Assignment: Introduction to Human Performance Technology

Case Study 4: The State University - Turnover Trouble

The local state university has been troubled lately with a string of resignations mainly from its administrative and support staff. After implementing a series of exit interviews and surveys as well as an internal assessment of employee satisfaction, senior management determined that the main problem was related to lack of employee development opportunities. The local campus that is experiencing the high turnover does offer free tuition for campus employees but the classes offered are either taught at inconvenient times or the subject matter is of low interest to campus employees.

The surveys and interview data also indicate other possible problems:

- Employees see no career building opportunities. There is no systematic program to train and promote employees in the campus administrative/infrastructure team

- The private university a few miles down offers lots of night classes for its employees and pays a few more dollars an hour on average than the State university campus. Most of the departing employees are going there.

- Because of strict State budget policies, salary raises are out of the question

If this trend continues, the cost of retraining the new folks that will have to be rehired will be very high. Therefore campus management is extremely concerned about this and wants this turnover problem solved immediately. An independent consulting company was hired to provide an assessment of the situation and also provide recommendations to solve the problem. Their recommendation was to immediately put in place an employee development system that would provide these folks the possibility of developing their skills. These folks actually discovered that employee dissatisfaction was rooted not so much because of salary issues but more along the lines of satisfaction with the work environment.

Not only did they find dissatisfaction with the lack of development opportunities but also with their management. Many of these managers are relatively new to their jobs and don't fully understand or grasp what good management is all about. Many of them "micro-manage" their direct reports. This creates an unpleasant, low-trust environment that hampers productivity and creates a difficult, stressful work situation.

Management has received approval to hire a training and development specialist to solve this problem. After a long and arduous search process, you have been selected as the new campus staff Training and Employee Development Manager, reporting directly to senior management. Your marching orders are:

1. Stem the tide of support employees leaving

2. Improve the work environment by putting a T&D strategy to provide development opportunities to the support staff as well as some kind of management development program to provide campus managers better tools and skills to improve their management practices.

Time is of the essence for this project. Two more employees just announced their intentions to leave and management is starting to panic. You have been assigned a small staff consisting of one web designer, an instructional designer and a training administration specialist to support you. You also have a small budget of $150K to get started.

Management would like to see your strategy presented in three to four weeks and have you begin putting your program in place immediately after that.

The College of Business on campus has quite a few courses you could use for this program but these will require "re-purposing" of the material for internal use.

You have good contacts with several training vendors that carry excellent (but expensive) training products that you could purchase.

Ideas to consider:

• What will be the first steps you take to get this project moving (fast)?
• What will you spend your budget on?
• What strategy will you use to roll out the training in such a short time period?
• What does your project timeline look like?
• How will you know you've been successful?

You will need to present your strategy proposal to a Management Review Committee (MRC) who will have the ultimate approval authority for your project.

Case Study 3:

http://www.expertsmind.com/library/what-technology-will-you-use-to-get-the-project-off-ground-51744778.aspx