1.

Introduction

The rapid success and competitive performance of an organization is largely dependent on its
skilled and talented human resources. On the other hand, rapidly changing business practices and
remain competitive in the industry required continuous learning and development of human
resources. The requirement of appropriate knowledge and skills levels are important for both
service and manufacturing organizations in order to match the operational and strategic goals of
the organization. Though, recruitment process is of prime important in selection and hiring of
qualified individuals but regular enhancements of skills and abilities is of further importance to
human resource management (HRM). The maintenance and development of employees’ skills
are also dependent on the commitment of organization.

There are different modes of learning and development available for employees ranging from
training, off job courses, external studies, workshops and seminars, and peer based learning
processes (Beevers & Rea 2013). However, analysis the needs of training and development is a
preliminary process. The methods described by Beevers and Rea (2013) are used in this paper to
analyse the learning needs of selected company staff. The paper will be focused on the methods
of questionnaires and surveys, interviews, performance appraisal, 3600degree feedback and
SWOT analysis to judge the training needs and appropriate design of future learning programs.

The paper is structured in sections related to the company background, organizational context,
analysis of training needs, and design and development of appropriate learning programs. The
roles and responsibilities of marketing division of selected company Pathlab will be analysed to
assess the professional development requirements. The defining features of target group of
employees, design and testing of L&D programs, and recommendations for future implantation
are important components of this paper.

2. Organisational context
2.1. Background of the company
Pathlab was established in Singapore in 1952 to provide medical service of testing and reporting
to medical professionals and technical authorities in country. The company has shown
remarkable progress in past few decades by expanding the operations to Malaysia, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.
The basic commitment of Pathlab is to provide state of the art facilities with latest equipment foe
exceptional trusting services to medical sector. The laboratory systems are fully automated for
tests of biochemistry and immunoassays at the high standards of reliability and efficiency and
reliability. The competitive advantage of company is the economies of scale due to provision of
services to large clientele. Sustained standards of testing for decades have assured the status of
prime testing lab in Far East Asian region.
Another important element of Pathlab is trained professionals and technicians along with an
organized HR, finance, and marketing division. Though, company is operating in a decentralized
management mode with more franchised outlets in other countries, the headquarter management
in Singapore is concerned of the performance of every outlet in the region. Company also
believed in customer satisfaction and achievement of long term retention.

2.1.2. PEST Analysis

PESTLE analysis is a business tool that evaluates the macro environmental factors of a
business organisation. This section examines the PESTLE factor that influences the L&D
requirements of Pathlab Singapore (Ho and JKK, 2014)

The PEST analysis of Pathlab

Political

 minimum notable political risk

 country encourages learning and development in order to regulate stability
 Grants, tax rebates and easy feasibility of business loans
 trading , marketing, and licensing opportunities in local and overseas destinations
 Government promote productivity skills and skills required to upgrade learning.
Economic

 free-market economy, fast developing and vibrant with highest per capita income in
ASEAN
 corruption free economy and supports the business sector immensely
 Labour shortage and decreased productivity due to less population growth.
 High labour costs due to skilled and qualified human resource, but saving on
Learning and development (L&D) costs.

Social

 have traditional outlook with a fast growing young generation, inspired from western
lifestyles
 more than 80% literacy rate with technically trained workforce.
 Lavish lifestyles die t high purchasing powers
 English and Chinese and two more prominent languages
Technological

 Hi-tech industrial facilities availability

 70% internet connectivity in houses and businesses with more than 10Mbps of
broadband internet service availability have flourished in turn. More than is available.
 flourishing E-commerce and eB2C business models provide opportunities for
marketing via own website and through social/business networking
 Fast movement of multinational companies in the region.
Source: Adapted from Beevers and Rea (2013, p. 64)

2.3 Vertical Integration

Vision
“To be the leading global laboratory testing services”

Mission
 “To provide accurate lab testing service and to authentically report to credible medical
technicians and authorities with the help of trained and qualified staff in the state of the
art laboratory facilities at multiple locations around the globe”

Value Statement
The corporate values of Pathlab are:
1. The culture of teamwork and collaboration to embrace innovative ideas and to nurture
human skills.
2. Innovation and accuracy in professional services to effectively use the latest state of art
facilities..
3. Visionary practices are creating a path to reach sustainable future endevours globally
through rapid international expansion
4. Commitment to accuracy and relevancy in operational results for testing and screening
facilities.
5. Keep integrity of staff and systems as a core in all operations to make the testing and
screening results more reliable.

