Executive Summary
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is a large bank serving many clients. To improve their ability to win more customers, it needs to train its supervisors in the sales and marketing division. Training motivates employees to become more committed to the company. Training also minimises instances of high turnover. Furthermore, training increases employees’ performance, which ultimately contributes to the organizational performance. Before taking employees for the training program, CBA ought to conduct a needs analysis. This will assist in the development of the content of the training program. In this case, the content of the training program for supervisors will incorporate key elements such as how to lead a team, ways of motivating team members, conflict resolution, communication, skills, customer services standards, presentation, diversity, employee evaluation, hiring and recruiting, counselling, and performance appraisal. Training programs can be delivered using various techniques. The best combination of methods which CBA can utilise is lecture method, simulations, business games, in-basket technique, behaviour modelling, and case study.
Executive Summary 2
Introduction 4
Employee Training 4
Delivery Methods of Training Program 7
Potential Learning Outcomes 8
Impact of Training Program on Organizational Performance 9
Recommendations 10
References 11
Introduction
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), founded in 1911 and headquartered in Sydney, is one of Australia’s largest banks. It is a stock exchange-listed and also a multinational bank with operations in five countries. The bank also operates in the whole of Australia. It has branches in all towns in Australia. The bank provides integrated financial services which include funds management, insurance, retail, investment and brokerage, business banking, superannuation, and institutional banking. The bank also operates the largest financial presence in the country with the most number of customer access points. The company has 1,100 branches distributed nationally, more than 3,700 agencies, and more than 4,300 Automated Teller Machines distributed nationally. The number of active online customers operating on the bank’s network is over 4.6 million. The bank also employs more than 52, 000 workers (CBA 2016).
The bank operates in a competitive industry. To remain at the top, it has to offer products and services that exceed customers’ expectations. This means all the more than 52,000 employees working in various section need to be customer-centered. To ensure that customers receive best products and services possible and also to ensure that the bank attracts more customers, there are supervisors in every section. This sections can be retail, credit, sales and marketing, and so forth. Sales and marketing are one of the key departments where the bank attracts its customers. The success of the sales and marketing department is largely dependent on the effectiveness of the supervisors. To be effective and also become efficient, there is a need to train them continuously. Training is done for both new and current employees Due to budget cuts; the bank has not conducted training for its supervisors for the past two years. As a result, there has a drastic reduction in new customers, low staff morale, and high turnover of sales and marketing staff. A job analysis carried out suggest that there is a need for training of supervisors. There is a need to address this problem. The most viable way is to train all supervisors. This essay will focus on training of supervisors in the sales and marketing division of CBA.
Employee Training Definitions and Impacts
Employee training has been described as an asset of programs which are tailored to provide employees with professional development opportunities, new skills, and information. Employee training and development is very important in organisations. Highly-trained employees are in a better position to offer services in line with the organisation’s expectations. Previous investigations have sought to find out the link between training and other factors such as overall organisational performance, commitment, productivity, retention, and turnover. Evidence has shown that to develop required abilities, skills, and knowledge of the employees so that they can perform well on the job; it is very important to train them. It has also been shown that training and development have a positive impact on employees’ commitment and motivation. Previous investigations have sought to find out the link between training and other factors such as overall organisational performance, commitment, productivity, retention, and turnover. According to Elnaga & Imran (2013), training has a positive association with employee commitment, productivity, retention, motivation, and overall organisational performance. However, training has a negative association with a turnover. This implies that when there are training and development, there is a reduced rate of employee turnover.
The content of the Proposed Training Program.
The major aim of the program is to train the sales and marketing supervisors to create a high impact on the sales and marketing division through the responsibilities they are assigned to the bank. It is, therefore, important that the training program is tailored to suit this objective. To ensure the supervisors are well prepared after the training, there is a need to highlight certain contents of the training program. Supervisors are people who interact a lot with their juniors and their managers. The supervisors ought to acquire tools, skills, and knowledge needed to drive the bottom-line performance. The key content of the training program would centre on four critical areas required for supervisors in sales and marketing division. The four management abilities desired include sales coaching, sales leadership, managing sales performance, and behavior-based interviewing. Given the nature of the job performed by the supervisors in the organisation, the four training programs can be expanded further. Supervisors are occasionally involved in interviewing and selection of new candidates. As such, they ought to be taught about interviewing and selection. Most of the supervisor’s work is accomplished through other employees (subordinates) the supervisor is also expected to coach and counsel their juniors to meet critical targets as identified in their performance evaluation. It is, therefore, crucial to train them on performance management system skill, conducting of performance appraisal, counselling skills, coaching skills, feedback skills, and also motivational theories/models.
