Selection of Training Program
Criteria for the selected program
In the contemporary world, organizations face many upheavals as they aspire to achieve their objectives the main one being to maximize profits and revenues. Therefore, all aspects of the organization should be in harmony with this objective.
Among the most outstanding aspect that impairs organizations from making these strides is effective organizational communication. The rationale is that organizations interact with many other organizations, customers, suppliers, employees and other stakeholders while at the same time there are innumerable human interactions within the organization such as employer-employee to mention but one.
Failure to have effective communication channels may lead to the inability of the organization to achieve its goals and poses a major challenge.
Justification of the selected program
Communication skills are therefore important to enhance the success of an organization and helpful in propelling the organization to improved productivity and ultimately, increased profits (Manning, 2002).
With that in mind, a needs assessment in many organizations indicate that lack of effective communication strategies could lead to impaired decisions and policies which in turn could result to poor performance.
As such, in this training program the choice of organizational communication skills as the main topic comes about due to the realization that communication is the standpoint in all organizations without which no organization can achieve it desired performance.
It is worth recognizing that other aspects of the organization such as leadership and management are important, there is no feasible leadership without effective communication. Thus, this training program seeks to conduct a needs assessment on communication, develop a design for the training, implement the training and evaluate the outcomes of the project.
After the training on organizational communication skills, it is important to comprehend that an organization will boosts its chances of becoming competitive and improve the motivation and job satisfaction of the employees.
Besides, it will lead to improved public perception of the organization since the customers will receive improved communication.
Overall thoughts on the training
On overall, the training of all stakeholders on the appropriate communication skills within the context of the organization will be an important exercise that will not only boost the competitiveness of the also provide the employees, managers and other stakeholders with the requisite skills imperative for improved organizational performance.
Needs Assessment
Being the transfer of thoughts and messages communication is vital for every organization. In particular, it enhances smooth flow of information among all stakeholders. One of the most outstanding needs in communication skills is to enhance the movement of messages across the entire organization.
Witkin & Altschuld (1995) assert that interpersonal skills among the employees, employers and customer are a need that numerous organizations suffer. To that end, it ensures that all people who interact with the organizational structures.
Interpersonal skills are important as they enrich the level of productivity and effectiveness of the organization. It entails ensuring that customers get satisfied with the organization’s staff while at the same time it ensures that the flow of information between the human resource department and the employees is effective.
Second, organizations have always suffered from lack of business communication skills. Business communication differs greatly with other forms of communication since it requires formal patterns of interaction. While every organization interacts with the competitors and stakeholders, a pattern of interaction ought to be upheld.
This is in recognition of the fact that informal interactions may result to poor perception of the organization to its stakeholders (Manning, 2002). This may in turn result to lowered ability of the organization to maximize on its revenues and profits. Another need that organizations have always suffered is in their inability to minimize noise, which always present during the process of communication.
Noise refers to all forms of disruptions that may interfere with interpretation of the message relayed across. It may be external/physical, internal or even semantic noise. The presence of noise various aspects of communication should be at the minimum to allow smooth and effective communication.
Fourth, it is imperative to emphasize on the need to ensure that organization communication process is able to avoid the problem of perception. This is in recognition that the stakeholders belong to different cultures some of which may clash with the perceived culture of others (Conrad, 1994).
For instance, it is a common practice in the United States for people to open gifts in front of the givers. On the contrary, the recipients of gifts wait until the givers leave for them to open the gift in other countries. The rationale is that they avoid disapproving the gifts in front of the visitors in order to spare them from embarrassment.
Similarly, organization’s employees, employers and customers belong to different social contexts and are therefore prone to interpreting information from their perspectives (Manning, 2002). As such, it is important to enhance effective communication skills in which there is uniform interpretation of messages that ought to not to have subjective bias of perception.
Manning (2002) says that effective communication skills ensure that all people within the organization are able to comprehend the intended meaning of the information provided. To achieve this, the stakeholders ought to ensure that the people understand the whole information without having to leave out seemingly minute details.
The rationale is that little details may alter the entire meaning of a message and ultimately, the perception of the same. To enhance the effectiveness of the organization in ensuring communication, it is imperative to train employers, employees and other stakeholders on the need to place wait on seemingly unimportant details.
