In today’s hyper-competitive world, a company cannot sustain an edge if the employees are not well developed to put their best foot forward. Employee training is at the heart of talent development as it ensures that the staff members are equipped with the best practices in the industry. To give employees the right skills, it is imperative to conduct a training needs assessment. A training needs assessment helps personnel in the human resource department to identify the performance gaps which can be addressed by equipping the employees with the right skills and approaches. For instance, to improve the proficiency of the staff members, Maersk needed to identify the skills and competencies which the employees are necessary to steer the organization forward (Groysberg & Abbott, 2012).
The components of a need assessment used to determine the requirements of a customer service-CARE Business partner at Maersk include task analysis, organizational and personal analysis. Notably, the new employee will require knowledge in shipment lifecycle at Maersk and this knowledge will be most useful if it is imparted through an experiential training program. Also, the employee will need to demonstrate understanding of Maersk’s values, policies and mission statement since it is until one has understood the strategic aspects of an organization can they work towards realizing the objectives (Boon, Eckardt, Lepak & Boselie, 2018). The job description also requires personal skills and competencies such as negotiation and conflict management skills. Although the personal attributes might be inborn, a training program on the same will enhance the employee’s ability to deliver.
There are various reasons for creating SMART objectives for a training program in a company. One benefit of SMART objectives is that they give the human resource department and the employees laser focus hence eliminating ambiguity and wastage of time. Organizations have limited resources, and therefore a lack of focus on what the training program is seeking to achieve may lead to wastage of resources (Boon et al., 2018). Secondly, SMART goals promote commitment to the training program since the participants are aware that the program is time bound. Besides, SMART goals require the training department to design key performance indicators which are vital in evaluating whether the training program was a success or failure.
Learning activities such as experiential learning activities are of paramount importance to the Customer Service- CARE Business at partner at Maersk. Learning activities will help the new employee to gain a profound understanding of concepts and approaches in relationship management and customer service (Bates, 2016). Also, the learning activities will teach the new staff member how to apply the knowledge they have gained in real life situations. Ultimately, the learning activities would translate to the improvement in value delivered to Maersk’s customers since the CARE business partner would be well versed on how to offer a unique experience to the clients.
There are several ways one can incorporate the adult learning principles and methods of experiential learning into the Maersk Customer Service- care Business Partner training program. For example, to train the staff member on claims policy at Maersk, the training program could use the experiential learning process. The process would first inform the employee about the company’s claim policy, then put the employee in a hypothetical situation where they will have to perform the task and then finally test them in a real-life situation where they have to resolve a claims case (Bates, 2016).
References
Bates, T. (2016). Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. British Columbia: SFU Document Solutions.
Boon, C., Eckardt, R., Lepak, D. P., & Boselie, P. (2018). Integrating strategic human capital and strategic human resource management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(1), 34-67.
Groysberg, B. O. R. I. S., & Abbott, S. (2012). AP møller-maersk group: Evaluating strategic talent management initiatives. Harvard Business School Case.