While carrying out their duties, the supervisors might be working with supervisors with special needs who need to be accommodated. The supervisors are also expected to be in charge of a diverse workforce. While diversity can enhance team performance, it can also act as a hindrance to team performance (Van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Homan 2013). Moran, Abramson, & Moran (2014) pointed out that all employees ought to be well conversant with the influence of culture and also be effective when communicating a diverse cultural environment if they have the intention of working with minorities living in their country. Due to the importance of the issue of diversity, the supervisors will be trained on how to supervise a diverse workforce. Sales and marketing, as well as the supervisor's work, involve a lot of communication. Supervisor’s effectiveness and efficiency are highly contributed by communication skills.
According to Keyton et al. 2013, competence communicators ought to be in a position to express disappointment as well as frustration in an effective way. Further, the authors pointed out that competent communicators employ their good communication skills and behaviours to organise their workplace processes. The critical nature of communication skills in a supervisor’s role suggests that this is one of the key content of the training. This will help the supervisors to build not only relationships with others but also facilitate an open exchange of ideas. Alongside communication, the supervisors are involved in the presentation of information or briefings to various stakeholders. The supervisor needs to express ideas and facts in a clear and organised way which is suitable for the audience and also the purpose of the presentation. As such, briefing and presentation skills should feature. Occasionally, there is bound to be conflicts in the workplace. This can arise between the supervisor-supervisor, supervisor-manager, supervisor-subordinate, or even subordinate-subordinate. In such circumstances, the supervisor ought to be in a position to manage such situations in a constructive way. Even in situations where they are not in a position to manage the situation, they can ask assistance from others. Given the importance of this skills, the key content of the training will be conflict resolution. In addition to conflict resolution skills, the supervisor also needs to be trained on performance/conduct and disciplinary processes. This will help them carry out disciplinary measures arising out of conduct/performance in line with the formulated policies, standards, and procedures of the organisation.
Sales and marketing division is organised in teams. Supervisors head such teams, and they are expected to create cohesive work teams. Research has shown that there is a strong association between teamwork and organisational performance (Zincirkiran, Emhan, & Yasar 2015). To contribute to a meeting of the team’s goals and therefore overall organisational performance, the supervisor ought to be well-trained in good team management. Team process and performance will be one of the key content of the training. The bank sells products and services to a wide range of potential and existing customers. Given the need to sell the products and services to both external and internal customers, the supervisor ought to find ways of continuous improvements of the products and services offered by the bank. This, therefore, suggests that the content of customer service standards should feature in the training process. Finally, there are issues to do with ethical conduct in the organisation. There are also issues such as sexual harassment and hostile work environment. Supervisors guide subordinates to follow conduct which is consistent with the policy of the organisation. Employees can also file claims for sexual harassment, hostile workplace environment, or even discrimination. A supervisor must be conversant with what the law says and what the company policies say so that he can conduct a thorough investigation. Due to the importance of these issues, there is a need to train the supervisors on workplace sexual harassment and workplace ethics.
Delivery Methods of Training Program
Potential Learning Outcomes
The training program will take place outside the workplace area. This might be in a conference facility located far from the workplace. A few trainees will be selected at a time. The training will take approximately two weeks. Upon completion of the training program, the participants will be expected to:
Understand the impact of their supervisory roles and responsibilities on the overall organisational performance
Understand staffing, classification, as well as position management
Become conversant with hiring and recruitment of staff while observing prohibited personnel practices (PPPs)
Understand supervisory skills needed in a diverse workforce
Improve their communication skills
Know how to resolve workplace conflicts
Implement appropriate employee development goals
Evaluate conduct, performance, and execute/recommend disciplinary measures while observing the organisation’ policy, procedures, and standards.
Employ and communicate to others desired workplace conduct and ethics
Lead effective teams
Become aware of customer standards
Make effective presentations
Motivate their staff
The impact of the Training Program on Organizational Performance.