According to Witkin & Altschuld (1995), communication is a process that requires input and feedback. In all patterns of interaction, there is always the need for a feedback.
To that end, organizations ought to appreciate that any person who interacts with the organization expects feedback. For instance, it is very discouraging for an organization not to respond to people who attempt to enquire about the organization’s products and needs feedback. Lack of feedback has been an undoing practice of organizations, which may impair its public image as well as reputation.
This may lead to lowered organization’s productivity contrary to the objectives of an organization that revolves around increasing the profit margins.
As such, an organization should be able to ensure that an organization is able to bring about an effective system that is typical of prompt feedback. Besides, training of the stakeholders on the importance of enhancing feedback and response to the people who inquire about the organization’s productivity should be a priority.
Amazingly, many organizations have suffered immensely from poor communication prompted by informal and interpersonal interactions. While we appreciate that human interaction patterns are important in the context of an office, various aspects may impede the effectiveness of communication among the stakeholders.
Personal issues and hostility among employers, employees and other stakeholders are common features in the context of an organization. It implies therefore, communication skills within the context of an organization ought to be devoid of such hostility (Conrad, 1994). In fact, the stakeholders should be able to differentiate between professional and personal conduct.
In the organization, professional communication ought to prevail to avert the risk of hostilities within the organization. As such, a training program is important to enhance the ability of the people within an organization to act and communicate professionally.
Distortion of information makes communication ineffective. Due to different contexts that individuals find themselves, the information that they pass on or relay to other people may suffer distortion.
This insinuates that the initial information does not reach the intended audience in the manner that the sender intended. Conveyance of distorted information may lead to wrong decisions and ineffective policies in the organizations. According to Neher (1997), distortion of information is a common error that organizations make.
Training program in this area therefore ought to understand various reasons why individuals may fail to relay the intended messages. Noise and syntactic errors are just few aspects of information distortion, which should be integrated in the entire program.
In the contemporary world, organizational communication has emerged as the topmost aspect of successful organization. However, there remains a lot to be understood in terms of functions of communication.
This need ought to be incorporated in the entire program of training to all stakeholders. By itself, communication serves as an entry point in enhancing compliance to the set rules and regulations that govern the running of an organization. In addition, it is imperative to realize that organizations should also perceive communication as an important aspect of leads, motivates and influence others towards achievement of the goals that the organization sets (Neher, 1997).
Besides, it is through effective communication that the process of sense making takes root. This leads to effective problem solving, decision making, negotiation and bargaining processes. Therefore, it is important for managers and the employees to view communication from the aspect that it is a holistic process rather than a a function of the communication and interaction perspectives.
They ought to understand that communication, perceived from the aspect of organization makes coordination and regulation of organizational activities to be more effective. An effective training program should therefore focus in ensuring that the stakeholders understand communication is a holistic process and in itself, can lead to improved performance.
Finally, it is important to train all employees, employers and customers on the need of adopting appropriate communication technology. In the contemporary world, technology has been an intrinsic aspect of organizations.
This implies that technology could be the answer to various communication mishaps that happens in an organization. Nonetheless, adoption of appropriate technology to aid the process of communication ought to be in harmony with the skills possessed by the workers. Upgrading the skills of the employers and employees to meet the technological needs of the organization should be incorporated in the training program (Witherspoon, 2007).
For instance, if a company uses post mails to communicate laterally with other organizations and changes to using emails, it is useful for the organization to train its workers on computer skills. This will ultimately lead to improved effectiveness in the usage of technology and realize its full potential.
This is in recognition that technology, however appropriate, requires that people possess the requisite skills for the organization to achieve its full potential. To that end, training the people in the organization on the requisite skills and communication technologies should be able to resolve the apparent needs of technological change.
Design and Development of the Training Program
During the program design, it is important to understand that an organization that has the above-mentioned needs will ultimately require developing an effective training program that will facilitate the bridging of the apparent needs.
