MGMT-324 Integrated Business Planning

Introduction

The report aims at hosting an apprenticeship program for solving the potential problems among the future supply of employees in a particular region and industry. The apprenticeship program aims at meeting company’s demand forecasting. The industry chosen for answering the questions is retail industry. The report includes answering the questions regarding how apprenticeship program will be hosted.

Response to question 1

The five functions of the supervisors and other managers that need to be focused for apprenticeship program are:

Problem-solving and decision making: Supervisors and managers have to deal with range of problems on daily basis. This requires a high level of consideration for detail as well as the capability to stay relaxed during extreme stress. Supervisors and managers will have to contemplate rapidly as soon as challenges take place in order to keep the team active and the development rolling efficiently (Proctor, 2018). Innovative concepts which have the least influence on the team and the business as a whole can come from creative thinking. Thus, developing this skill during apprenticeship is very vital.

Commercial awareness: Employers are in despairing need of this expertise. In reality, recruiters claim that the majority of former student are deficient in commercial knowledge. Therefore, developing commercial awareness among managers is very vital for future success. Understanding the marketplace in which a company operates and what makes a business competitive is important if one want to advance to management level. This will generate awareness about company’s aim and objective, political and economic issues impacting the company, gain understanding of the sector and rivals and more.

Working conditions:  supervisor and managers are crucial in establishing the firm's physical layout and placing physical resources in the most efficient manner. This entails providing staff with a comfortable working area with all resources for attaining the objective of the company (Functions of a Supervisor, 2021).

Grievance handling: This will help in assisting major concerns and it saves workers time and money by finding solutions to workplace problems, and it aids in the development of an organizational environment built on transparency and trust.

Reporting: Every supervisor's and manager's job is to report on expense, efficiency, and any other performance related concerns to the upper management that can help increase productivity. Cost, production, efficiency, quality, and other factors will have to be reported to management on a regular basis (Owen, 2017).

Response to question 2

The retail sector involves many tasks that are needed to be accomplished by the employees in specified period of time for gaining maximum sales. Some existing objectives and goals will be changes because retail business needs skill up gradation or attaining sales and acquiring more customers.  So, the goals and objectives that need to be established for the employees participating in the apprentice program will be as follows:

Improving communication skills: Nearly all retail jobs need excellent communication skills. Individuals who are employed in retail should be competent to interconnect with customers, buyers, co-workers, and employers. Speaking noticeably and effortlessly with individuals is an indication of strong communication skills. This is mainly true when handling clients. This also involves active listening because developing this skill will assist in communicating with buyers and other stakeholders, greeting customers, handling customer complaints order taking and more ("Top Necessary Retail Skills", 2021).

Developing negotiation skills: As the objective is to promote goodwill across variances in interests, strong negotiating skills support the improvement of relationships. Good negotiating skills also support in the prevention of future disagreements and glitches through leaving all sides honestly content and with no problems to future communication.

Creating merchandise displays: training employees in visual merchandising is essential in retail operations. It raises brand awareness, expresses the brand's narrative, and strengthens brand loyalty. Retail would be destroyed without it. It will revert to its old marketing methods, showing the product only to inform consumers that it is open for business.

Customer assistance: Almost all retail professions require outstanding customer service skills. Retail workforce, in specific, must be enthusiastic and friendly in order to deal with consumers in making purchases and solving any difficulties they might come across while shopping. Consumer service in retail is all about creating smooth interactions that show the customer that you care about them as individuals. To ensure good results, the organisation should employ well-trained salespeople, sensitive communication, effective technology, and empathy for consumer needs ("Basic Responsibilities for Retail Workers", 2021).

Inventory control:  training retail employees in managing inventory will prove beneficial for the business. This will help in reducing wastage and excess funds spend. This helps in managing storage cost, operating cost, damage goods and more.

