A
Dedicated Review and Needs Assessment of Steelcase Incorporated
My
review of Steelcase’s website and their 630 dealers in over 800 worldwide locations,
2014 revenue of $3 billion and approximately 10,700 employees gives the
impression of a well-run company. The needs assessment process is conducted to
determine whether training is needed to correct and solve a performance problem.
One measured approach would likely be from a Return-on-Investment (ROI)
perspective in “Planning, Data collection, Data analysis and Reporting” (Phillips,
& Phillips, 2006).
Steelcase
Inc. casts themselves as the global leader in the office furniture industry. The
company offers workplace products, furnishings and services through an
independent dealer network. Services include the Applied Research and
Consulting (ARC) group which utilizes a user-centered, strategic approach to
the workplace that delivers measurable results to clients; Workplace Surveys based
on research and knowledge of the workplace; Financial Services financing
options to meet ownership or leasing needs; Performance Management for large
organizations with multiple locations, which offers a strategic approach to
managing the complexity of doing business in order to drive down and control
costs; eBusiness to streamline facilities management and furniture procurement
tasks as well as provide a customized portal with web-based tools to address needs;
and a Phase 2 Program for office furniture that is no longer wanted or needed (Steelcase
Inc., 2015).
Consumers Served:
Steelcase’s
portfolio of solutions addresses three core elements of an office environment:
interior architecture, furniture, and technology (Steelcase Inc.,
2015).
Management philosophy: Steelcase
maintains a strong commitment to integrity and doing the right
thing for customers, employees, business partners, associates and neighbors (Steelcase
Inc., 2015).
Strategic objectives: The
strives to “act with integrity, tell the truth, keep commitments, treat people
with dignity and respect, promote positive relationships, protect the
environment, and excel” (Steelcase Inc., 2015).
In
order to obtain and maintain the appropriate buy-in to training, it will be
necessary to include the following stakeholders: Upper and mid-level managers,
trainers, independent dealers, and employees.
During
the organizational phase of the needs analysis the following questions will be
asked (Noe,
2013):
v Organizational Phase Questions
Ø Upper-Level
Managers should answer the following questions:
·
Is training important to achieve the
company’s business objectives?
·
How does training support the business strategy?
·
What are the threats to the company’s
talent base?
Ø Mid-Level
Managers should answer:
·
Do I want to spend money on training? If
so, how much?
·
How will training and development help
meet my business needs?
·
Are we retaining top talent?
Ø Questions
to Trainers’ include:
·
Does the budget exit to buy training
services?
·
Will managers support training?
v Person Phase Questions
Ø Upper-Level
Managers:
§ Do
employees in specific functions or business units need training?
§ What
do employees need to do to accomplish our business objectives?
Ø Mid-Level
Managers:
·
Who should be trained?
o
Managers?
o
Professionals?
o
Core employees?
Ø Trainers
·
How will I identify which employees need
training?
v Task Phase Questions
Ø Upper-Level
Managers:
§ Does
the company have people with the knowledge, skills, and abilities or
competencies needed to compete in the marketplace?
Ø Mid-Level
Managers:
§ For
what jobs can training make the biggest difference in product quality or
customer service?
Ø Trainers
§ For
what tasks should employees be trained?
§ What
knowledge, skills, ability, or other characteristics are necessary?
Documents
to review should include but are not limited to company as well as unit mission
statements; the current training regimen, course listings, and training results;
current instructor qualifications; regulatory documents; job and competency descriptions;
copies of past projects and plans for current and future projects; lists of
partners including dealers and their ranking by various categories (customer
service, sales, etc.) (Noe, 2013).
Given
the proper amount of time to assess needs, techniques put to use in the needs evaluation
include observations to generate current relevant data; manager, trainer,
employee, dealer, and customer questionnaires to get an overview of how well
and if the company is meeting its mission and objectives; interviews to
determine if an alternate perspective of company operations emerges; use of
online technology to gain a view of operations outside of the human element; a
review of historical data related to past and current performance and practices;
and any benchmarking documents to determine if Steelcase measures its training
against other companies. If time is constrained, a rapid needs assessment will
be conducted choosing assessments based on uncovered pressure points such as
performance problems, internal or external requests for training, or new products,
employees, or technology, (Noe, 2013). The Standards of Performance Technology
Guide also incorporates this approach with its “focus on results through a “systematic
assessment, analysis, and design of solutions” (Chevalier 2008, pg. 6).
References
Chevalier,
R. D. (2008). A brief history of performance improvement. Performance
Improvement, 47(6), 5–11. doi:10.1002/pfi.20002
Noe,
R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw
Hill.
Phillips,
J., & Phillips, P. (2006). Return on investment measures success.
Industrial Management, 48(2), 18–23.
Steelcase
Inc., 2015. Retrieved from http://www.steelcase.com/
