6S3372: ‘Internet Innovations’ is a Successful Company Providing Internet Service: Train the Trainer Assignment, OU

Case Study Training needs assessment (TNA):

‘Internet innovations’ is a successful company providing Internet service and support to its many thousands of customers. There are several hundred employees working in its main branch. There are 25 supervisors employed in the call center which manage customer inquiries, customer support, and complaints. In keeping with company policy, most of the supervisors have been promoted from lower-ranking roles of call center operators or small team leaders. The supervisor’s posts become available on a regular basis due to regular promotions of senior staff and also retirement. 10 new supervisors have been newly appointed in the past 12 months.

These appointments occurred on an intermittent basis and consequently, it was not possible to schedule a group induction course. The company has no standardized induction training for supervisors. As an interim measure, the new supervisors were given the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks ‘shadowing’ a more experienced supervisor. Due to the rapid expansion of this successful company over the past few years, certain administrative details were overlooked. This has resulted in a dearth of formal job descriptions for many employees including the supervisory positions.

In spite of this, the overall performance of the call center is very good primarily due to excellent performance by the call center manager and deputy manager who has been employed with the company since its inception. The manager has regularly expressed concerns about the competency levels of the trainee supervisors and consequently, he has commented on the ability of some senior supervisors to effectively train the new recruits.

He feels that if this pattern should be allowed to continue customer service and company performance may be negatively affected. In response to his concerns the regional manager has recently appointed a training manager to assess the situation and advise what needs to be done to improve the situation. The new training manager knows little about call center operations as his main focus prior to this had been administration, management, and development of company policies and procedures.

Consider the following questions in relation to this case study:

1. Describe what the new training manager should do in the first week or two?
2. Describe the stages of Training Needs Analysis (TNA) and comment on how the manager could follow these steps to help him to work through the process of putting more structure on the project.
3. Outline the different data collection methods which can be used to gather information to analyse training needs.
4. Choose the data collection methods which would work for the manager in this situation.
5. Provide a written account of the advantages and disadvantages of at least four data collection methods.
6. Outline the advantages and disadvantages of having new supervisors shadowing the more experienced supervisors. What training metaphor would best describe this practice?