You are the HRD Manager of a large trucking company called Fleet Trucking. You have been approached by several middle management personnel who are seeking your assistance to improve the productivity and efficiency of the administrative office personnel. Office personnel apparently are not being trained effectively in their job duties, especially with new equipment or procedures, and many aspects of their duties are either being overlooked or not completed properly.

The first thing that must be done is to convince upper management that a training project, beginning with needs assessment, is necessary.

For the sake of simplicity and time, arbitrarily choose (without needs assessment, for now) a basic office training task for your project.

Examples (Choose one from the list or select your own task.)

• How to inventory office supplies
• How to appropriately answer a business call
• How to open a client account
• How to effectively write an inter-office memo

Next, compose a memo in Word to the upper management personnel of Fleet Trucking, persuading them to allow you to launch this training. Submit your memo to the drop box as explained below. In your memo, be sure to mention the training task you have selected. Be sure to use information gathered from Chapter 1 of your textbook to assist you. A key issue, for example, is to describe how you know training in this particular area will improve the performance of office personnel. Explain how the training will benefit the entire company. In Chapter 1 of your textbook, refer to the material following "A Framework for the HRD Process," especially "Needs Assessment."

Note: It is important to mention in your memo that middle management has called for this training, but that an essential part of your plan will be to conduct a needs assessment before you launch the training.(See Week 04 for additional needs assessment details.)