Question

Training Evaluation at Ryan Door Reinventing the Wheel at Ryan Door Company Jack Ryan, CEO of Ryan Doors, has a problem. No matter how often he tells his employees how to do their jobs, they invariably “decide to do it their way,” as he puts it, and arguments ensure between Jack, 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 is not “rocket science” as Jack puts it, the designers invariably make mistakes – such as designing in too much steel, a problem that can cost Ryan Doors tens of thousands of wasted dollars, once you consider the number of doors in a large office tower! The current training process is as follows: None of the jobs has a training manual per se, although several have somewhat out-of-date job descriptions. The training for new employees is on-the-job. Usually, the employee leaving the company trains the new person during a one or two week overlap timeframe, but if there is no overlap, the new employee is trained as well as possible by other employees who have filled in occasionally on-the-job in the past. Jack Ryan has decided to form a task force to help with the design and evaluation of a new training program for the design group. The task force is to submit recommendations based upon the following:

Explain in detail: What should be done to improve the training process at Ryan Door.

Identify in detail: a) the types of outcomes to use in evaluating the improved training process

Answer 1

Ryan Door cannot depend on on-the-job training. On the job training is unstructured and has no measure ability. There is no way to monitor the content , the correctness of the training and the training outcome. Though it works sometimes it may often end in disastrous results. The only advantage for the company in this is that it is a low cost approach.

To improve the training program the company would have to stop  depending on on the job training and focus on building a structured training program . The training program should have two components.The first component should focus on training for new joiners.This should be an exhaustive two week training providing in depth knowledge of all the basic processes. The second part of the training program would be refresher training for all employees about a recap and any new processes which may have been implemented. The objective would be to fill up the knowledge gaps . The trainers should mostly be in-house that is senior people in the company and external trainers would be employed only in case of exceptional circumstances.

The desired outcome of the training would be the following

1 .The new recruits would be familiar with the process flow.

2. Adherence to exact processes can be expected.

3. New recruits take less time to become productive and feel more confident .

4. The company becomes less likely to lose clients because of employee mistakes.