TRAINING AND MENTORING

Necessity for Orientation Training

Employee needs to be given orientation training to carry out his tasks correctly on the first
appointment before they are deployed for actual work. The orientation training should help the
employees:

 Objective of the organization

 Requirement and expectation (from his team)
 Hir role
 His responsibilities
 His authority
 The know-how and know-why of the job to be undertaken on the day to day basis
 Familiarity and skill in operating the tools or machinery connected with the job in
hand

The employee should be assessed to see whether he has the abilities to perform the duties
straightaway or is he required to be put as an apprentice under a mentor

Experience Recruits Need More Orientation

A fresh employee can be easily moulded as per the organizations goals and objectives
since they have no biases due to prior experience. But, an experienced person will bring with
him different ideas and work culture from the organizations where he served ealier. Therefore, it
is important that the top management invariably arranges for the orientation training both for the
experinced as well as new recruits.

Training is not a One-Time Activity

Philip Crosby, Edwards Deming and Harrington have highlighted that training is not one-
time activity.There is a continual change in business. This means, the employees have to
acquire the skills needed for designing, manufacturing, delivering and servicing the updated or
new products and services.

ISO 9000 is defined as a set of international standards on quality management and quality assurance
developed to help companies effectively document the quality system elements needed to maintain an
efficient quality system. They are not specific to any one industry and can be applied to organizations of
any size.

ISO 9000 can help a company satisfy its customers, meet regulatory requirements, and achieve continual
improvement. It should be considered to be a first step or the base level of a quality system.

Before the advent of ISO 9000, training of employees was not considered to be an essential
part of the business. Thanks to popularity of ISO 9000 the orhanizations were forced to realize
that not only training of employee is essential but, also the maintenance of records pertaning to
training. The supervisor has to study the employee’s ability and arrange for training programs to
supplement their skills.
TQM Is possible if the focus of the organization is on customer and employees. Every
employee should be trained every year. With additional training, employees can learn new skills
that would be useful to the organization.

There is a reluctance on the part of management to send employees for training, due to:
1. Excessive workload in the organization, which does not permit sending them for
training.
2. Non-availability of appropriate training courses
3. Fear of migration of employees after training

Training is a formal activity

Training should be a formal activity in every organization. Senior level executives should
coordinate it. At the beginning of every year, the HRD manager should evaluate the training
needs of the employees in consultation with the supervisors and make an annual training plan
for the organization. Each training program should be evaluated for its effectiveness. The result
of evaluation should be analyzed and put up to the Quality Council of the organization.

Mentoring
The employees have to be continuously coached on the job to understand the orgnization’s
policies, objectives and goals.This is called mentoring. Training is only the beginning and only
personal coaching or mentoring can sustain momentum of the employees in working towards
the goal. The training and mentoring of employees are prerequisites of TQM

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) for Training

PDCA is an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and
continuous improvement of processes and products. It is also known as the Deming
circle/cycle/wheel, the Shewhart cycle, the control circle/cycle, or plan–do–study–act.

Plan for training - Training needs of every employee should be identified at regular intervals.
Their training needs and methodology should be planned and documented. Its important that
the training plan for each employee is available at the beginning of every year.

Provide Training - Employees should be deputed foe training as planned. If training could not
take place as planned, alternate plan should be made at the earliest.

Measure Training Effectiveness - Effectiveness should be assessed formally. The assessment

finding should be recorded.

Improve Training Effectiveness - Based on the above, both preventive and corrective actions
should be taken for improving the effectiveness of the training program.

RECOGNITION AND REWARD

Recogition of Achievement is Important

Recognition has to aim at transforming each employee as a performer and an achiever, as
it is an important steps rowards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. If the
recognition is genuine and without bias, such award will not demotivate other employees in the
organization. On the contarary, it should rather motivate others to motivate others to improve
their performance and quality for an award.

