APPLICATION CASE REINVENTING THE WHEEL AT APEX DOOR COMPANY Jim Delaney, president of Apex Door, has a problem. No mat- ter how often he tells his employees how to do their jobs, they invariably “decide to do it their way” as he puts it, and argu ments ensue between Jim, the employee, and the employee's supervisor. One example is the door-design department, ‘where the designers are expected to work with the architects to design doors that meet the specifications. While it’s not “racket science,” as Jim puts it the designers invariably make ‘istakes—such as designing in too much steel,a problem that can cost Apex tens of thousands of wasted dollars, once you consider the number of doors in, say 30-story office tower, ‘The order processing department is another example. Jim has a very specific and detailed way he wants the order written up, but most of the order clerks don’t understand hhow to use the multipage order form. They simply improvise ‘when it comes to a detailed question such as whether to classify the customer as “industrial” or “commercial.” ‘The current training process is as follows. None of the jobs has a training manual per se, although several have (CHAPTER 6 TRAINING AND DEVELOPING EMPLOYEES 277 somewhat out-of-date job descriptions. The training for new people is all on the job. Usually, the person leaving the com- pany trains the new person during the 1- or 2-week overlap period, but if there's no overlap, the new person is trained as ‘well as possible by other employees who have filled in occa- sionally on the job in the past. The training is the same throughout the company—for machinists, secretaries, assemblers, engineers, and accounting clerks, for example. Questions 1. What do you think of Apex’s training process? Could it help to explain why employees “do things their way”? If so, how? 2. What role should job descriptions play in training at Apex? 3. Explain in detail what you would do to improve the training process at Apex. Make sure to provide specific suggestions, please. Source: Copyright De. Gary Desir CONTINUING CASE CARTER CLEANING COMPANY ‘The New Training Program The Carter Cleaning Centers currently have no formal orienta- tion or training policies or procedures, and Jennifer believes this is one reason why the standards to which she and her father would like employees to adhere are generally not followed. ‘The Carters would prefer that certain practices and proce- dures be used in dealing with the customers at the front coun ters. For example, all customers should be greeted with what Jack refers to as a “big hello.” Garments they drop off should immediately be inspected for any damage or unusual stains so these can be brought to the customer's attention, lest the cus- tomer later return to pick up the garment and erroneously blame the store. The garments are then supposed to be imme- diately placed together in a nylon sack to separate them from other customers’ garments, The ticket also has to be carefully ‘written up, with the customer's name and telephone number and the date precisely and clearly noted on all copies. The counter person is also supposed to take the opportunity to try to sell the customer additional services such as waterproofing, cr simply notify the customer that “Now that people are doing their spring cleaning, we're having a special on drapery clean- {ng al this month” Finally as the customer leaves, the counter person is supposed to make a courteous comment lke “Have a nice day” or “Drive safely” Each ofthe other jobs in the stores— pressing, cleaning and spotting, and so forth—similarly contain certain steps, procedures, and most importantly, standards the Carters would prefer to see upheld. ‘The company has had problems, Jennifer feels, because of a lack of adequate employee training and orientation. For example, two new employees became very upset last ‘month when they discovered that they were not paid at the end of the week, on Friday, but instead were paid (as are all Carter employees) on the following Tuesday: The Carters use the extra ‘two days in part to give them time to obtain everyone's hours and compute their pay The other reason they do it, according to Jack, is that “frankly, when we stay a few days behind in paying employees it helps to ensure that they atleast give us a few days’ notice before quitting on us. While we are certainly obligated to pay them anything they earn, we find that psycho- logically they seem to be less likely to just walk out on us Friday evening and not show up Monday morning if they still haven't gotten thei pay from the previous week. This way they at least give usa few days’ notice so we can find a replacement.” ‘There are other matters that could be covered during orientation and training, says Jennifer. These include company policy regarding paid holidays, lateness and absences, health benefits (there are none, other than workers’ compensation), substance abuse, and eating or smoking on the job (both forbidden), and general matters like the maintenance of aclean and safe work area, personal appearance and cleanliness, time sheets, personal telephone calls, and personal e-mail Jennifer believes that implementing orientation and training programs would help to ensure that employees Know how to do their jobs the right way. And she and her father further believe that itis only when employees under- stand the right way to do their jobs that there is any hope their jobs will be accomplished the way the Carters want them to be accomplished.278 PARTS TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Questions 1, Specifically, what should the Carters cover in their new employee orientation program and how should they convey this information? 