Question: Lesson 4: Does Training Make the Grade?

Activity 4: Training Methods and Evaluation

You are the Training Director for a newly created Internet provider, Interdependent Operations Company (IOC). IOC has locations in 152 cities, ranging from locations that have only one employee who works from home, to locations that have offices with 20-30 people. To create this business, IOC purchased another Internet service provider that was not profitable. The company's inability to produce a profit was determined to be a result of improper training of the customer service staff and outdated methods for recording the information that the customer service staff collects.

It is your job to design a training program for the customer service staff to use when potential customers call them on the toll-free phone line, or when customers are referred to a customer service representative as a follow-up to a sales call. IOC has maintained the customer service staff from the former company, but the employees in this department need to be trained to better manage customer calls and enter data collected from the customers.

Utilizing the Required Readings, write a report that includes the following. Your Activity responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct and formatted in the same fashion as the Activity itself. If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc. In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your response and document them in a bibliography using APA style. (100 points) (A 3-page response is required.)

Part A The method or methods that you would use to design the training, the reason or reasons for your selection, and the reasons why you did not choose the other methods (20 points)

Part B Which three (3) of the four (4) evaluation levels you would use to determine the effectiveness of the training program, the reasons for your selection, and the reasons why you did not choose the other level (16 points)

Part C Which two (2) of Kirkpatrick's training outcomes you would measure, the reasons for your selection, and the reasons why you did not choose the other outcomes (16 points)

Part D The type of evaluation design that you would select, the reasons for your selection, and the reasons why you did not choose any of the three (3) other types. (24 points)

Part E As you are completing this activity, please bear in mind that the following initiatives have been mandated to you, as the Training Director, by the upper management at IOC. You must clearly incorporate each of these six (6) initiatives into your response. (24 points)

1. The training must be as cost-effective as possible at the present time. However, they are willing to contribute money to the initial training if there will be a cost savings over the long-term as a result of the training, and if employees added to the customer service staff can benefit from the method you establish.

2. Employees must all receive the training during the same time frame.

3. Training must be consistent from one location to the next.

4. Training should be completed within the shortest amount of time possible.

5. There must be immediate feedback for the employees and those to whom the employees report regarding their progress in learning the new program, without benefit of a face-to-face supervisor or trainer on site to monitor or check their learning status, and with the ability to collect all necessary evaluation results through electronic methods.

6. There will be a need to measure how much the trainees learned and to measure the benefit of the training through the calculation of ROI.