Response to question 3

The approach in identifying the problem will be through regular feedback and audit of the program going on. On the basis of feedback and analysis, strategies will be developed for resolving any problems during implementation of apprenticeship program. Some common problems and was to overcome hem are:

Hectic schedules: work schedules cause problems during learning and development of employees especially when management intrude personal time of employees for training sessions. They lack interest in the program. This could be solved by avoiding training on weekends, applying micro learning process by delivering the content of apprenticeship program into chunks.  Taking help of video content, info graphics, checklists and other will be of great help (Andriotis, 2021).

Lack of engagement: when employees are least interested in the apprentice sessions cause lack of commitment and engagement. As a result, this hampers the entire session. For making the employees engage in learning session, one must include practical learning material like simulation, case studies, role plays, and other methods for making them show interest. Also, mobile learning is very vital in solving this issue. Use of social media will make the employees interact and collaborate effectively.

Cost of the program: Implementing any type of learning activity incur many cost like equipment, facilities, cost of external consultant and more. This sometimes makes the entire process to halt. Thus, this could be solved by keeping the budget small; conducting most of the training online, use of webinars for effective skill learning and feedback approach will save additional costs (Andriotis, 2021).

Response to question 4

Human resource plays a vital role in implementing every learning and development program in an organization. They provide essential resources for proper implementation of the apprenticeship sessions. Some of them are as follows:

The first step in any training program is to identify the skill gap among the workforce. This helps in prioritising all essential resources as per the training needed and human resource department play a major role in this process. The HR Training and Development Manager are in charge of the business's employee training, services, and career development. They supervise dispute resolution, team building, and employee capacity assessments as well as administer training staffs and organise and also conduct training seminars (Cohen, 2017).

Staff and management training programmes are planned, developed, and administered by the HR Training and Development Specialist. They run programmes to help employees improve their expertise in line with the company's practises and policies. They also do analysis and evaluation of training tools and provide recommendations for new subjects and methods (Armstrong & Landers, 2018). They also provide essential tools for making the training successful like video software, social media; enhance the morale of the employees, web conferencing tools, communication tools, project management tools, knowledge repositories and more.

As per the case scenario, the organization is partnering with external consultants for providing apprenticeship sessions to its workforce. Still, it needs assistance from the human resource department for providing all vital tools for making the employees learn. The human resource will assist consultants in identifying the skill gap that exists in the workforce (Armstrong & Landers, 2018). Similarly, when a performance problem arises, HR does not react with a training session. It first estimates and analyses outcomes, usually through a time and motion analysis to govern who is doing what and by what means, and regulates if a performance concern is the outcome of corrupt working practises and thus, focus on immediate learning goals.

References 

Andriotis, N. (2021). Training Challenges: 6 Ways to Solve Learning and Development Challenges in the Workplace. Retrieved 15 May 2021, from https://www.talentlms.com/blog/training-challenges-solutions-workplace/

Armstrong, M. B., & Landers, R. N. (2018). Gamification of employee training and development. International Journal of Training and Development, 22(2), 162-169.

Basic Responsibilities for Retail Workers. (2021). Retrieved 15 May 2021, from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/basic-responsibilities-retail-workers-36997.html

Cohen, E. (2017). Employee training and development (pp. 153-162). Routledge, 12(9), 25.

Functions of a Supervisor. (2021). Retrieved 15 May 2021, from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/functions_of_supervisor.htm

Graupp, P., & Wrona, R. J. (2017). The TWI workbook: essential skills for supervisors. CRC Press, 10(15), pp.25

Organizing apprenticeship training (2021). Retrieved 15 May 2021, from https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---ifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_751116.pdf

Owen, J. (2017). The leadership skills handbook: 90 essential skills you need to be a leader. Kogan Page Publishers.

Proctor, T. (2018). Creative problem solving for managers: developing skills for decision making and innovation. Routledge, 12(15), pp.15

Top 8 Necessary Retail Skills. (2021). Retrieved 15 May 2021, from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/list-of-retail-skills- 2062476#:~: text=G ood%20com m unication%20skills%20are %20important,clearly%20 and%20effectively%20w ith%20people.&text= This%20is%20 especially% 20important%20wh en%20working%20with%20c ustomers.

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