D3 Unit 17 Business Btec Level 3 Exstended Diploma

D3

In this assignment I will evaluate the effectiveness of a training programme. For this assignment I will be using Sainsbury’s.  

Introduction

Training is part of all businesses. In order for a business or organisation to be successful they must have we trained employees. However to ensure that employees gain the maximum benefit from the training businesses must have an effective training programme which meets the employees need and the organisational needs.

Components of the training programme

There are many component that consist in making a training program. From my experience from taking part in training at Sainsbury’s the way the organisation laid out there training program was very effective and in a very professional manner. At Sainsbury’s the main four components that make up their training program is planning, budgeting time and resources.

Analysing of training program        

The first component of the training program at Sainsbury’s was planning, this consisted of the type of training, location, and the length of training. From my experience of taking part in training at Sainsbury, when a new employee joins the company he/she must under induction training, this is always one week prior to actually stating their actual job. The induction training consists of basic communication training, every employee who joins the company will have to undergo basic commination training. Sainsbury’s have their own method of deriving commutation training and it’s the same for all employees, when I was given communication training we were given a layout of what to say when a customer approaches you, this was known as the SCD; smile, communicate and deliver. Having this specific structure which every employee would use when dealing with a customer was very effective for me a learner and once I stated working it helped me massively with communicating and dealing with customers enquiries  efficiently because all I has to remember was SCD. Not only does this benefit the employee but also it allow Sainsbury’s to achieve their objectives as an organisation, one of Sainsbury’s main objectives as a organisation is to provide great quality customer service, and by providing a simple but effective layout for all employee when dealing with customers will allow employees to effectively and professionally communicate with customers.

However in terms of actually identifying if the communication training has had an improvement on the way employee work and if it’s lead to better customer service can only really be assesses once some sort of evaluation has taken place, for sure the commutation training which I took part in with the three step (SCD) was very effective and I was shown by the swiftness in which I dealt with customers, but whether or not it improved customer’s satisfaction will only be seen once the training has been evaluated.  One of the methods of evaluation that I am aware of from my training that Sainsbury’s use to evaluate their communication training is though a mystery shopping.  A mystery shopper are secret shopper that are used externally by research companies, the company themselves and government watchdogs in order to gather information on service quality or on a product and service. Sainsbury’s assign their own mystery shopper on random days within the year in which the mystery shopper will approach an employee at random asking for help, the mystery shopper will then observe the actions of the employees and if they followed the company procedure of dealing with customer’s (SCD). Having a mystery shopper is an expensive but extremely effective way that Sainsbury’s can evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs, and in this case the communication training. The benefit of having a mystery shopper is that it will improve service standards within in company, this is because a mystery shopper with allow the business to see how specific employees did when approached by the shopper and if they was need to improvement the company could train that employee to improve their service skills.  Another advantage is that it will allow the business to see the performance of their employees meet the organisational objectives at Sainsbury’s, this is due to the fact the mystery will be well acquainted with the specific procedures that Sainsbury’s use and with this the mystery shopper will score the employee based on what procedures Sainsbury’s as an organisation use.