2. In the HIR management course Jennifer took, the book suggested using a job instruction sheet to identify tasks performed by an employee. Should the Carter Cleaning Centers use a form lke ths forthe counter person's job? If so, what should the form look lik, say, fora counter person? 3. Which specific training techniques should Jennifer use to train her pressers, her cleaner/spotters, her managers, and her counter people? Why should these training techniques be used? ‘THE HOTEL PARIS CASE ‘The New Training Program The Hotel Paris's com petitive strategy is “To use superior guest service to diffrentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to therebyincrease the length o stay and return rate of quests, and thus boost revenues and proftability:” HR manager Lisa Cruz must now formulate functional policies and activities that ‘support this competitive strategy by eliciting the required ‘employee behaviors and competencies. ‘As she reviewed her company's training processes, Lisa had reasons to be concerned, For one thing, the Hotel Paris relied almost exclusively on informal on-the-job training. New security guards attended a 1-week program offered by a Jaw enforcement agency, but all other new hires, from assis- tant manager to housekeeping crew, learned the rudiments of their jobs from their colleagues and their supervisors, on the job. Lisa noted that the drawbacks of this informality were evident when she compared the Hotel Paris's perform- ance on various training metrics with those of other hotels and service firms. For example, in terms of number of hours training per employee per year, number of hours training for new employees, cost per trainee hour, and percent of payroll spent on training, the Hotel Paris was far from the norm when benchmarked against similar firms. Indeed, as Lisa and the CFO reviewed the measures of the Hotel Paris's current training efforts, it was clear that TRANSLATING STRATEGY INTO HR POLICIES & PRACTICES CASE (when compared to similar companies) some changes were in order. Most other service companies provided at least 40 hours of training per employee per year, while the Hotel Paris offered, on average, no more than 5 or 6 hours, Similar firms offered at least 40 hours of training per new employee, while the Hotel Pais offered, at most, 10. Even the appar- ently “good” metrics comparisons simply masked poor results. For example, whereas most service firms spend about 8% of their payrolls on training, the Hotel Paris spent Jess than 19. The problem, of course, was that the Hotel Paris's training was nonexistent, Given this and the common sense links between (1) employee training and (2) employee performance, the CFO gave his go-ahead for Lisa and her team to design a comprehensive package of training pro- ‘grams forall Hotel Paris employees. Questions 1, Based on what you readin this chapter, what do you suggest Lisa and her team do first with respect to training? Why? 2, Have Lisa and the CFO sufficiently investigated whether ‘raining is really called for? Why? What would you suggest? 3, Based on what you read in this chapter and what you may access via the Web, develop a detailed training program for one of these hotel positions: security guard, housekeeper, or valetidoor person. KEY TERMS ‘employee orientation, 244 training, 246 negligent training, 246 task analysis, 248 ‘competency model, 248 performance analysis, 249 on-the-job training (OJT), 253, apprenticeship training, 255 job instruction training (JIT), 255 ENDNOTES programmed learning, 256 ‘electronic performance support systems (EPSS), 257 job aid, 258 virtual classroom, 261 lifelong learning, 261 cross training, 262 ‘management development, 263 job rotation, 263 action learning, 264 case study method, 264 management game, 264 role playing, 265 behavior modeling, 255 in-house development center, 255 executive coach, 266 organizational development, 270 controlled experimentation, 272 1, Marjorie Derven, “Management Onboard- ing” Taining & Development, April 2008, pp s9-52, 2, Sabrina Hicks, “Successful Orientation Programs.” Training & Development, April 2000, p. $9. See also Howard Klein and Natasha Weaver, “The Effectiveness ‘of an Organizational Level Orientation Program in the Socialization of New