Abstract
The research paper is aimed at identifying and discussing the training issues that are likely to be encountered by Home Depot. Home Depot is the renowned home improvement retailing that is intended to adopt a team-based approach to improve its overall operations. In this account, it is expected that the company could face several issues during the training of its employees including training cost issues, the resistance of the team members towards learning and training, and issues due to linguistic diversity. The present research has considered different strategies that may help Home Depot in overcoming the training issues.
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the training issues that are likely to be faced be faced by the selected organization, i.e., Home Depot. Home Depot is a leading and renowned U.S. based retailing company that deals with the home improvement and construction services and products. According to the given case, Home Depot is contemplating to adopt and use a team-based approach, in order to reduce the operational cost, while increasing its overall productivity. It is due to the fact that the company is facing several issues, including poor production, low customer satisfaction, etc. (Ronald & Jr, 2012). The company is intended to adopt the team-based approach, as it enables the organizations to acquire high productivity and quality, improved customer service, lower work stress, and quality of work life. In this account, it is expected that the company will have to face several training issues. The present study is aimed at investigating the potential issues while discussing the strategies to overcome those issues. In order to establish more cohesive findings, the study has also considered the training needs of Lowe’s, which is the famous name in U.S. home construction industry.
Discussion
Overview of the Given Case
Team based approach allows the organizations to get several benefits, including motivated and enthusiastic workforce, highly collaborative working environment, healthy competition within the organization, increased innovation, and flexibility. After taken all of these benefits into consideration, Home Depot has decided to integrate this approach in its working environment to gain competitive advantages. However, it is anticipated that the company will have to encounter several issues while training its employees. The proceeding manuscript encapsulates the analysis of the potential issues while presenting effective strategies that could help Home Depot in addressing the issues.
Team-Based Approach at Home Depot
Team based approach can be understood as the roadmap that is usually undertaken by the organizations to accomplish predefined goals and objectives. In team-based approach, each team member is assigned a certain task or role (Werner & DeSimone, 2009). Therefore, it can be stated that every individual, working under the team based approach, is equally responsible for the success of the assigned task. Home Depot, which deals with the production and construction of home improvement items, decided to improve the integrity and efficacy of the projects. In this regard, the management of the company came to know that they can easily achieve this goal by adopting the team-based approach. They also perceive that the team based approach will help them in reducing the operational cost, as teamwork will allow them to complete their projects with more refined, well-established, and efficient ideas. However, it is anticipated that a number of issues can be faced by Home Depot, specifically during the training of its employees. Following sections include the analysis of the training issues and effective strategies that may assist the company, in effectively addressing them.
Potential Training Issues at Home Depot
The first issue that can is likely to be faced by Home Depot, during the training of its team members, includes linguistic diversity. It is due to the fact that in a team-based approach different people, with different cultural backgrounds works for the common goal. In such circumstances, linguistic diversity may create communication issues, during the training sessions.
Training cost is found to be one of the most prominent issues that are likely to be faced by Home Depot. It has been established from the research of Ford (2014) that in the majority of the cases organizations do not focus on appropriate training plans that eventually results in excessive training costs. Since Home Depot is adopting the team based approach for the first time, therefore, it may encounter with the training cost issues.
Another potential issue that could be faced by Home Depot includes the resistance of team members to learning. Employees usually show intense resistance towards training sessions and workshops, as they perceive that they do not need training, and they have sufficient intellect of performing their duties (Werner & DeSimone, 2009). Such actions may devastatingly affect the integrity of the training activities at Home Depot.
Strategies to Address Training Issues at Home Depot
Home Depot can easily overcome the issue of linguistic diversity by hiring diverse people in the organization. Such activities may commendably help the company in restructuring and translating the training material; hence, ensuring effective training of the team members (Ford, 2014). The relevance of this strategy is verified by the case of Lowe’s in which the company integrated the same solution to overcome the issue of language barrier during its training activities.
Appropriate training plan may imperatively help Home Depot in combating combat the training cost issue. In addition to this, the integration of advanced technologies and online tools may also assist the company in reducing the cost, which is usually required for traveling of trainers from one location to another. Such initiatives may help the company in educating its employees, working in remote locations, through online collaborative tools while controlling training cost (Ford, 2014). Moreover, Home Depot can easily address the issue of team’s resistance by communicating the potential benefits of the training sessions. A similar company, i.e., Lowe’s also adopted this strategy to overcome this resistance of employees during training sessions and found it effective. Lowe’s considers employee training as the key factor behind the successful business that is why it has always integrated effective strategies to improve the training of its employees (Galagan & Bingham, 2009). Therefore, it is expected that the presented strategy will also help Home Depot in managing the resistance of team members.
Conclusion
The preceding paper has described the potential training issues that could be faced by Home Depot as the company is thinking to adopt the team based approach. Furthermore, the study has also demonstrated different strategies that could help Home Depot in addressing the training issues.
References
Ford, J. K. (2014). Improving training effectiveness in work organizations. London: Psychology Press.
Galagan, P., & Bingham, T. (2009, November 16). Training at Lowe’s: Let’s Learn Something Together. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Association for Talent Development: https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2009/11/Training-at-LoweS-LetS-Learn-Something-Together
Ronald, L., & Jr, H. (2012). Improving the Customer Experience at Home Depot. Mason School of Business
Werner, J., & DeSimone, R. (2009). Human Resource Development. Mason: Cengage Learning.
