training programme then it can avail many benefits such as-

Consistency within the organisation 

Such type of programme can assure that the employees to attain high quality experience under the well-designed training module. It also facilitates the employees to start the work with equal opportunities. Further it will help in development of coordinative work environment (Watson, 2017).

Beneficial for the leaders

Success or the failure of the organisation depends upon the fact that whether the employees are able to attain their targets or not. In order to assure that they attain all their targets on time it’s essential to evaluate their work by drawing the comparisons between the actual work performed and the targets set by the leaders (Brown, 2017). If employees are not working well then it means that the training programme designed by the organisation is not good enough.

Certainty

Structured training programme will assure certainty in the quality of services provided by the employees to the customers in the departmental store of ALDI. Apart from this every company wants to invest fewer amounts and gain maximum advantage in the terms of profitability. As employees are valuable asset of the organisation and the major part of profitability depends upon their skills so, (Mintchev and Hinshelwood, 2017)by adopting structured training programme it would be easy for the organisation make the budgeting training programme. Apart from this it also facilitate in developing the understanding that what kind of skills need to be developed among employees in order to prepare them to take managerial position.

Being a Human Resource Director of ALDI, I think that skills can be developed efficiently in the employees with the help of structured training development plan and its better then coaching and mentoring because ALDI has larger number of workers working within the organisation so, the organisation won’t be able to provide training to all until unless there is any structured plan made for training.

Maslow’s need hierarchy theory

Apart from all this there are many theories of human resource such as Maslow’s need hierarchy theory as per which all the individuals have some common set of need starting from the basic need commonly known (Parkay,  Anctil and Hass, 2014) as physiological need and ending at higher level need that is self-actualisation. In between there are many other needs which are important in order to retain the employee for the longer period within the organisation (Jerome, 2013). So, Aldi can take into consideration all these factors while designing structural training programme.

Equality theory

On the other hand at the time of giving the training it’s important to assure that all the employees should be trained without discrimination as well as without taking into consideration amount of output they had given to the organisation in past (Bakey et.al. 2016). And this only be assure when everyone is provided proper training by keeping in mind that anyone among all can take managerial position in the organisation in upcoming business expansion period. This this can be ensured on when employees are developed by following proper structured training programme (Honneth and Rancière, 2016).

• Normally it happens that with the expansion of the business entrepreneurs loose they quality with which they earlier use to serve their customers but in order to run the business for the longer period it’s essential to maintain the same quality level. However the quality level of the organisation depends upon the employees so it’s important to provide them training on the regular basis so that they can brush up their existing skill and develop new skills.
• Control mechanism (appendix 2) need to be established so, that the organisation can understand the places where they are lacking behind and develop appropriate training programme if in care there is large gap between the targets established and actual accomplishment (Hopkin, 2017).
• Employees should be give incentives for the extra sale. These incentives should be given at the end of the month as per the work performed by them. These incentives will develop the sprit of competition among the employees which will results in better performance and increase in profitability of the organisation.
• Every employee working within the organisation face many problems but they do not share with the top authorities because of the fare and further it results in increase in frustrations well as irritation. This effect the work performance which can become one of the biggest reasons of increase in employee turnover and reduction in overall profits of ALDI so, special departments should be established where all the employees can address their grievances.
• As ALDI is planning to expand its business in different parts of the world so employees need to be to be made flexible enough to adjust themselves with the people which are different from  them in terms of cast, colour, sex, cultural and many other things.
• Whenever ALDI make any changes in its policies, programmes, rules and regulations they should consult all the employees this will make them feel as if they are important part of the organisation and all those departments which are not effected by the policy change they should also be informed because all the departments are interrelated so everyone working it the organisation so everyone working in the ALDI should be well aware about all the changes. This will make the employees aware everything that is going around in the organisation.
• As all the leaders act as a role model (Johnson, 2017) for their employees so, before providing any training to the employees ALDI should make sure that all the leaders should be well acknowledged about the new things that employees are going to learn so that being a leader they can also help their employees in after the training they have any query.
• As all the employees cannot excel in all the fields so they should be trained in the area in which they are best. In order to ensure the same organisation should only focus on the core competencies that they need to build in their employees by developing appropriate strategic human resource development plan.
• Proper induction programme need to be developed within the ALDI departmental stores. Induction programme should be carries in an appropriate manner. Under the induction programme they complete information should be provided to them regarding their working hours, their responsibilities, authorities, to whom they will be accountable and many other things. All this information will help them to adjust in the best way within the organisation.
• ALDI should ensure proper quality check and uniformity in the product offered by the organisation to the customer. This will help in developing good image of ALDI in the market.
• Aldi should organise an informal conference once in the year. The conferences should include employees working in all the different departments. This helps them in developing understanding with each other. Further all these help the organisation to enjoy considerable amount of profitability because of the good coordination between their staff members.
• Time to time survey should be conducted in order to know the changes in the needs and wants of the customers. These surveys will help the company not only to lead their competitors but also retaining their existing customer base and attracting new customers (Burke, 2017).

Conclusion

From the above report it can be concluded that, employees are the most precious assets of the organisation. Therefore the company can touch new heights in the business environment only by developing their human resources. This development can be done by providing them training so that they can improve they skills and their way of dealing with the customers but before giving the training employees should be made clear in advance all their duties as well as their responsibilities. This will help them to draw connectivity between their between their learning and their actual work.

In order to assure proper development of the employee’s structural development training plan should be developed with the organisation. Such plan should include time period, things to be taught and many more things but even after providing the training ALDI should train their managers to keep an eagle eye over their employees in order ensure that all the employees provide their best services to the customers. At the end their performance need to be evaluated on the basis of the standards established.

If the performance match the standards or better than that, then incentives should be given to the employees in order to motivate them (Danielson and Marquez, 2016). This will help the organisation in reducing employee turnover as well as the overall training cost. At the end all these will help the organisation to increase its profitability and expand its stores. Aldi can easily convert its dreams into reality of opening 1,000 stores by 2022, if it continues to focus on the core areas in which they have to work.

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