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Creative Decisions for Effective Change
Introduction
Quality of decisions made is core to the success of any organization. For the success of everyday operations within organizations, there is a need for an effective decision making process. As organizations continue becoming complex, attainment of short-term as well as long-term objectives depend on the decisions made by the management. Decision making process helps organizations to come up with strategies to meet their future goals. The process is also crucial in determining the effectiveness of an organizations current decisions through various methods. Decision making process is viewed as the gateway towards positive change within an organization (Adair 2001, p. 45). Decision making within an organization is also credited for enhancing employee satisfaction. This is due to various considerations made regarding their welfare before opting to make certain decisions within an organization. It is also through the decision making process that team work is enhanced within an organization.
Within an organization, various decisions are made depending on the various departments that are likely to be affected by the decision. Individual decision, group decision oe behavioral decision making are used. One of the areas where decisions are required is in human resource management. As human resource manager, individual decisions imperative. Sometimes quick decisions are required under a short period of time. Individual decision has various advantages including faster decision making. For human resource department to effectively perform its functions within the organization, it has to make informed decisions. One of the challenges that these departments face is making decisions with respect to employee training and development. Most of human resource personnel do not follow the necessary steps when making decisions on employees to recruit or train. This leads to organizations incurring cost by paying employees who do not help in attaining the organizations goals (Adler 2006, pp. 486-499). Decision making process within Kamuga Tours has for a long time cost it. The organization has for many years incurred huge costs by paying unproductive employees. Its human resource department has for a long time failed to make substantial consultation and deliberation before embarking on employee training and development. As a result, most of its employees were not in a position to learn organization functions which negatively affected the organizations productivity. This paper is aimed at reviewing some of the problems the department was making in its decision making and hence offer some of the changes that can be made to improve its decision making process.
Decision making sequence in employee training and development
Behavioral decision making is very important in making decision in human resource management. Behavioral decision making makes use of human behavior to explain how some decisions are made. All elements of behavioral decision making such as collaboration and power and authority determine the quality of decision made. Success in any organization depends on the level of knowledge its employees have in implementing its strategies. This is the reason why most organizations struggle to recruit and acquire qualified employees. Before the human resource personnel within an organization decides to train or recruit new employees, the personnel needs to make several considerations (Allen & Moore 2001, p. 87). One of the considerations is the cost of training or recruiting with respect to its expected outcome within the organization. In the past, the human resource personnel within Kamuga Tours made little effort in considering the effects of employee training on the organization. Most of the recruited employees made little or no contribution towards the organizations growth. As a result, the company incurred huge expenses in catering for employee training which did not benefit the company. The personnel responsible for employee training made little considerations on employees training requirements within the organization. Most of the employees were trained to perform some functions that the organization was not in need of at the time. It was until when I got to the company that we decided to implement some changes in employee training decisions. Although the management was aware of the problem, there was laxity to implement the necessary changes. The main reason was lack of proper problem evaluation. Before making changes to the system, we were aware of decision making traps. Short sightedness, overconfidence or failure to evaluate the decision could lead to mistakes. Before embarking on employee training, the human resource personnel now have to consider the costs incurred in training with respect to the benefits the training will have to the organization. On ascertaining that organization will benefit more from the training, the department goes on to equip its employees with relevant skills and information (Balogun & Hope-Hailey 2004, p. 143).
Before making the decision to bring changes in employee recruitment and training, there was need to synthesize the decision making. The first step was o collect the facts about the problem, consult on possible solutions, come up with a decision and then implement. Conducting employee training on entire organization may prove costly to the organization. This is because; it may require the organization to arrange for enough space to cater for all employees. It would also mean that most of the organizations activities would be delayed as employees require extra time for training. This was one of the major problems that rocked Kamuga Tours. When human resource personnel decided to conduct employee training, the training would affect most of organization employees leading to delay in some functions. As the company caters for travel services, most of its customers went without their needs being met by the company during such periods (Bazerman & Chugh 2006, pp. 88-97). This cost the company dearly as most of these customers never came back. Customer satisfaction is one of the major factors that ensure customers trust for an organization. As I got to the organization, most of its customers had already lost hope in the organization services. Most of them opted to go to other organizations for the same services. Consequently, there was an urgent need for new ways of implementing employee training within the company.
There could be various alternative solutions to a problem. The ability of decision maker to choose the right alternative is vey important. In bring change in employee training, we considered various alternative solutions. To ensure that the organization met customers needs and at the same time continued with its employee training, various alterations had to be made on the manner in which employee training was being conducted. As not all departments within the organization required employee training at the same time, decision making process on the particular employees to be accorded training had to be altered. To decide on this, we had to make thorough analysis on departments that urgently required training. This was not only meant to ensure customer satisfaction but also ensured that most of the vital functions within the company did not go without being attended (Berger1972, p 121).
