Subject Code & Title :- 3010EHR Developing Talent
Assignment Type :- Assessment 3 Case Study Analysis
Weightage :- 30%
Purpose :- Considering the context-specific and practical orientation of the HR discipline case studies provide best opportunities to internalise and demonstrate learning. Accordingly students are given two case studies on issues and challenges relating to developing talent and asked to suggest strategies that are theoretically relevant and practically sound.
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
Task Description :-
• This assessment features ‘two case studies’ and each case study has ‘three questions’ (six questions in total).
• The answer to each question should be ‘minimum 250 words and maximum 300 words’, excluding references).
• For each question you MUST use at least 1 contemporary refereed journal article (published post 2000) to support your analysis.
• Formatting Requirements
o Submit an electronic assignment cover sheet on the course site posted under Assessment 3 folder.
o Short report format. Clearly mention the question number above each answer.
o Times New Roman 12-point font
o 1.5 line spacing
o A4 paper size, with 2.5cm margins
o You must provide a consolidated reference list towards the very end. Referencing style can be Harvard or APA style.
o Your file should be named with the following format:
Surname_FirstName_3010EHR_A3
Case Study 1: Wings Logistics Journey from Training to Learning Organisation
Wings Logistics, the logistics company, entered the Asia-Pacific market in early 2000 and grew quickly in 15 countries with over 15,000 employees. The L&D department accordingly had a similar growth and now deploys 70 L&D professionals in the region covering multiple technical and management training functions.
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
It all started in 2012 when Rob Lowe, the Senior Vice President (VP) of HR from the global head office visited the Asia regional office in Singapore and met with Rachel the L&D Director and her team. He said How can we use new everyday technologies like mobile phones and iPads to help our employees work more effectively? People these days are constantly on their mobile phones and devices for most of the day my kids even wouldn’t talk to me over dinner!. This was consistent with the learner profiles that the L&D team had recently discovered in their recent needs analysis initiative – increasing numbers of new staff were millennials and fresh school leavers who were used to using new technology to communicate informally with their social contacts.
Rachel was enthusiastic and had her own ideas on how to take this forward. In the next management meeting she was to convince senior management to convert traditional classroom training to newer learning innovations using mobile technology and learning management systems. She was nervous as in her previous meetings with Marcell, VP – Finance and Josh VP – Operations, both gave her a hard time. Marcel was concerned about return on investment (RoI) as there were significant development costs in hiring an IT services company to develop a customized learning application on desktop and mobile devices. Josh was concerned about how this might affect business operations since turnover rates were fairly high in some major units. and new hires needed to become productive quickly. Josh was trained in the old school and was quite happy with the existing method of two-weeks classroom training, followed by on-the-job-training.
Clearly there were benefits in converting traditional classroom training to mobile learning such as cost savings incurred from reduced travel costs by trainers and trainees. But what if this whole thing falls flat?
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
Case Study 1 Questions
• Question 1.1: What are the needs of a future workforce in terms of learning needs and preferences?
• Question 1.2: What are the key arguments that Rachel is likely to make to convince management to adopt digital technologies to transform Learning and Development?
• Question 1.3: From an HR perspective what future challenges could arise when this transformation is implemented?
Case Study 2: Career Management at AT&T
AT&T is well-known for its work in building the telephone infrastructure in the United States. But as the tele communications industry moves from cables and landlines to smartphones the Internet and the cloud AT&T is having to reinvent itself to survive. This not only means investing in wireless technology but also in developing its employees technical skills in areas such as cloud-based computing. This is especially important because employees with these skills are in short supply and high demand from many other employers such as Amazon and Google.
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
To get the skills the company needs, AT&T has invested more than $250 million in employee training and development. AT&T wants to encourage all of its employees to develop their skills for future job opportunities. To do so AT&T provides employees with many different options they can use to learn and develop their careers. For example, an online self-service platform provides career profile career intelligence and job simulation tools. The career profile tool evaluates employees’ skills and competencies experience and educational credentials. It provides a development profile that employees can use to find open positions across AT&T’s business units that match their interests preferences and skills and links them to resources for developing competencies they may need. The career intelligence tool helps employees make informed career decisions by providing data on hiring trends within the company and profiles of different jobs that include salary range and number of current employees holding the job. The simulation tool provides employees with
situations they may encounter in a job and asks them to assess their preference for working in such jobs. This helps employees identify whether they fit a job based on the type of work they like to do.
Using the information they gain from these tools, other employees, and discussions with their managers employees have several options for developing their skills.These include online and face to face courses 6- to 12-month nano-degree programs in high-demand specialties such as software engineering coding web development and data analytics offered by MOOC provider Udacity and online master’s degree programs in computer science with tuition costs subsidized by AT&T.
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
AT&T is also taking steps to encourage employees to develop a more contemporary mindset about their career and to encourage them to engage in continuous learning. To do so AT&T is replacing traditional career paths—which emphasize a ladder of career progression through advancing in one’s role and job title with increasing importance and scope of responsibilities—with career lattices which encourage career paths involving lateral, cross-functional and even downward moves that require employees to stretch their skill sets and develop cross-functional knowledge. This helps change employees mindsets from assuming the company is responsible for their development to one in which they take charge of their own career through actively seeking new roles and experiences.
3010EHR Developing Talent Assessment 3
Case Study 2 Questions
• Question 2.1: Explain the concept of protean careers in the twenty-first century knowledge economy.
• Question 2.2: Discuss the employee’s responsibilities in the career development planning process.
• Question 2.3: Discuss the organisation’s responsibilities in the career development planning process.