Training Solution

Katy ISD

Training Solution Part - 1

Project Team 3

Developed By:

Lia Williams, Subject Matter Expert

Sabrina Marrero, Facilitator

Jenayah Evans, Media Production

Sara Spears, Evaluator

Rifa Badarpura, Instructional Designer

 A. Describe a selected organization/business and stakeholders.

Katy Independent School District is located in the city of Katy, which is in western part of

the Greater Houston area. It is a public school district and is made up of over 80,000

students and over 10,000 employees. Its core business is education. There are 71

campuses that make up the school district Katy ISD has a total of 12 High Schools, 16

Middle Schools, and 56 Elementary schools servicing both Harris and Fort Bend

counties. The stakeholders of the school district are the students, the parents, the

school district superintendent, the teachers, the administrative and support staff, and

the surrounding businesses.

B. Explain the performance problem faced by that organization

Each campus in Katy ISD has a financial clerk. The financial clerks are the bookkeepers

of the campus. They are accountable for processing virtually every financial transaction

that occurs on their campus. When financial clerks are hired, they are sent to a two and

half day training session to learn the responsibilities of their position. In this training they

made aware of purchasing requirements and how to enter requisitions for purchase

orders. It is the financial clerks responsibility to follow the requirements and be able to

explain these requirements to the administrative and teaching staff on their campuses.

Some of the purchasing rules restrict which vendors can and cannot be used. Because

administrative and teaching staff are not provided the same training as financial clerks,

nor do they have time to research the requirements, it is imperative that financials be

able to relay the information to their end users.

However, financial clerks are not explaining purchasing requirements when it comes to

vendor usage. Many times when a principal or staff member requests an item or wants
to make a purchase from a certain vendor, the financial clerk has the resources to

research the item or the vendor to find out if the purchase is allowable. When the

financial clerk discovers that the purchase isn’t allowable, some are not willing to tell the

requestor “no”. What actually happens is the financial clerks will submit a requisition to

the purchasing department, knowing that it may not be in compliance with purchasing

rules. The feeling that has been expressed by many financial clerks is “I don’t want the

principal to get mad at me” or “the coach won’t listen to me so I will just let Purchasing

handle it.” Unallowable requisitions submitted to the purchasing department will be

rejected with notes explaining the rejection. The financial clerk will then use the note

from the purchasing department with the explanation “Purchasing said no”. This is

inefficient and causes delays in campuses being able to purchase what they need.

Additionally, staff members are upset because they don’t understand why they cannot

get what they need. The financial clerk must be assertive enough to help the staff

understand the proper processes, say “no” when necessary and help staff find

alternative purchasing solutions. The objective of the training is to help financial clerks

better communicate without feeling so intimidated they cannot do their job efficiently.

C. Describe the instructional design method applied to identify the

training/performance needed.

Effective Communication between administration and financial clerks has

become broken, and could potentially lead to lack of job readiness preparation.

Performance Assessment should be used since the problem is recognized,

however the source of the breakdown in communication needs to be identified.

Communication is an essential component to business success, it is crucial to

convey the needs of business so that an understanding of what tasks needs to

be completed can be done effectively. Yet, presenting a constructive group

assignment cannot be done if those who are being managed are intimidated by

the director. A supervisor’s role is critical on the particular concept, that they

should be readily accessible to give clear and fluid feedback, without damaging

the confidence of employees with infeasible tasks. The role of employees is to

report what is not only required for them to work articuitally, but as well as what

can be done, and not done within company policy. Katy ISD financial clerks

have become too uncomfortable, and apprehensive about clearly voicing to the

manager what vendors can be hired according to the school’s relations policy.

Particularly a performance evaluator should come in to recognize the lack of

adequate communication. Steps to take is an evaluator coming in to assess the

particular department where lack of communication is coming from, implement

strategies to open up effective and comfortable feedback so everyone feels safe

to relay their knowledge in meetings, and have another evaluator come in after

a period of time has passes to see if the approach was effective.

D. Describe the learner’s characteristics and context (learner’s analysis

and contextual analysis)

The problem facing Katy Independent School District is the fact that some employees

are not able to explain purchasing requirements when it comes to vendor usage. To

improve this training we want to make sure that all of these financial clerks understand

how to communicate this information effectively. This training will include 84 employees

from the Katy Independent School District (KISD) campuses. These employees are

going to be the KISD financial clerks. These financial clerks are mostly women ages

35-55 in this department and for most it is not their first time in the workforce. Most of
the employees chose to jump back into the workforce because the schedule matched

up with their school aged children. Around half of these women have a secondary

degree as well. In order for a financial clerk to be effective at their job, they would need

a few key skills. These skills include communication skills so that they can effectively

inform colleagues and customers about any concerns or policies that they might have.

As well as math skills, and organizational skills. All of these skills are going to help the

employee improve at their job. For the contextual analysis, we would use an orienting

context approach. This would allow us to focus on the learner (Morrison, Ross, Kalman,

& Kemp).

E. Explain the method used by your team to identify the content of the

training solution.

The method used to identify the content of the training solution is the critical incident

method. This method was chosen because it helps with analyzing interpersonal skills. A

performance assessment revealed that employees already possess the knowledge,

skills, and resources to be able to perform their job. However, because of the lack of

communication between financial clerks and their superiors, interviews were conducted

to help understand why there was a gap in their performance. It was expressed that

communicating bad news such as a, “no” posed a challenge, and could be potentially

job threatening. Although, it is unrealistic to believe an employee would lose their job

because they are following district policies, it is imperative to take employees' feelings

into consideration when designing a training solution.

 References
Morrison, G., Ross, S., Kalman, H., & Kemp, J. (2013). Designing Effective Instruction (7th Ed.).
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.