Proper timing for employee training is important within an organization. This ensures that employees are always equipped with the necessary knowledge to cater for the changing customers needs (Butler 2000, p. 314). Based on the trend of organization performance, human resource personnel can manage to make appropriate decisions on the time to conduct employee training and when not to conduct. During peak period, organizations receive a lot of customers (Bizmove.com 2009, para. 3). This is the period when business organizations greatly need services offered by various employees. Conducting employee training during this period would mean that the company would be overwhelmed by the customers needs. As a result, this can lead to customer dissatisfaction making the organization lose most of its customers. Human resource personnel in Kamuga Tours made little considerations about the trend of performance within the organization before arranging for employee training. In some instances, employees would be booked for training when the company is in dire need of their services. Most customers went without their needs being addressed. This made it hard for the company to overcome competition from other organizations as it employees failed to effectively provide services that would lead to customer satisfaction (Business Link 2010, para. 5).
The major impediment to decision is fear of the outcome. In the past, there was frustration after the management was not able to come up with a solution. After analyzing the periods in which the company was training its employees, I realized that it was during such times that the company recorded high number of customers (Butler & Allen 2008, pp. 421-440). This was attributed to poor decision making processes among the human resource personnel with respect to setting time for employee training. To cater for this problem, we had to make broad decision to bring changes to the system. In case we had set for a date for employee training only to realize that during this period the company recorded high number of customers, alterations had to be made to ensure that the company has enough employees to cater for customer needs. This has greatly helped in improving customer satisfaction as well as improving the organizations competitive advantage (Cutting & Kouzmin 1999, pp. 475-508). Today, the company is able to organize for regular employee training programs without leaving some customers needs unattended.
On identifying training needs within an organization, the most appropriate period to hold the training as well as those employees who need training, it is imperative for human resource managers to select the most viable training method to be implemented (Cutting & Kouzmin 2000, pp. 477-511). Selecting the best training method will lead to employee satisfaction thus facilitating in ensuring that they acquire the intended skills. Over the years, Kamuga Tours would use off-the-job method to train its employees. Human resource personnel did not consider the nature of training before deciding on the training method to use. This made the organization to lack enough employees to cater for the various customers needs. Some of the training is not very complex and can be conducted while employees still continue with their responsibilities within the company. Decisions on method of training to be used are currently arrived at after conducting a thorough analysis of training methods as well as employee needs. For on-the-job training, employees are supplied with a schedule that explains how the training will be conducted (Davis & Devinney 1997, p. 324). Some of the methods used in on-the-job training include job rotation, internship and orientation.
For off-the-job training, there are various methods that can be used. These include lectures, conferences, simulations as well as films (Dawson 1996, p. 265). To arrive at the decisions on which method to use, human resource managers need to be well informed of the needs within the organization. Methods such as lectures may appear boring to employees making them fail to concentrate. For instance, most of the off-the-job trainings in Kamuga Tours used to be conducted through discussions. This disadvantaged most of the employees as they were unable to memorize what was discussed when they went back to their respective areas of specialization. Consequently, the output rate of such employees did not change even after undergoing training. Currently, before deciding on the method to use for off-the-job training, the company puts into consideration different needs of its employees (Gombrich1996, p. 46). This has significantly facilitated in improving employee productivity as well as competitive advantage of the company.
Decisions on the most appropriate experts to conduct the training depend on the nature of the training and employee needs. Most of the on-the-job training is conducted by organization supervisors (Handy 1993, p. 176). Effective training depends on the knowledge of the trainer on activities that take place within the organization as well as the needs of the various trainees. In most cases, organizations opt to use their supervisors and managers to conduct employee training. Due to cost of hiring experienced trainer, Kamuga Tours human resource personnel opted to use organization supervisors in conducting both on and off-the-job training. This proved cost effective with respect to training cost but since most of the supervisors lacked enough knowledge about operations within the organization, they did not help in improving some of the specialized services within the company. Use of supervisors in employee training undermined the fact that there are services within the company that requires skilled personnel to train (Hatch 1997, p. 139). To arrive at the decision on the experts to offer specific training, human resource personnel need to understand the level of customer satisfaction required for these services. This ensures that the company looks for the most effective trainer.
Use of supervisors in conducting on and off-the-job training in Kamuga Tours led to its employees not being able to effectively address customer needs. However, when the company started analyzing the required level of consumer satisfaction and looked for the most relevant trainer to conduct the training, most consumers have been found to be satisfied with services offered by the company. The company has understood that use of foreign trainers boosts employee concentration making them understand the concept being taught more than they do when the same training is conducted by their supervisors.