Design refers to a plan that exists in mind owing to apparent needs that require to be addressed. Besides, it represents the initial idea before the action plan comes into the mind. At the outset, it is important to understand the training design cycle. Witherspoon (2007) pin points that it begins with the aims of training.
The main aim of imparting effective communication skills among the numerous number of employees and employers of the organization is to ensure that the communication needs are addressed. The aims of the training ought to concur with the needs that the organization has identified as being challenging and impairing the success of the organization.
The needs of the organization should include among others, equipping the employees and other stakeholders with necessary interpersonal skills, developing a smooth flow of information within the organization to avoid instances of information distortion and enhance the adoption of communication technology by equipping the stakeholders with the relevant skills. To that end, the objectives of the training should include:
- The training aims at developing effective interpersonal skills among the employers and employees of the organization.
- The program also seeks to enhance the ability of the employees to adopt business communication skills for them to be able to communicate with other stakeholders with enhanced effectiveness.
- The program also seeks to increase the professionalism of the employees and employers to avoid the negative effect of incorporating personal issues in the organization’s culture.
- The training program will also ensure that the employees receive training on the need to understand the theories underpinning the process of communication in order for them to appreciate the positive relationship that exists between effective communication and the organizational performance.
- The training program also seeks to introduce employees and employers to appropriate communication technology so that they can have a choice on the communication needs of the organization.
- The training program also aims at ensuring that the employees, employers and the stakeholders have the needed and requisite skills to cope with the technological needs for them to realize the smooth flow of information.
- Finally, the program aims at improving the overall performance of the organization being the topmost reason for its very being.
To achieve the above objectives, there is the need to understand that the training program ought to have the validation measures (Lucas, 1996). Validation measures entail the processes and checklists that will be used to enhance effective training program.
They call for increased monitoring of the tools and techniques that are necessary in developing a useful training program. Validation measures in all programs are an essential part that should be able to address unforeseen challenges and mitigate the risk of such things from occurring in the future (Witherspoon, 2007).
They should guide the trainer to move in line with stipulated objectives. In fact, they act as a guide that allows the trainers to develop an effective program that has measurable results. As such, the validation measures should be sequential and systematic in that they are able to measure all the development made in the context of the training.
They should be able to facilitate the training program to be conducted in a systematic manner or ‘step by step’ to be able to achieve the objectives.
In line with the training design cycle, the organization ought to be able to ensure that the program adopts the appropriate methods and medium of delivering the training. Adoption of appropriate methods during the process of training should be the most important aspect of the training that will yield the desired results.
The rationale is that people or the trainees will be able to absorb the content of training when the delivery assumes specific methods (Lucas, 1996). While some methods may not be easy to comprehend, others are easier and deliver the content in a superior way. Further, White & Chapman (1996) articulate that it is important to locate and utilize the right medium of communication when delivering the content of the program.
Appropriate medium requires that the trainer make the choice of language, visual tools, mode of communication and ways to respond to specific queries.
This will go a long way in ensuring the training is a participative experience that does not only enhance the participation of the employees but also it improves the skills acquisition. Besides, it is the role of the organization to ensure that the methods and media to be utilized during the training are of the highest effectiveness.
The central part of the training is the choice of the right trainers (May & Mumby, 2005). The trainers should have the required skills to impart on the employees and other participants. They should be well acquainted with the content of the program to be able to motivate and influence the learning outcomes of the program.
The choice of the trainers should be the role of the entire organization and particularly the human resource department that ought to enhance the participation of all stakeholders. According to Manning (2002), an organization should focus on recruiting the most proficient trainers in a participatory where all stakeholders and trainees are able to have their opinion.
Manning (2002) continues to say that the choice of a trainers is as important as the training itself since it is through them that the effectiveness of the training comes about. Further, the trainers should possess training skills, have vast experience of dealing with the wide variety of groups, and understand group dynamics.
Another important aspect of training design and development is location of the training itself. The training should be conducted in a place where there are few disruptions. According to May & Mumby (2005), trainees always prefer to receive training outside their conventional working areas. While the organization ought to appreciate the point, the content of the training should be in line with objectives.
For instance, training that seeks to enhance and enrich the organization culture should occur in the context of the office where the trainees get the ‘real’ experience of the content of the feeling.
