Lovely professional university

HRM – 901

Online assignment 2
(E-commerce)

By:
Name: - Ansh Dhiman
Registration number: - 11814548
Section: - KOE51
Roll number: - 51

Submitted to: - Mr. Jivanjot Singh

 Training and development importance

Introduction

Employees are the backbone of the

organization. The accomplishments or
issues experienced
by the organization are contingent to
the performance of its employees
(Mwema &
Gachunga, 2014). Therefore, it is vital
for organizational leaders to recognize
the importance
of training and development in
employee performance and evaluation.
Enhanced capabilities,
knowledge, and skills are the
foundation for the organization’s
competitive advantage in
today’s global market. Although a large
number of research have been
accomplished in the
field of training and development in
employee performance, it appears that
organizational
leaders still experience gaps and
challenges in this regard. For this
reason, the goal of this
article is to provide concise
information about the concept of
employee training,
development, performance, and
evaluation, as well as the reasons,
impacts, approaches,
benefits, and guidelines when
implementing effective employee
training and development
opportunities, which ultimately enhance
employee performance.
Employees are the backbone of the organization. The accomplishments or issues experienced
by the organization are contingent on the performance of its employees (Mwema &
Gachunga, 2014). Therefore, it's vital for organizational leaders to acknowledge the
importance of training and development in employee performance and evaluation. Enhanced
capabilities, knowledge, and skills are the inspiration for the organization’s competitive
advantage in today’s global market. Although numerous researches are accomplished within
the field of coaching and development in employee performance, it appears that
organizational leaders still experience gaps and challenges during this regard. For this reason,
the goal of this article is to supply concise information about the concept of employee
training, development.
Importance of training and development
Training allows employees to acquire new skills, sharpen existing ones, perform better,
increase productivity and be better leaders. Since a company is the sum total of what
employees achieve individually, organizations should do everything in their power to ensure
that employees perform at their peak.

Here are a few reasons that demonstrate the importance of training and development.

 Retains staff and increases engagement.

 Provides consistency & benchmarks employee skills.
 Increases productivity, profitability, & customer satisfaction.
 Employee satisfaction.

Michael LeBeouf in his book "The great principle of management" warns of the
dangers of ignoring training: “If you believe that training is expensive, it is because
you do not know what ignorance costs. Companies that have the loyalty of their
employees invest heavily in permanent training programs and promotion systems. "

Let’s take a scenario of a company where the company does not focus on improving its
employees’ training and development, then how it will affect the company and its
employees:-

 Untrained employees don’t work smarter, leading to a competitive disadvantage from

other companies.
 Absence of effective training equals decreased productivity.
 Employees tend to create a sense of detachment from the company.
 Employees who feel they cannot develop in the company and fulfil their career goals
are more likely to leave the company.
 Companies not focusing on employee development tend to have a decreased and
worsening industry standard.
 Unsatisfaction in employees will lead to unsatisfactory behaviour with the clients
which will affect the company to great extent.

Training and development programs at Amazon

Training, development and ideas for improvement are foundational experiences of working in
amazon’s fulfilment centres. For some, roles in Amazon’s fulfilment network can be a way to
earn money in the short-term, but for others, they can be the starting point to a career. At
Amazon, there are countless opportunities to develop skills, advance in your current career or
get training through their Career Skills and Career Choice and many more programs for an
in-demand field of your choice, regardless of whether the skills relate to a job back at
Amazon. From dedicated associates who fulfil customer orders, leaders who support teams
and skilled technicians who ensure operations run smoothly, more than 2,00,000 associates
across globe in our fulfilment network believe they have found the right place.

T & D programs used by amazon: -

Onsite training programs: - Career skills, Career choice, A2Tech

Offsite training program: - Virtual contact center

In a pre-COVID world companies would focus mainly on on-the-job training methods such
as the one mentioned above used by amazon.

 Career skills: -

For many years, Amazon has been focused on creating new jobs, but now they’re
investing more in training their current employees and associates on the career and life
skills they need to be successful. Career Skills is a free, on-site training and development
program available to all hourly Amazon employees beginning on day one. The program
offers classes on a variety of skills such as resume building, interviewing skills, effective
speaking, time management, Microsoft excel and more. Employee development is
important to amazon, and they offer educational programs for their multi-national
workforce to grow.

Amazon recognizes the shifting industry and understands that in today’s world, it is not
enough to focus solely on hiring efforts, and it is their responsibility as a global
corporation to upskill and train associates with the living skills needed to move into more
rewarding roles that offer higher pay. These skills not only prepare associates for the
types of jobs Amazon provides but also lead to long-term careers –
at Amazon or elsewhere – that pay a good salary.

 Career choice: -

Career Choice is available to Amazon hourly associates who have been employed for one
continuous year. With this program, the company pre-pays 95% of tuition and fees for
associates to earn certificates and associate degrees in high-demand occupations such as
aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical laboratory
science, dental hygiene, solar technician and nursing, to name a few. Amazon exclusively
funds education only in areas that are in high demand according to sources like the U.S.
Bureau of Labour Statistics, and they fund those areas regardless of whether those skills
are relevant to a career at Amazon.

