Individual Report: Case Briefs
You can chose one of the following case briefs to base your individual report on. Alternatively you can choose to write the report based on an organisation you work for or are familiar with – please inform the module leader if you wish to do this alternative option.
Case Brief 1: Construction Co
Your L&TD team are part of a medium-sized construction company which is seeking to grow and expand its current operations. It was set up five years ago and is establishing itself within the local regional market in the North of England, but is now reaching into the national UK market more strongly.
However, over the past couple of years there have been a small number of serious health and safety incidents across three of the five main operational sites. Given that health and safety is of paramount importance to the company and its reputation, you are very much aware that you need to implement an L&D intervention that builds a strong health and safety culture.
There are five sites, each managed by an Operations Manager (OM)and approximately 300 employees spread evenly across the five sites. The OMs have informed you that not only do they find the current e-learning provision (a 1 hour powerpoint based instruction through the intranet system followed by a multiple choice quiz) on safety inadequate, they also find it difficult to monitor and share information about potential safety concerns with each other.
You therefore need to design an L&TD intervention that overhauls the current e-learning provision and enables the operations managers to share information and insights with each other so that any potential safety concerns are identified and acted upon quickly. Should you decide to outsource any training provision then there is budget available however there is always pressure to keep costs down.
Case Brief 2: Technology Co
Your L&TD team are part of a medium-sized technology company which has four offices – one in London, one in Paris, one in New York, and one in Dubai. Your team is based in London. It was set up five years ago and is establishing itself within each of its main hubs, with the London and New York hubs being very successful. However, over the last year the company’s major competitor has become more aggressive in the Middle East market.
Given that Dubai is a growing area of business for your company, it is of paramount importance to ensure that the team in Dubai are in a strong place to grow the business within the increasingly competitive environment. You are very much aware that you need to implement an L&D intervention that strengthens the company’s ability to compete within the Middle East market.
You have been told that you have to focus on utilising and developing the existing workforce and in enabling the sharing of expertise and knowledge from the more successful hubs. You also have been allocated some budget to cover the costs to recruit one additional external senior level person to supplement the core intervention if necessary.
A decision needs to be made whether it would be preferable for this person to be sourced from the UK or Middle East. You therefore need to design an L&TD intervention that develops and utilises the current talent that the organisation has across its four hubs as well as attracts talent to strengthen the position of the Dubai hub.
Case Brief 3: Consultancy Co
Your L&TD team are part of a large-sized management consultancy services company which has six offices – three in the UK, two in Germany, and one in the Netherlands. You are based in the company’s headquarters in London.
One of the organisation’s key strengths is that is operates a strong matrix style virtual project team structure – a client is matched with a team of experts who represent a range of service functions within the business. Each project has a lead project manager and so an employee may have several ‘managers’ over the course of the year.
This makes identifying training and development needs quite difficult as a lot of information from different people is required, and so last year the organisation has implemented a ‘people manager’ system where each employee is designated one person as their people manager over the course of two years.
The people manager’s role is to collect information from project managers every quarter on the employee’s skills, performance, and development as well as any particular issues that have arisen. They then evaluate this information and conduct a formal personal development plan with the employee at the end of the financial year – this should be a positive experience where the employee should feel encouraged and empowered to learn and grow.
Although the people manager system is generally working well and is perceived fairly positively in the business, there are inconsistencies across services and there is a consensus that many people managers are struggling with ‘soft skills’ needed for the role. In particular, there have been complaints by employees based in the financial and legal service functions (UK and Germany) that some people managers are showing a lack of commitment to the employee and their development, and using it more as a way to punish poor performance – which is not want you wanted.
You therefore need to design an L&TD intervention to develop the ‘softer skills’ competencies of the people managers, particularly those in the functions identified. Additionally, you will need to ensure that both training design, delivery and evaluation facilitate transfer of learning to the workplace.