In this case, the organization should be able to remember that the main objectives of the training are to improve the organizational communication skills in addition to equipping the trainees with relevant skills to cope with communication technologies (Richmond &. McCroskey,1992).
As such, it should not be a single module of training but it should incorporate all other aspects places. Not only does the organization need to choose both office and outside the office experience but also enhance the participation of all stakeholders in making such an important decision.
The human resource department should also be wary of change resistance and conflicting opinions that may arise during the process. To that end, choosing the appropriate place to hold the training should be a matter of participation of all stakeholders but should be skewed towards the attainment of the goals.
Further, the training should have a specific time span. The time span of any training should enhance the evaluation and monitoring of the effectiveness of the training program. According to training designers and developers, many organizations forget to put in place enough timeframes that would see them attain their objectives (Cheney, Christensen, Zorn & Ganesh, 2004).
The time span of the training program should be enough to allow for comprehensive coverage of the training content and modules to avoid the risk of ‘half-baked’ trainees. If a training does not allocate enough time, the objectives of the training are rarely met implying that the organization has lost its resources which otherwise could be useful in improving the organization’s aspect.
It is through subtle time span that training becomes successful and people gain the required skills within the budget allocation (Richmond &. McCroskey,1992). The budget of the organization ought to be in line with the training requirements whereby the organization should expect the desired outcomes of the training.
With a proper training program, the organization is able to save on time, excessive budgetary costs as well as undesirable results (Cheney et al., 2004). To that end, the organization ought to have the objectives, validation measures, appropriate choice of trainers and place, specific time span and allocate sufficient budgetary.
Implementation Plan of Training Program: Organizational Communication Skills
Training Subject
After a needs assessment of the organization, there has been apparent need to train the employees, employers and stakeholders on effective communication skills that will propel the organization to success.
This is in appreciation of the fact that the organizational communication is an intrinsic area that requires effectiveness since it controls, regulates and coordinates all activities of the organization (Cheney et al., 2004).
Upon the completion of the process needs assessment, the organization suffers from poor interpersonal and business communication strategies, distortion of information, professional business communication, lack of comprehension of the theoretical frameworks underpinning the process of communication, lack of integration of technology to aid communication skills and skills among the employees to employ such strategies.
To that end, the major objectives of the training are:
- The training aims at developing effective interpersonal skills among the employers and employees of the organization.
- The program also seeks to enhance the ability of the employees to adopt business communication skills for them to be able to communicate with other stakeholders with enhanced effectiveness.
- The program also seeks to increase the professionalism of the employees and employers to avoid the negative effect of incorporating personal issues in the organization’s culture.
- The training program will also ensure that the employees receive training on the need to understand the theories underpinning the process of communication in order for them to appreciate the positive relationship that exists between effective communication and the organizational performance.
- The training program also seeks to introduce employees and employers to appropriate communication technology so that they can have a choice on the communication needs of the organization.
- The training program also aims at ensuring that the employees, employers and the stakeholders have the needed and requisite skills to cope with the technological needs for them to realize the smooth flow of information.
- Finally, the program aims at improving the overall performance of the organization being the topmost reason for its very being
After completion of the training, the participants will ultimately be in position to enhance their communication skills. Witkin & Altschuld (1995) say that the organization expects that all participants are able to communicate with the rest of the stakeholders with effectiveness necessary to enhance increased productivity of the organization.
This way, the organization will have experienced and talented workforce able to enhance the productivity and in due course, be able to remain competitive. Thus, an improved organization will provide the organization with an edge over the rest of the organizations.
Improved productivity in itself a motivating factor that will lead to both customers’ and employees’ satisfaction promising a higher retention rate within the organization.
Program Date
The training is expected to commence in the coming month and last for a period not less than two weeks. During the entire training program, the organization will be flexible and see that the trainers are able to train all participants in the following important and necessary areas.
- Importance of organizational communication in the contemporary business environment
- Introduction to communication skills
- Interpersonal communication
- Business communication
- Sources of information distortion including syntactic, external, organization, semantic and internal noises
- Theoretical frameworks underpinning the process of communication
Trainers
After an important participative forums and dialogue with the members of the staff, the human resource department has found that the best trainers will be outsourced from experienced organization and human resource consultancy firms. This will bring into focus vast experience and knowledge required to impart communication skills on the members of staff, managers as well as other stakeholders of the organization.
