Workgroup Profile

The theoretical perspective of the learning organization continues to analyze the behavior change and the patterns of interaction within the organizations. The organizational learning assists in the alignment of the individuals and group collective experiences. The powerful participation of the organizational members occurs through a diversity of modes and levels. It involves sharing ideas, experiences and knowledge (Belle, 2016).

This research introduces a proposal of creating an action plan of learning and development of the team leaders of customer resolution department at Red Telecom. It is a multinational organization that provides mobile and fixed line services. The company newly established inclusive strategy 2020 (RISE) concentrates on managing the diversity of customers at the workplace. The launch of this strategy resulted in diverse reactions among the staff members. Some of the team leaders concern for this strategy as it might lead to low performance.

The following sections discuss the proposal objective, workgroup profile, the problem statement, the needed competencies, the learning and development proposal evaluation and the initial action plan.

This proposal aims at designing a learning and development program for the customer resolution department team leaders. The initial action plan is to be implemented within one year in accordance with the aims of the RISE program.

Red’s customer resolution department structure is based on teams. They include 8-15 customer service employees who report directly to the team leader. 70% of the frontline employees are females, 42% are from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, about 2% have a disability, and 3% openly identified as LBGTIQ. Each team leader reports to the operations manager and the general manager. Teams include part-time employees, where 80% of them are females but among the team leaders, there is only one female.

The ability of Red to implement a strategic learning and development action plan in order to achieve the aims of Red’s inclusive strategy 2020 (EISE). The staff is feeling stressed, lacks the guidance and assistance of the team leaders and frustrated because of the restructuring process that affected their job, relation with customers and colleagues and overseas counterparts.  

Description and analysis of needed knowledge, skills and competencies

Some of the team members raised complains that they need information and guidance from their team leaders in certain cases where the clients abuse them. They lack the support of their team leaders who could not fulfil the long-term goals and they suspect their ability to comply with the long-term performance goals. Although the new environment is more enabling for better monitoring and encouraging for faster resolution of conflicts, the team members complained that the increased electronic surveillance and extensive call monitoring negatively affect their performance. Moreover, it hinders their ability to advance and become team leaders. The best team members in dealing with the customer complaints were under-evaluated and the faster response team members are those who are appreciated. The female team members suffer from the imbalance among the departments and the negative attitude of some team leaders. Some of the team members had bad experiences due to the stress of the unhealthy workstations, when they complained to their team leaders, they did not get a satisfactory response. They also suffer from short or missed breaks and employees with disability did not disclose the issue for their fear of discrimination. The team leaders are not prepared to deal with people with disabilities and cannot identify their needs. They also concerned that hiring people with disability could lower the performance.

Problem Statement

Analysis and appropriateness of current L&D policy/approach.

The description of the employees and leadership learning and development reveal that Red lacks the appropriate training and development and they are in high need for a learning and development programs to enhance their performance and level of satisfaction.

Overview of proposed learning and development strategy

There are two major aspects of organizational formal learning; confidence building and contextualizing.  Confidence develops of interaction over time, it is created from the feeling of empowerment. The increased group participation increases the possibility of building confidence. The context refers to the organization’s ability to initiate dialogue, learning and development and knowledge creation (Belle, 2016).

The formal learning is done through offering financial, technical or group support that represent powerful tools for stimulating organizational learning. These aids involve books, computers, software, internet and financial aids that support the employees’ daily work. Van Woerkom et al. (2002), as cited in Schürmann & Beausaert (2016), developed a model that describes the factors of reflective work behavior through self-reflection in relation to the job, learning from mistakes, asking for feedback, vision sharing, knowledge sharing, experimentation, group thinking and awareness of employability skills.

The informal learning is a form of tacit learning that engages individuals and groups. It can take place in the workplace or outside it. Schulz & Roßnagel, 2010, as cited in Richardson & Kirkwood (2017), argue that informal learning is the on-the-job learning. Also, it depends on the organizational context. An informal relationship takes place between the learner and the trainers. Leadership is an important facilitator for the informal learning when they are capable to serve as facilitators or role models.

Benefits and outcomes 

Action learning (AL) was invented by Revans (1998), as cited in Belet (2016), it is applied to enhance the leadership skills, including their ability to solve problems, create collaborative team, create reflective atmosphere, maintain good relationships among team members, listen carefully to individuals, enhance the individual and team creativity, promote for emotional intelligence engage the team members in the organizational strategy development and empowering them. The action learning is very suitable for the Red customer resolution department. It enhances the learning capabilities of individuals (leadership) and groups in the short-term. Also, it is beneficial for team building and learning and it benefits the organization as a whole in the medium to long-term (Baron, 2016).

A substantial body of research indicates that leadership training across different organizations has a positive impact. Training increases the perception, attitude, and behaviour of the employees towards their leader (Searby & Armstrong, 2016).

Needed Competencies

Training is likely to improve the relationship between Red’s employees and their team leaders in the customer resolution department. According to Yukl (2009), as cited in Hasson et al. (2016), the training programs that consist of theory and practice are likely to enhance the leadership behavior, improve the employees learning at both the individual and group levels.

