Proposal For Corporate Communication Training: Opal Mart

This assessment revolves around the group project 'Communication Culture Change'. The aim of this assignment is to develop a proposal for a corporate communication training. As a group, students will respond to the brief of a case study organisation and develop a training plan for the company. This involves 'selling' the communication training to the client by providing a clear value proposition. 

Rationale for the communication training

The study is related to the proposal of a training and development module for Opal Mart in order to mention all the issues faced by the company in terms of both achievements of communication goals as well as the organizational issues of Opal Mart. The understanding of the need of the communication is to be done by the training company so that the productivity of the company will increase in order to meet the competitive nature of the market as well as the customer needs. The report describes about the rationale for the communication training along with its scope in details. Apart from that, the purpose of providing training to the employees along with the value proposition is explained in a detailed way so that they can fulfil the purpose of the training of the employees in order to increase the profitability and the productivity of the employees at Opal Mart.

The proposed training for the improvement of communication among the different levels of employees of Opal Mart has a rationale while addressing the operational issue faced by the company in the competitive market. The strategic issue of Opal Mart lies in the fact that the company is trying to overcome the problems both in the internal environment as well as in the external environment (Asim 2013). The aim of the communication training is to resolve the issues that are occurring between the employees of the senior management and the junior level of employees. Several issues are being pointed out from the case study of Opal Mart in the communication culture of the organization (Liu et al. 2014). There are number of operational issues that are facing by the groups of the employees such as misunderstandings of the employees, issues of intercultural communication among the staffs of all categories regarding the issues like running the stores, tensions between merchandisers and buyers of the company. On the other hand, it can be pointed out from the case study that the officials of the senior management of Opal Mart are not efficient enough or have the proper skills while resolving the conflict between them while facilitating them a proper dialogic communication (Cheng and Lunn 2016).

The scope of the communication training in the premises of Opal Mart is immense. In the earlier paragraph of describing the rationale of providing training to the employees, there are many issues relating to the communication culture in the organizational perspectives of the different strategic implications of the company. The scope of the communication training is regarding the change in the communication culture of the organization, which is tailored to the needs of the target audience as well as the company (Boadu et al. 2014). The target audience of this communication-training program are the employees of Opal Mart in its all types of management levels viz. senior management, middle level management and junior level of employees. Apart from that, customers will also have to get involved in the communication-training program for their feedback regarding their expectations from the products and service served by the company to the Australian customers (Asfaw, Argaw and Bayissa 2015).

Scope of training

The areas of operations that will be involved in the training program are the employees who are providing client’s service as well as to the senior management officials of the strategic management department of the company. The cross cultural employees who are present in the store front as well as in the management of different operations of the company are to be included in the training program while improving the level of communication by removing the barriers that leads to unproductive debates. The skills of the managers needs to be improved while controlling the teams working in Opal Mart in the customer care department as well as in the storefront (Ford 2014).

The purpose of formulating the training to the employees of Opal Mart by the training company is to increase the reputation of Opal Mart in the Australian market while increase in the sales of the company. The case study illustrates many factors of losing customers of Opal Mart such as irregular response to the customers, lack of understanding of the consumer’s latent needs, etc. The purpose of the training can be categorized into few groups such as:

• To make the senior executives aware of the issues faced by the employees of different management levels.
• To increase the level of the listening skills and the empathy skills
• To improve the downward feedback procedure while providing a proper feedback related to their performances in their respective field of work (Jehanzeb and Bashir 2013)
• To teach the staff that they should be motivated by the organization for increased productivity that are caused due the detachment of the employees from the organizational goals
• To reduce the frequent tensions between the merchandisers and buyers of the company while reducing the number of unproductive debates among them (Jehanzeb and Bashir 2013)
• To improve the culture of the ineffective meetings in the headquarters of Opal Mart that are characterized by frequent conflict and power struggles
• To incorporate the skills among the managers who are responsible for the resolving the conflict among the employees and facilitating them with dialogic communication
• To increase the customers base of the company while incorporating the skills of the employees of handling customer complaints that has a positive implication in the brand reputation of the company (Sung and Choi 2014)

The value proposition of the proposed training is to provide the employees of Opal Mart the best training. It includes the skills that help them to provide best customer service at the stores of Opal Mart. Apart from that, the communication training will requires a total 6 months of time in order to give training to all the categories of employees of Opal Mart. The outcomes that are expected after the completion of the training program are the purposes that are mentioned above. The expected outcomes will definitely improve the present condition of the company in terms of company reputation, improved profitability, and increased customer satisfaction (Falola, Osibanjo and Ojo 2014).

The philosophy of the company that is providing training to the employees of Opal Mart is to incorporate suitable training program for the different employees of the company. The aim of the company is to understand the requirement of Opal Mart while improving their employee relations. The company has found out the fact that Opal Mart has many issues in the management levels as well as the operational department of the company. The training philosophy will incorporate the different issues that the employees are facing with the customer complaints and the employees of the company. The company will formulate the training in a way so that they can help Opal Mart in their respective communication gaps found in the various levels of strategic management within the company (Tahir et al. 2014). Customer satisfaction as well as increasing the brand awareness of the company in the training and developmental program are the main aspect of the development of the brand.

The contents of the training are focused with the purpose and the rationale stated in the report. The training and developmental program will be conducted for six months. During the six months, all the employees of the three management levels of Opal Mart such as higher management level, middle level management, and the lower level management. The delivery mode of the training is in the form of digital technology with the human aid. Individual feedback are taken from the employees that are related to issues faced by them in the company. The training program will also constitute the different types of considerations of the internal and external environment of Opal Mart in the Australian market. The training program will be divided into two months for each level of employees in the company (Bandura and Lyons 2015).

Purpose of the communication training

It can be said that the target audiences i.e. the employee groups of Opal Mart at different managerial levels will be benefited in their respective job designations. They will be able to deal with the issues with the employees as well as the customer while delivering best service to the Australian customers. Apart from that, the company as a whole will develop an improved and enriched organizational excellence with improved employee relations. It can be said that if Opal Mart increase their productivity of the employees as well as the organizational performance if they will follow the proposed training and development program for the employees. The target of the company is to identify the problems and issues of the Opal Mart in the Australian market. However, it can be pointed out that the training program will also incorporate the factors of external environmental analysis i.e. the ability of the employees while identifying the latent needs of the customers from the products and services provided by Opal Mart to the Australian consumers. The benefits that the company will gain are increased brand reputation while increasing the profitability of Opal Mart in the Australian market (Jehanzeb and Bashir 2013).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that Opal Mart is a retail company that has its locations over seven hundred places in the Australian sub continent. The company deals with employees of diverse cultural background. The cross-cultural employees are facing issues in the communication with each other while seeking the process of improved feedback from the upper management to the middle management of the company. The silo culture of the company along with the tensions faced by the senior management while handling the employee related issues in the retail management issues in the cross-cultural employees issues are the core aspects of providing training. It is seen that the staffs of Opal Mart are not good enough for handling the customer complaints; hence, it is the cause of the loss of the customer base every year that is a bad issue of the implications in the perspective of brand reputation. However, the training module is formulated in a way so that they can involve all the managers in the module for achieving the set goals for the training purpose. However, the case study portrays the fact that the CEO of Opal Mart along with its other employees are eager to act on this matter quickly in order to mitigate the identified communication gap.

References

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