The trainers will be able to meet different communication needs of every category of stakeholders. This is in recognition that there will be a need to varied modules all of which will target each category of the participants. To arrive at this conclusion the human resource department recognizes that the training that will be delivered on the managers may vary in not only content but also the methods and medium of training.
However, the needs of the participants are similar and the trainers will attempt to offer training that is in line with the objectives of the program (Witkin, & Altschuld, 1995). It is through provision of such training that the organization will benefit from the wide experience possessed by the trainers.
Indeed, each trainer will have an experience of having trained other groups in such matters making possible to achieve the desired outcomes. After the selection process, the human resource department arrived at a number of six trainers who will provide training to address the communication skills needs of the organization.
The trainers should have the required skills to impart on the employees and other participants. They should be well acquainted with the content of the program to be able to motivate and influence the learning outcomes of the program.
The choice of the trainers should be the role of the entire organization and particularly the human resource department that ought to enhance the participation of all stakeholders. Witkin, & Altschuld (1995) explicate that an organization should focus on recruiting the most proficient trainers in a participatory where all stakeholders and trainees are able to have their opinion.
According to Lucas (2002) that the choice of trainers is as important as the training, itself since it is through them that the effectiveness of the training comes about. Further, the trainers should possess training skills, have vast experience of dealing with the wide variety of groups, and understand group dynamics.
Participants
The participants of the training will include the employees, managers and selected members of the board of directors. According to the needs assessment conducted in the first phase of the program, many of them revolve around transmitting information and completing the process of communication with effectiveness.
Hence, the departments with the most communication needs have their respective managers receiving training as well as the employees. For the most effective departments in terms of the organizational communication skills, the managers will also have their respective training although only a handful of the employees will be selected to participate the two weeks program.
In essence, it implies that all the managers will receive training while only the selected employees will receive training. Due to the apparent need to involve all stakeholders, the human resource department decided to involve some selected members of the board.
After much deliberation, the organization decided that all the officials who constitute the top management team would undergo training. In addition, all participants will receive a letter of invitation at least two weeks prior to the commencement of the training.
In total, the organization hopes to train around 30 members of the staff and equip with the necessary and requisite organizational communication skills.
Methods and Medium of Training
The training program should be in a position to utilize all the methods mediums at its disposal to enhance the effectiveness of the training. Owing to specific needs that accrue every participant, the organization has directed the trainers to use the most appropriate methods that will oversee that the training meets the organization’s objectives of imparting communication skills.
Such methods as interactive training where all participants get a chance to participate meaningfully, visual aids to assist in the comprehension of the content are among the methods that the trainers ought to emphasize.
According to Manning (2002), the trainers should not perceive the participants as mere recipients of their training modules and content but understand that learning is a two way process. The trainees should be able to participate actively by posing questions to the trainers with the major aim of understanding in a better way the content of training.
Using appropriate language during the entire program should also be a medium that will allow the people to ensure that the people get the chance to understand and comprehend the content. Experts in training elucidate that all training should be carried out in a language that every participant understand.
In the lieu of the fact that the organization appreciates diversity, it has subsequently employed people of different cultures, ethnicities and nationalities. As such, the training should assume a language that does not alienate some participants.
Since it is a communication skills training, the trainers should be able to express their expertise in choosing the appropriate language to use in the training. Hence, methods and mediums of training should be at the discretion of the trainer.
Place and Budget
The venue of the training will be in conference facility outside the office context. The rationale is that the organization appreciated the importance of ensuring proper use of financial resources.
Initially, the organization proposed the training to be conducted in two folds in that there would be a training session within the office environment and another one outside the organization. The organization financial resources could only afford a single venue for the entire training program.
The organization allocated the human resource department a total amount of $100, 000 that will oversee the meeting of the costs associated with transport, allowances, hiring the trainers, facilitation of methods and mediums of communication.