Select a Few Best Performers

It is imprortant that awards are given to the real achievers but it should not be a routine affair.
Awards should cut across the entire oganization. The awardees should also be accepted by
others.
The attribution for selection of best performing employees in ETDC, Chennai:
 commitment
 creativity
 flexibility
 adaptability
 determination
 responsibility

Reward Teams, Rather than Individuals

There is no harm in awarding an individual for his meritorious service but it may cause hurdles
in practicing teamwork. Hence, the organization should reward the teams. The organization
should give empahasis on recognizing the teams, so that there is a good harmony in the
organization.

Type of Awards
The organization should select the award appropriately. The organization should not keep on
changing the type of award.

Enable Happiness All Around

 It should not lead to bitterness amongst employees and should not demotivate them. It has
proved beyond doubt taht recognition of the worthiest definitely leads not only to higher
productivity and quality of, the individual or team awarded but also the entire organization.
Without recognitions and reward, the organization will become stale. The employees should
strive to achieve without looking for awards. The management should be looking forward to
achievements made and give reward on its own.

FEEDBACK AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Feedback Essential Both for Employees and Management

Actions are not only taken by the management, but also by junior employees in the
organization. Therefore, both the management and the employees should look forward to
getting a feedback on action taken, in the interest of improving quality continuously. Unless
feedback is given, the person concerned may not be very sure about the effect of his actions.

Management should Seek Feedback

The management should adopt the

Management By Walking Around (MBWA)
concept advocated by Tom Peters to get the
right feedback. During the MBWA, the
management should talk to the employees
and get feedback both from their verbal
communication as well as their body
language. The discussion during MBWA
should be informal and should put the
employees at ease so that the employee will
give feedback fearlessly.

The management has many forum for getting feedback in their organization on quality
matters. One of them is through Quality Council where the management should encourage the
members freely. It should be noted that the higher the level of management, more difficult it
becomes to get the correct information.

Another source of feedback is the monthly summary on quality submitted by the

management representative. Such summaries should be analyze thoroughly by the
management. They should also peruse the analysis reports as well as the recommendations of
the improvement teams.

Feedback to the employees

It is important that every employee in the organization is given feedback. If it is not done,
the employees will not realize the true quality of his output. Quality does not only mean
conformance of the product or service to the requirements, but also timeliness, behaviours
requirements and all attributes of TQM.The employees who are doing well as well as those who
are not up to the mark, are to be given feedback.

Giving Appropriate Feedback

The feedback should never be exaggerated or underplayed; it should be the correct
feedback.The persons giving feedback are at different level in the hiearchy, IQ, education,
knowledge and experience. Thus, It is important that the person giving feedback uses a
language easily undestandable by the receiver. The supervisor should change his style, reduce
the level of technical jargons to that of the employee in front of him & communicate in a simple
and understandable manner.

Timely Feedback
 The feedback as when required, should be given at the appropriate time. The feedback
should be short and brief so that it could be taken seriously.

Watch Effect of Feedback

Each feedback session is a corrective action of the system (ISO 9001). Therefore, the effect
of the feedback has to be monitored, studied and analyzed. Employees should be continuously
monitored after the feedbackis given to see that the employee improves and the feedback is
useful to the organization.

Continuous Feedback
Like continuos improvement, feedback should also be given continuously. The feedback will
never ending for any of the supervisory persons, since the system will try to drift away from the
set goals often and the management will be required to correct the system through the feedback
mechanism.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance appraisal is to be used for the development of employees. Deming does not
advocate periodic performance appraisal. However, Philip Crosby speaks that by and large they
serve the purpose. One has to adopt the PDSA technique even for the performance appraisal of
employees.

At the end of every quarter, the supervisor and the employee discuss together about the
achievements with regarding to the plan. The performance against various tasks is to be
assessed. The quarterly review need not be kept confidential trom the employees. The
supervisor should be trained on evaluating the performance in an objective manner.

The performance of each employee should be reviewed on a quarterly basis and the
reports submitted to the management. Such reports should be used by the management,
for various purposes as:
 Promotion
 Granting of additional increments
 Training the employees
 Reallocation of duties, etc.