The major goal of this training program is to build competent, highly qualified, and strong supervisors so that they can contribute toward overall organisational performance. After the training, each supervisor is expected to have acquired skills which enable them to perform their work efficiently and effectively. For example, they will be good in communications, presentations, motivating junior sales employees, and also in emphasising on the best customer standards. When they motivate their juniors, the motivated juniors will work hard to meet their goals and by meeting their individual goals, they will all meet the division’s goals. Eventually, the division’s goals will contribute toward overall organisational performance. Training of employees also has indirect benefits. Training change employees’ workplace attitudes. Studies carried out by Ashar, Ghafoor, Munir, & Hafeez (2013) revealed that there is a very significant association between perceptions of employee training and commitment. Highly committed employees have a greater potential to deliver excellent results than poorly committed employees. Training has a positive impact on boosting employees’ loyalty and therefore reduces turnover. High turnover is not good for the organisation. Higher turnover implies the organisation loses employees who need to be replaced by recruiting other employees. Recruitment is not only a time-consuming process, but it is also very expensive. High turnover, therefore, has a negative impact on organisational performance.
Khan (2012) sought to find out the impact of training on employee performance in comparison with other factors such as management behaviour, technology, motivation, and work environment. His research findings suggest employees’ training has a greater impact on performance than any other factor. The author, therefore, pointed out that organisations which are interested in improving their employees’ performance need to consider training them. High employee performance translates to high organisational performance. The banking industry is a client-based industry where best customer service is a competitive advantage. The emphasis is always to exceed customer’s expectations to win their loyalty and retain them. Research has shown a correlation between employee training and level of customer service offered. Studies by Dhar (2015) show that there is a significant positive relationship between employee training and the quality of services offered by the employee. Dhar argued that to provide high-quality customer service, it is very important to train employees.
Recommendations
Previous investigations support the view that a significant positive relationship exists between employee training and employee performance and also overall organisational performance. Research findings also support the view that employee training increase employees’ commitment and reduces turnover. Employee training has also been found to be closely associated with high-quality customer service. By this findings, CBA should provide a training program to their supervisors in the sales and marketing division. Trained supervisors will acquire relevant skills which they will utilise to improve the performance of the division. Delivering training programs can be done using various techniques. For the most effective combination of techniques, CBA needs to consider using lecture method, simulations, business games, in-basket technique, behaviour modelling, and case study.
References
Ashar, M., Ghafoor, M., Munir, E. and Hafeez, S., 2013, The impact of perceptions of training on employee commitment and turnover intention: Evidence from Pakistan, International journal of human resource studies, 3(1), 74-88.
Bennett-Levy, J., McManus, F., Westling, B.E. and Fennell, M., 2009, Acquiring and refining CBT skills and competencies: Which training methods are perceived to be most effective? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 37(05), pp.571-583.
Blanchard, P.N., 2016. Training Delivery Methods, viewed 4th August 2016, http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Tr-Z/Training-Delivery-Methods.html
Burke, M.J., Sarpy, S.A., Smith-Crowe, K., Chan-Serafin, S., Salvador, R.O. and Islam, G., 2006. Relative effectiveness of worker safety and health training methods, American Journal of Public Health, 96(2), pp.315-324.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) 2016, Commonwealth Bank Overview, viewed 30th July 2016, https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/our-company/overview.html
Dhar, R.L., 2015, Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of organisational commitment, Tourism Management, 46, pp.419-430.
Elnaga, A. and Imran, A., 2013. The effect of training on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), pp.137-147.
Keyton, J., Caputo, J.M., Ford, E.A., Fu, R., Leibowitz, S.A., Liu, T., Polasik, S.S., Ghosh, P. and Wu, C., 2013. Investigating verbal workplace communication behaviours, Journal of Business Communication, p.0021943612474990.
Khan, M.I., 2012. The impact of training and motivation on the performance of employees. Business Review, 7(2), pp.84-95.
McKenzie, D. and Woodruff, C., 2013, What are we learning from business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the developing world? The World Bank Research Observer, p.lkt007.
Van Knippenberg, D., van Ginkel, W. P., & Homan, A. C. (2013). Diversity mindsets and the performance of diverse teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(2), 183-193.
Zincirkiran, M., Emhan, A. and Yasar, M.F., 2015. Analysis of Teamwork, Organizational Commitment and Organizational Performance: A Study of Health Sector in Turkey. Asian Journal of Business and Management, 3(02), 173-182.