The budget will however be under scrutiny since the human resource department had indicated that the budget would be overboard. Currently, the program has limited budget in that the financial managers will have to reconcile the financial in terms of minimizing the costs in all areas that are necessary.
Evaluation Plan of Training Program
Evaluation of the training program will be important at every phase of the same. This implies that every aspect of the project will face the same scrutiny and monitoring objectives directed by the organization. According Manning (2002), evaluation is the most important aspect of the training program organization undertakes and all other programs that may require to be completed.
It measures the level at which the objectives of the training were achieved or not. Besides, it provides a yardstick that allows the human resource department to ensure an appropriate follow up of the project. In addition, the evaluation alerts the organization on the challenges that were experienced during the entire training.
At the outset, it is important to have a plan that reflects the aspiration of the organization in line with the aspiration of the organization. While we appreciate that the organization have seven objectives that it seeks to achieve from the elaborate training schedule, it is important to have a scale that can measure the effectiveness of the training itself.
The use of post training evaluation tools such as questionnaires to understand the effectiveness of the training will be crucial. This insinuates that after every session of the training, all individuals will have a chance to fill out a questionnaire that focuses on the objectives and the needs assessment of the organization.
To that end, every participant will express their respective attitudes and their opinions on what they think ought to have improved. They also have their opinions and the perceived benefits of the training session and have their say on their expectations of the training. All of these will mark the short-term expectations and outcomes.
Besides, the organization has an elaborate evaluation program that will be conducted after six months of the project to show whether the organization has achieved its desired goals after the training. First, the employees will fill out a questionnaire that seeks to demonstrate the changes in communication skills that they have experienced.
The managers will also have a separate form that they will fill out on the changes they might have noticed in the organizational communication skills. This will mark the ability of the organization to stay within its target of having a motivated workforce that does not only possess improved communication skills but also have acquired job satisfaction.
In addition, the customers will have a say to show the level at which the organization has improved its interaction with them. The customers will be picked randomly and requested to answer of the questions on whether they have experienced any significant changes in terms of communication with the organization’s customer care representatives.
The essence of having the customers to participate in the organization’s evaluation plan is that they possess an objective view of the organization implying that they have had no reserved opinions on the manner in which they perceive the organization.
In order to evaluate the impacts of the training on the organization, the program management team will evaluate the changes in the output of the trained employees and in due course monitor the financial performance of the organization.
It is important however to differentiate between outcomes and impacts. Impacts are a long term the outcomes while shot term indicators that provide insights on the effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, the evaluation process of the financial performance will be focused in a period not less than five fiscal years.
The evaluators will also measure the expected benefits of the communication skills training and the ways it relates to the overall performance in terms of competitiveness and job satisfaction of the employees.
The human resource department will provide the results of the data received from the questionnaires and ensure that every aspect of the training receives objective evaluation.
This implies that the department will work closely with other departments in interpreting the results and gauging their achievement of the desired goals. Since the questionnaires will have a scale that ranges from zero to ten, the average of the data will provide the true reflection of the outcomes of the training.
It is important to recognize that evaluation requires superior statistics prowess and as such, the results of the data gathered is expected to meet the empirical research. This insinuates that the results of the evaluation will be reliable, objective and measurable. To that end, they should provide insights of areas that require improvement as well as the areas that could provide a challenge in the future.
References
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Conrad, C. (1994). Strategic Organizational Communication – Toward the Twenty-First Century. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Lucas, C. (1996). The T-Form Organization: Using Technology to Design Organizations for the 21st Century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Manning, P. (2002). Organizational Communication. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
May, S. & Mumby, K. (2005). Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers.
Neher, W. (1997). Organizational Communication – Challenges of Change, Diversity, and Continuity. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Richmond, V. &. McCroskey, J. (1992). Organizational Communication for Survival. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
White, K & Chapman, E. (1996). Organizational Communication – An Introduction to Communication and Human Relations Strategies. Needham Heights, MA: Simon and Schuster Custom Publishing.
Witherspoon, P. (2007). Communicating Leadership – An Organizational Perspective. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Witkin, B. & Altschuld, J. (1995). Planning and conducting needs assessments: A practical guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.