Setting the right duration for employee training is imperative as it ensures that all the required knowledge is disseminated to employees (Lukes 1982, p. 212). Conducting an abrupt employee training may lead to trainers omitting most of the vital information as they try to keep to the set time. On the other hand, allocating employee training a lot of time may lead to most of customer services being omitted as employees engage in training. To allocate every training program the appropriate time, human resource personnel need to consider the nature of training as well as the level of education their employees have. Some employees may require more time to understand an idea than others. Such employees would require more time for their training (March & Simon 1958, pp. 46-76). This consideration was not being made in Kamuga Tours. All training programs were allocated equal time. In some instances, training ended before the set duration while in others trainers had to do away with some training concepts in order to complete their training on time. This resulted in employees not being trained on some of the important concepts of the services they offered. This was detrimental to the company as it led to customers disloyalty to the company.
To ensure that every employee received the necessary training without having to train under pressure, I helped in making numerous changes with respect to decision making on the amount of time to allocate for every training as well as timing for periods to conduct employee training. Conducting employee training during peak periods meant that employees would not be given ample time to train. As a result, trainings that required a longer duration to be completed were conducted during off peak periods. Before organizing for employee training, human resource personnel now conduct thorough analysis of the nature of training as well as employee needs. This ensures that training is scheduled in a manner that they it is not constrained by time (Mintzberg & Westley 2001, pp. 89-93).
A decision should be evaluated in order to determine whether it accomplish its goals. To determine the effectiveness of employee training, it is imperative for an organization to conduct regular employee evaluations. The organization needs to compare the skills attained by employees with those set by the organization to facilitate in attainment of its objectives. Through this, the company is able to identify some of the skills that its employees lack thus organizing for a training to cater for them (Rosenfeld & Wilson 1999, p. 324). Failure by most organizations to evaluate effectiveness of employee training and development within their performance contribute to most of them perceiving employee training as an expense instead of an investment. The same problem rocked Kamuga Tours. After employees were taken through training, no follow up was made to determine whether the training was effective. No improvement was being made on the kind of training being offered in the organization with all employees going through the same training. This is because the organization did not evaluate employee performance after training to determine the changes needed in its training programs (Russell & Evans 1992, pp. 18-42). It was after I explained the importance of employee evaluation to the management team that they decided to incorporate the idea in the organization. Nowadays, decisions on whether to train or not train employees is made based on information obtained after evaluating employees who have undergone training before. The human resource personnel identifies some of the weaknesses in the offered training and makes proper adjustments to ensure that the training is effective in equipping employees with the necessary skills to attain organization goals.
Before an organization decides to conduct employee training, it is advised that a pilot training is conducted using a small group of the employees who are to be trained (Russo & Schoemaker 1990, p. 184). This helps the trainer in identifying areas that need to be critically addressed during the training as well as identifying alterations to be made in the training program. Conducting employee training without initially conducting a pilot training leads to trainers not addressing all areas of training needed by employees. In Kamuga Tours employee training was being conducted without performing any pilot training on employees to determine areas that employees require to be effectively trained on. Consequently, impacts of the training were not felt within the company as trainers did not understand the employees needs (Simon 1957, p. 35). This made the management to be reluctant in offering employee training. After joining the company, I went through the methods that were being used in organizing employee training and realized that the company failed to benefit from training due to poor methods used in organizing and conducting employee training. I introduced the issue of pilot training in the company which could be used in determining the benefits of the training to the company. From a pilot training the human resource department arrives at a decision on who to conduct the training what the training will entail and how the training will be conducted in the organization (Small Business solution 2009, para. 1).
Conclusion
Before the human resource department within an organization embarks on employee training and development, there are various considerations that should be put into consideration. Human resource personnel should go through a process of decision making to determine whether employees need to be trained or not (Thompson, J.D. & Tuden, A., 1959, pp. 195-216). As it is hard to conduct employee training in the entire organization at the same time, human resource personnel ought to conduct an analysis of the organizations and employees needs to determine employees who urgently require the training (Thompson 1967, p.123). As training incurs the organization some cost, it is important to evaluate the benefits of the training to the organization before deciding to conduct it. This eliminates cases of taking employees through unnecessary training (Thompson & McHugh 2002, pp. 78-103).
Conducting employee training during periods when an organization receives many customers may result in the organization failing to satisfy its customer needs. To decide on the most appropriate time to conduct employee training, human resource personnel are required to have clear information on business trend. This facilitates scheduling the training in periods when the company does not receive many customers (Wetzel 2009, para. 2-5). Considerations about the nature and level of employees education should be made before deciding on the amount of time to allocate each training program as well as method of training to use.
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