The performance appraisal is a formal activity carried out by die supervisor for each employee.
Innovative techniques can be used lor motivating the employees, based on performance
appraisal.

Empowerment

Empowerment means involvement of all the employees for the improvement of processes
on the continual basis. This is just the opposite of strict heirarchical “do what I say” approach in
the organization.

Empowerment means transfer of responsibility of satisfying customers to employees. They

conduct themselves as if they are the owners of the process who know that they cannot get
profit if the customers, both internal and external cutomers are not satisfied. The initiative for
improvements have to be taken by employees themselves and they should not wait for the
objectives set forth by the management.

Training Needed before Empowerment

One of the fundamental requirements embarking on forming self-managing terms, is

training the employees in the team till they are perfect. They should learn to change. The
employees should be trained in understanding corporate goals and their role in achieving them.
Each employee should be encouraged to direct his efforts towards achieving the goals of the
organization.

Before empowering, management has to train the employees, ask them to carry on and
check whether they are going in the right direction and if so, empower them. This checking is
also a continuous process. The evaluation of every employee of the team is essential before
empowering. The employees should be encouraged to participate willingly in the improvement
process.

Steps Involved in Empowering

The following steps are involved in the operation of self-managed teams.

• Agree on wliat they will produce or carry out.
• Decide how to organize the team.
• Decide on the responsibility within the team.
• Decide on flow of work.
• Audit the process.
• Decide on improvements and restart

Fundamental Requirements of Management for Successful Empowerment

In summary, the p management should take the following actions to practice empow erment.
1. Accept that teamwork is more beneficial than hierarchical management
2. Invest time and money on the team building and training before empowerment
3. Formulate a clear-cut. unambiguous vision and mission statement and the system for
quality
4. Be prepared to spend more time at the initial stages and later on to listen to the
problems of the team members
5. Prepare to wait patiently for the success of the empowered teams
6. Prepare to equip the teams with facts and trust them
7. Provide support and tools wherever required for problem solving
8. Reward worthy teams
9. Provide communications infrastructure and Information Technology infrastructure for
the teams to carry on the tasks, without difficulty.

Responsibilities of the Team Members

The team members should agree upon a collective decision making process so that every
employee in the team is involved in the decision making process. The most important is the faith
of each team member in teamwork and empowerment.

A flat organization has an organizational

structure with few or no levels of middle
management between staff and executives.

Empowermend and Flat Organization

Empowerment and ownership should provide a viable solution for establishing flat
organization. In flat ganizations, more than 20 persons may report to a person. A supervisor
cannot manage 20 persons in the conventional system of management. Therefore,
empowerment is a prerequisite for flat organization. Quality cannot be achieved in a flat organization
without empowerment.

Barriers to Success

Difficulty of Supervisor and Team Members in New Roles

Empowerment calls for a change in the management style, which was hitherto not
practiced. supervisor has to change his approach. He has to treat the employees collegues
rather than subordinates. The employees who were under tight supervision will not be able to
realize the correct implication of the new relationship quickly and may not assume
responsibility. All these will lead to resistance due to fear of managing change, both from the
supervisor and the other employees. The top management will be able to remove this barrier
with a lot of coaching and abundant motivation.

Supervisor resistance

The supervisors won’t come out openly with their problems of the new setup. They may
not tell the problem to the top management.This is a psychological problem which arises out
of insecurity of the seniors. The new role will need them to learn new techniques or new area
of work and their doing work on their own. The management has to understand this kind of
psychological barrier of the supervisors and try to solve them. They could convince them that
empowerment is in the interest of the organization and the supervisor will be able to adapt
very soon with dedicated efforts.

Misalignment

The empowered teams have to be formed thoughtfully. The management can keep on
experimenting till it is able to achieve proper alignment. This is essential because the
matching of human beings cannot be estimated correctly at the first attempt. The
management should also try to remove irritants in the team so that the teams can perform
well.