BUSS 2036 Training and Development: Training Program Process

Purpose

The goal of this project is to provide you with the experiential opportunity to apply your knowledge of the training and development process. In teams, you will work through the sequential steps of the training and development process as you design your own training program.

The Contextp

* The details and scenario provided below were merely developed for the purposes of this assignment.

In the last year, the University’s Calgary Campus has undergone a lot of change including the introduction of new academic programs and a significant amount of organizational restructuring. These changes have resulted in the onboarding of many new employees as well as the shifting of responsibilities between existing roles. There are increased workloads for many employees as they try to adapt to new roles and also help get the new employees up to speed. While all of the employees are currently working hard in their roles, they can be overheard in the lunchroom commenting on how stressed they are feeling and how there are not enough hours in the day to get their work done. Communication between employees is slowly deteriorating and there is a growing sense of frustration among co-workers. The employees are lacking the skills needed to be able to effectively manage their time to maximize productivity, provide and receive constructive feedback as they adjust to new responsibilities, regulate the increasing levels of stress they are experiencing, and manage interpersonal conflicts that have begun to occur.

The Calgary Campus has always taken great pride in its supportive and healthy workplace culture, and so in response to these concerning subtle shifts in employee attitudes and behaviours, the University believes that these employee performance issues are of importance. Furthermore, given that the root of the issues seems to be a lack of skills that can be learned, it has been determined that training is an appropriate solution.

The University has decided that the most appropriate approach to addressing these concerns is to offer a mandatory training program for all employees at the Calgary Campus, including leaders, administrative staff, and academic faculty. They have identified four areas in which they believe training would be equally beneficial: I am deleting other three areas as we have already chosen one.

Stress management (our teams choice)

Funding available for training is minimal, and as a result, the University is only able to currently offer one of the four training programs identified above. The University has decided that it would be best to outsource the training and hire an external consulting team who specializes in employee training to develop and deliver the training program. As such, the University has put together a Request for Proposal to send off to external consultants, who will bid on the job to deliver one of the training programs (of their choice among the four areas of need listed above).

Task

In self-selected groups of 3, you will take on the role of small consulting teams who specialize in employee training. The University of Lethbridge Calgary Campus has just approached you with a request for a proposal for the new training program they are looking to implement. Lucky you!

Your task is to respond to this request and submit a proposal to bid on the job to deliver the training program. You will choose one of the four training topic areas listed above and your team will build a training program for that topic, focusing on the key concepts and steps of the training & development process. More specifically, you will develop the training content, select appropriate training methods, design a means of evaluating the program’s effectiveness, as well as apply principles of learning, motivation, and transfer of training.

Deliverables

The University of Lethbridge has provided your consulting team with their Request for Proposal. This document (see Appendix A) outlines the results of the needs analysis they conducted.

Your team is now excited to submit a proposal to bid on the job of delivering the requested training course for the employees at the University of Lethbridge Calgary Campus!

The proposal will require your team to:

• identify which oneof the four training topics you have chosen
• develop the training content, including the module topics to be included in the course
• select appropriate training methods(for one of your modules, it is up to you which one)
• create the training materials(for the same one module)
• design a means of evaluating the program’s effectiveness(for the same one module)

Components of the Project

Deliverable #1:

Course outline for the proposed training course

This one-page document should include:

• Name of training course
• Names of trainers
• Course description
• Course training objectives (identify 4 – 5 learning objectives)
• Titles of the training course modules (identify 3 modules; these are for you to decide)
• Length of course (number of hours or days)

Deliverable #2: Training plan

• Complete overall training plan
  
  • Use this template to develop your training plan

Your team will then develop one of the three modules in your proposed training course. Please submit the following for that one module:

Deliverable #3: Training design document

• Complete training design document

• Use this template to develop your training design document
  • Please have 3 desired outcomes within your module and at least 2 learning activities for each outcome

* Remember, you only need to develop a training design document for the one module of your training program that you selected 

Deliverable #4: Copies of training materials

• Provide copies of all training materials needed for the learning activities for your developed module outlined in your training design document (e.g., training course PowerPoint slides, handouts, exercises, activity sheets, etc.). Be creative!

Deliverable #5: Copies of evaluation assessments

• Provide copies of all assessments to be used for your chosen module as outlined in your training design document. Be sure to include all questions, rating scales, etc.

Note for Appendices: 

• Blue italicized text enclosed in square brackets ([text]) provides instructions

• Red italicized text enclosed in angle brackets () indicates a field that should be replaced with information specific to your proposed training program

Evaluation

This project is worth 30% of your course grade. All team members are expected to contribute equally to this project and teams are expected to self-manage. You are assessed as a team. However, to ensure that each individual “pulls their weight”, at the end of the project, you will be asked to submit an evaluation for each of your teammates. This will be taken into consideration when assigning grades. If you pull your weight on the project, you will receive the full grade assigned to your team. If you do not pull your weight, your individual grade will be negatively impacted in proportion to your teammates’ ratings of your work.