Aim & Objectives of Marketing & Sales department

The aim of the marketing department is to

“Understand the needs and demands of target customers to design appropriate sales and
marketing strategies for Pathlab.

The marketing objectives are:

1. To create the awareness of quality testing services of Pathlab in common and institutional
consumers.
2. To launch and monitor specific marketing campaigns in local and international
subsidiaries.
3. To train and develop the capabilities of staff and medical professionals.

Marketing strategies

The intended strategies of marketing department are as follows:

 1. The development of marketing strategies in view of the lab testing and screening needs
and demands from patients and hospitals. The best use of laboratory facilities can be
done through liaison development with large and small hospitals and private clinics.
2. Clearly defined marketing initiatives and plans to be formed on quarterly basis in line
with the allocated marketing budgets.
3. To increase the efficiency of sales personnel through rigourous learning and development
programs, specific sales targets, and awards based performance appraisal.

2.5. Horizontal integration

In Pathlab, the departments are suggested to horizontally integrate in order to achieve more
holistic performance. There are two horizontal integrations suggested in organisational structure:

1. HR with Administration

Integrated with HR – advantages Integrated with HR – drawbacks

 Increased employees to distribute work  Diffusion of operations an HR

activities
 Line managers act as HR managers to  Lack of managers knowledge to
understand employees problems hold multiple roles
carefully
 One person solution to all HR problems  Employees resistance
I a department
 combined professional reputation of  Slow processing of both
company functions
 Simplified operations and HRM.  .

2. Marketing with Sales & L& D

Integrated with HR – advantages Integrated with HR – drawbacks

More holistic marketing efforts A generalist approach will reduce
efficiency

Vision and mission of organization will Knowledge deficiency and lack in

transfer to each employee. applicability

Sales people will have better knowledge of Slow marketing and learning processes
products and image building of Pathlab
Designing and controlling of holistic marketing Departments obstruction due to the
campaigns- for internal employees and need of more budgets and autonomy
external customers

Liaison with other support and operational Lack of ability to create and transfer
departments vision and values.

Internal expansion is promoted through horizontal integration, through which increased market
power is achieved. Implementing L&D in marketing division, strategies are promoted to improve
learning and developing existing marketing policies which have been backdated.

2.4. Structure and Culture of the organisation:

Structure: The size of Pathlab is a medium organization with decentralized operations in more
than 7 countries. Functional departmentalization is observed in Pathlab organizational structure.
The departments are working independently but in close coordination with each other. The focus
of this report is on marketing and sales department. Therefore, elements of this department are
going to be discussed in the following sections specifically. The headquarter structure of Pathlab
is given below:

Laboratory
Services
Operatioanl
Dept.
Health Screening
Profiles

Pathlab
Haedquarter
Finance
Singapore
Sales

Marketing
Support Dept. L&D
department

Human Resource Admin

Culture: Task culture is the basic style of culture found in Pathlab departments, the functional
departments are authorised and focus in the assigned tasks and decided goals in the organization.
The employees are task oriented and are selected due to the clearly defined job descriptions. For
instance, sales personnel in marketing and sales department only concentrate on increasing sales
and image building of the organization, where as a lab technician is only responsible for the lab
affairs and process handling. As there is little consultation in this type of culture, the
coordination and work sharing skills of the personnel are often disregarded and the strategic
objectives of L&D cannot be affectively fulfilled (Beavers and Rea, 2013, p.62)

2.6. Budget and costs for implementing L&D:

The task culture environment needs training and development in the areas of skills development
in specific areas and enhancement of coordination and participative skills to change the culture in
a more flexible and role oriented culture. The roles of employees are restricted to tasks only in
present structure; therefore a comprehensive training and development strategy needs to be
implemented. The tentative budget of L&D activities are as under:

Head/ Activity Description Tentative amount ($)

Training needs analysis Surveys, research from 5000 (for stationary and
secondary sources, use of technical resources)
company reports,
performance appraisal

Workshops/ seminars Series of training workshops 15000/- (Seminar speaker,

and seminars for individuals material, and refreshment
(3 times per quarter)
and departments costs )

Medical Information Training material for sales 10,000/= (designing and

booklet personnel, doctors, and printing costs)
common staff

Total Cost per quarter

$30,000/-
3. Learning Needs Analysis

3.1. Needs of Marketing Department

The learning need analysis is performed to

1. Design L&D activities for Pathlab.

2. Marketing professionals and external consultant (author) is involved to identify the
current standing of the company and the required position in every department of Pathlab.
3. Furthermore, the weaknesses of marketing & sales department are also identified to
improve in future.

