A Dedicated Review and Needs Assessment of Steelcase Incorporated

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/