Design considerations

The HRD is responsible for expanding the learning paradigm in terms of learning dimensions, contribution and practice. It has to be involved in the strategic planning process. Researchers linked the creation of competitive learning strategy with the strategy-making process. This process is likely to be adapted to the internal environment (Moon, Ruona, & Valentine, 2017).

Red needs the appropriate guidance to embed the strategic learning capability in it. The learning strategy should be aligned with the strategic aims of improving diversity climate, increasing the proportion of women’s team leader roles and increasing the proportion of the individuals with disability among the staff members and to identify and support the high talent staff of any background.

Implementation factors

Learning is a collective system that results in knowledge exchange between individuals, subgroups and the organization as a whole. The implementation factors start with developing the group values towards learning or the organizational learning culture. Then the facilitators of learning that refers to the set of processes that enables learning to occur should be identified (Gil & Mataveli, 2017). Accordingly, Red has to create the difficult learning climate and the shared individual work perception of the work setting among the team members should be promoted. There should be no discrimination against women or employees with disability. Training programs should be offered to the team leaders to develop their capabilities with this regard. The workstations should be enhanced to lower the stress levels, leaders should act as facilitators that support the team members. This development program should take place in the short-run. Time, location, money and equipment should be delivered, high-quality coaching should lead the learning process regardless of the required expenses because the stress level in the customer resolution department is very high.

Validation of learning

The impact of learning and development on the leaders and group performance could be measured with regard to work-based and career-based learning. According to Cole (2016), the learning measurements that could be used are performing job-related tasks, effective and clear communication, staff management rather than leader isolation, the ability to deal with tactical challenges and engage in strategic changes. The employee satisfaction survey could also be used in Red to measure their satisfaction level after getting the required learning. It is beneficial to judge if more development is needed.

Obstacles and challenges 

Learning and Development Proposal Evaluation

The major challenges that could face Red in managing effective learning and development are represented in the motivation to learn. It is obvious that the team leaders in the customer resolution department are not supportive, lack the high performance skills required to meet the long-term goals and discriminate among the team members. Their ability to develop their capabilities is crucial that requires developing and promoting for learning culture within the organization before starting the learning and development activities (Baron, 2016). Another challenge is represented in the cost of equipment, travel, coaching, material, and the lost employees’ time. Managing the training cost requires special handling through cost-effective learning methods, webinars and online training (Boon-itt, 2016).

According to Kolb’s model, the learning process involves four stages in response to the situational demands. The learning cycle begins with the concrete experience of the learner, then it goes through the reflective observation, then abstracting conceptualization and finally, practicing what has been learned to create a new learning experience (Center, 2011) 

Initial action plan (Brief) 

Based on the implementation of RISE and to achieve the general manager’s aims in learning and development of the customer resolution department, an action plan is developed according to the 70:20:10 methodology. The required plan starts with the 10- formal, for its importance in leveraging the team leaders skills, then they will be able to -transfer their knowledge through the 70- experiential and will be able to communicate within the 20- social (Arets, 2017; Blackman, et al. 2016).

Conclusions

The description of the employees and leadership learning and development reveal that Red lacks the appropriate training and development and are in high need for a learning and development programs to enhance their performance and level of satisfaction.

The action learning is very suitable for the Red customer resolution department. Training is likely to improve the relationship between Red’s employees and their team leaders in the customer resolution department. Red needs the appropriate guidance to embed the strategic learning capability in it and the learning strategy should be aligned with the strategic aims.

				Plan Duration					Actual Start
ACTIVITY	Month
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
10 – Formal: The learning and development through the formal channels that represent the off-the-job learning and development introduced to the leaders or groups. It is recommended that Red provide this type of training to the team leaders to support their knowledge based on the training needs analyses (TNA) conducted by the HR.	1-9
70 – Experiential:  To conduct on the job learning, where the team leader coaches and facilitated the day-to-day tasks and give the advice in challenging situations and transfers his knowledge to the team members.	7-12
Third: 20 – Social: The effective communication and objective feedback are to be used in mentoring. The societal context is important to take place to lower the stress level and encourage the employees to ask for guidance and feedback	7-12

 

References

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Boon-itt, S. (2016). CEO transformational leadership and the new product development process: The mediating roles of organizational learning and innovation culture. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(6), 730-749.

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Cole, G. (2016). Taking the outsider route to learning: Peer coaching and leadership development. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 30(2), 28-30.

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Hasson, H., Schwarz, U., Holmstrom, S., Karanika-Murray, M., & Tafvelin, S. (2016). Improving organizational learning through leadership training. Journal of Workplace Learning, 28(3), 115-129.

Moon, H., Ruona, W., & Valentine, T. (2017). Organizational strategic learning capability: exploring the dimensions. European Journal of Training and Development, 41(3), 222-240.

Richardson, J., & Kirkwood, A. (2017). Informal learning in the workplace: Approaches to learning and perceptions of the context. In Theory and method in higher education research (pp. 247-266). UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Schürmann, E., & Beausaert, S. (2016). What are drivers for informal learning? European Journal of Training and Development, 40(3), 130-154.

Searby, L., & Armstrong, D. (2016). International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education. Supporting the development and professional growth of middle space educational leaders through mentoring, 5(3), 162-169.