More than 16,000 associates have participated in Career Choice across 10 countries –
U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic –
and they’re expanding the program to South Africa, Costa Rica and Slovakia.

Because of the great interest in Career Choice, they've built 39 onsite classrooms so
college and technical classes can be taught inside their fulfilment centres, making
associates' participation in Career Choice even more seamless by reducing the need to
commute for skill-building classes.

 A2Tech: -

The Associate to Tech (A2Tech) program is a training opportunity for fulfilment

associates with interest in IT support. Associates can apply to open IT Support Technician
roles in fulfilment centres and if selected, be hired as a temporary technician for 90 days
 spending 6 hours of the work day getting hands-on experience and 2 hours studying for
the CompTIA A+ certification exams. Access to eLearning materials and vouchers for the
A+ 220-901 and 220-902 exams are provided by Amazon Ops Tech IT. If participating
associates obtain the A+ certification in the allotted 90 days, the technician role becomes
permanent.

COVID -19 pandemic took world by storm, which has forced companies to resolve into
remote working or WFH (work from home) and training of employees has also shifted from
onsite to offsite training programs. Programme used by amazon to upgrade employee stats is
through “Virtual contact center”.

 Virtual contact center: -

What is contact center?

A contact center is a business division within an organization that manages customer

interactions. Unlike a call center, which receives requests only by telephone, the contact
center handles inbound and outbound customer communication over multiple channels
such as telephone, web, chat, email, messaging apps, social media, text, fax, and
traditional mail. Contact centers use various types of advanced technology to help resolve
customer issues quickly, to track customer engagements, and to capture interaction and
performance data. Contact centers are usually operated either by an internal department or
outsourced to a third-party provider.

How it is helping in employee training?

Due to the availability of the already built and well-functioning and scalable platform like
contact centers at amazon. Training and development of new and current employees
became a headache of almost every other tech companies, but it wasn’t a problem for
amazon as they managed to easily shift their offsite training material into online delivery
mode on contact centers through which the trainers can contact and teach the employees
with hands on experience on amazon services that are all available through contact
centers. So, this mode of training is named as virtual contact center and this is how
employee training is being carried out at amazon in pandemic time.

Problem identification and suggestive framework

In this pandemic struck world it has not been easy for the companies to carry out their day to
day operations. Companies focused with onsite work are the ones who suffered most due to
the covid-19. On the other hand, Internet companies or the companies that are focused on
online services, products and solutions did not have to struggle much as the remote working
or what we know as WFH (work from home) came into play for them quite easily. But for
almost every company nowadays employee training and development is an integral part of
the overall growth of the company which cannot be ignored in any sense. Companies had to
look ways to shift from onsite training techniques to offsite to continue smooth functioning of
company operations. But it has not been easy for the corporates to go through this transition
phase.

Here are some problems faced by companies/employees due to this pandemic: -

 1. Keeping a check on training and progress of employees may be difficult as managers
can’t manage the employees that effectively from remote areas.
2. Sudden shift in work culture took a toll on overall employee health and wellbeing.
3. Before covid-19 outbreak only 50% companies had remote working program. Banks,
regulated industries, financial services companies didn’t have such programs and now
they are rushing to build one.
4. In this pandemic it is critical to respond fast to challenges and move quickly and HR
teams are struggling due to lack of agility.
5. Communication is another major issue, without the right communication channels,
organizations are finding it difficult to manage a workforce and training has been
hampered to great extent.
6. Employees living in villages or rural areas don’t have good internet connectivity due
to which pace of further learning has slowed down.
7. Both companies and employees have been affected by uncertainty to some extent.
Employees have developed a daunting feeling of not knowing what the future holds
for them and companies are finding it hard as to what measures they should take to
sustain organizational operations.
8. Due to remote working, it is challenging to keep employees engaged. Internal
communication is compromised and keeping everyone on same page has been tough.
9. Overall productivity of employees and the company as a whole has taken a hard hit,
so training and development hold much more importance now than ever.

Recommendations: -

Some measures that companies should opt for better productivity and non-stop learning and
development of their employees in order to achieve organizational goals: -

1. Compensate employees to get better internet connectivity.

2. Companies should provide employees with best software tools to ensure good and
uninterrupted communication between employees and company officials.
3. In this pandemic time employees must keep their mental health on high priority and
organizations should also look after that.
4. Flexible working hours can be provided by the company as not to overburden their
employees.
5. Companies can award the employees on completing their training in given time.

Conclusion

We know that this year has not been good to all of us. Massive lockdowns around the world
forcing small businesses to close down and resulting into big employee layoffs by top MNCs,
unemployment taking a surge, and throwing countries into state of recession. These are some
testing times and it will take up some time to get back to normal. Companies should stick to
their visions and norms and must focus on motivating and developing their employees.
Because if today they will take care of their employees then their employees would take care
of the company and would drag it through the bad times much more easily. Company’s
strength is its employees and the knowledge and skills they possess, if organizations focus on
uplifting their employees’ skills they can in turn ensure the future of the company.