3.2. LNA Methods:

The learning management specialist spend time with Pathlab professionals on Skype and
collected information through mail and through personal contacts from doictyprs, technical
staff, marketing managers, and HR manager (Beevers & Rea 2013; 115). Following methods
are used:

1. Interviews and Discussion:

The interviews of a doctor and an HR manager were conducted. The doctor interview
identified that the sales persons have no medical background and they lack technocal
knowledge of tests terminologies and requirements of a particular screening process.
Another issue with doctors was lack of research facilities in Pathlab to allocate some time
for testing of new diseases.
The HR manager discussed that the employees are quite regular due to strict attendance
and pay cut rules on absences, otherwise, turnover rate in technicians and lower clerical
and admin staff is very high due to long working hours and less competitive salaries.
(Beevers and Rea, 2013, p. 115).
2. Questionnaires and surveys: Quantitative questionnaire based survey was conducted
from marketing and research department employees and operational department
employees including doctors and technicians. Short survey comprised in 7-8 questions
was sent through e-mail to these employees.
The responses of surveys from marketing department identified issues like lack of
support from doctors and higher management for complete information to sales
personnel. Also, long working hours, no performance bonus or incentive, and vague
marketing instructions create confusion in addressing the needs.
On the other hand, doctors and technical staff commented about long working hours,
inadequate research facilities, and lack of appraisal for untiring performance in labs.
Furthermore, stringent policies of leaves and attendance requirement also discourage
employees to stay in long term.
(Beevers and Rea, 2013, p. 116).
3. Performance review:
The performance review of 6 marketing staff was conducted on the key performance
indicators (KPI) of products/ testing knowledge, knowledge of organizational policies,
sales packages information, regularity/ punctuality, qualification/ skills development,
trainings during one year, and career aspirations for future. The score of 1-10 was used to
gauge the performance. The success criteria was set for scores 6 and above on this scale.
4 out of 6 marketing staff scored less than 60% in overall rating. The major areas of
failure were lack of products and processes information, irregularity, lack of
qualification, and no official training during whole year (Beevers and Rea, 2013, p.118).
4. SWOT analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

1. Old and established chain testing labs 1. Issues in marketing and sales planning
2. new ideas and initiatives to improve and implementation
service 2. Decentralized network of franchised labs
3. Large network in more than 10 countries 3. Less control of headquarter on service
4. service minded approach standards of other countries labs.
5. High performance level to satisfy clients. 4. Communication gaps and cultural
 6. service level is regularly reviewed barriers in different countries.
7. qualified and experienced staff

Opportunities Threats

1. More expansion to other Asian 1. New competitors due to low start up costs in
countries. small labs.
2. Internationalization to Europe and US.
2. Tough competition from existing competitors
3. Opening up a full service medical and
research facility in Singapore or any 3. risk of standards breach in testing
other underdeveloped country. 4. Incompetency of staff in absence of training
4. Starting the degree and certification and development
programs I lab testing for young medical
graduates of other related fields.

Source: Adapted from Beevers and Rea (2013, p. 62)

5. 3600 Feedback

3600 Feedback was collected for marketing and sales department staff from the same
department, marketing manager, and other departments about their performance in last six
months period. The reviews about their performance have some common themes related to
the absence of required technical and medical knowledge of equipments, testing procedures,
and sales packages. Another issue identified from marketing personnel was lack of
coordination from operational department as a reason of poor performance. Though, the
review about personalities, manners, and coordination were positive from other employees,
but marketing manager was not happy with high irregularities in the staff.

3.3. Identification of L&D needs:

Current position Gaps Required position
Regularity/punctuality issues lack of employees Regular and punctual
engagement, Stringent employees
policies of pay cut/
demotivation are used, need
to motivate employees
Lack of product/ tests and Lack of training and proper Technically updated and with
other technical knowledge in information transfer among sound products knowledge,
marketing staff departments trained marketing staff

High turnover in employees Stringent HR policies, long Well structured systems and
working hours, and lack of coordinated employees
rewards on performance. ,management with
Structured and unbiased performance based reward
performance appraisal is system
needed