Training And Development For Wong Partnership: An L&D Essay.

Your L&D report will be a full written response to your L&D scenario, demonstrating your understanding of the frameworks of good practice, based on the theories, models and concepts we discuss during the module, and your ability to apply these for L&D analysis, design, delivery and evaluation. 

Wong Partnership is a legal firm based in Singapore and it promises an exceptional approach for the legal problems using the own brand of unique thinking. Wong Partnership established itself as a leader; it has a reputation as a major provider of legal services in ASEAN, Middle East and China. Wong Partnership does not believe in the traditional limitations of the competitors and it has regional law network. Wong Partnership has it headquarter in Singapore. Wong Partnership has twin focus on the advisory and transactional work where the organisation has involved in landmark corporate transactions. Wong Partnership was established in the year 1992 and it expanded to work with 60 lawyers in the year 1994 (Wongpartnership.com 2018).

Organisations expense a large amount of money on training and development of the employees; however, prior to spending such large amount of money; the organisations need to understand the need for conducting the training for the employees. The organisations sometimes make mistakes in not assessing the training needs of the employees. Employees require training when they are found to be capable enough to meet the objectives of the organisation. Wong Partnership today has more than 300 lawyers and they have staffs serving clients in the Middle East and Asia. The organisation has been facing the issue of lower client satisfaction and Wong Partnership has also been facing the issue form support for the community, Pro Bono Practice, legal education and environment. As an L&D, training for support staffs in Wong Partnership will be provided. As an L&D, developing and implementing learning strategies and programmes is needed and it is also needed to design e-learning for the staffs with courses and workshops. As an L&D, maintaining budgets along with relationship will be helpful for Wong Partnership. Training programme for the staffs to develop them in the field of law will be conducted for 2 years and 12,000 Singapore dollars will be allocated for this.

Barham et al. (1988) stated that the needs of the business would be most attained through the meeting of the success; fulfilment and meaning are met properly. If the people within the organisation are in poor shape, the objectives of the company are unlikely to be achieved. ‘Soft care' cannot provide the people what they need within the organisation. The employees need the care to get trained; otherwise, the organisation will diminish. Barham et al. (2018) described that strategic human resource development arises from the vision of the organisation and what the business needs to do. The organisation also needs to understand the potential abilities of the people and the management has the options available within the given time period to assist it to grow and prosper (Bell et al. 2017).

The mission of Wong Partnership: The mission of Wong Partnership is to involve in landmark corporate transaction and high profile litigation and arbitration. Wong Partnership has the mission to make a regional law network and make collaborative nature of practices which ensure what the clients’ receive the quality of services which are essential in today’s challenging and competitive environment (Wongpartnership.com 2018).

a. Strategic:

Vision: Vision of the organisation is to winning partnership and leading the excellence.

Aims: Aim of Wong Partnership is to act differently in all approach of legal problems.  

Business-led HRD creates a response to the changing business needs of the firm and the firm can improve its capability to gain its business goals.

PESTLE factors:

 Political risk is low in Singapore as Singapore enjoys the lowest political risk among Asian countries. The common people elect the chosen representatives to lead the country. However, fear of law limits the potential free speech in Singapore. Singapore has a vibrant economy and it has the highest per-capita income in ASEAN countries. Singapore provides a corruption-free economy (Tremewan 2016). This economy boost helps the organisation to grow in the industry and the staffs will be provided training. Literacy rate in Singapore is high and the organisations will get enough numbers of skilled employees and the customers also have good purchasing power. In addition, IT infrastructure in Singapore is stable and the management uses technology for providing training. The government of Singapore is also moving to make electronic government era.

c. Horizontal integration: 

Horizontal integration is the method of enhancing the production of services and goods at the same part of the supply chain. The organisation can do this through internal expansion like merger or acquisition. As stated by Al-Fuqaha et al. (2015), horizontal integration is the acquisition of a business which is operating at the same level of the value chain. For the organisations, horizontal integration is the competitive strategy which creates economies of scale for the organisation and it increases the market power for the distributor. The organisations can do horizontal alliance by making a partnership with the companies in the contract; however, they will remain independent.

d. Structure and culture 

Handy model: Charles Handy defined four different types of culture within the organisation. Within an organisation, power culture is related to a few persons whose impact spread throughout the firm. Power culture is a strong culture and employees are judged by what they achieve within the organisation (Shier and Handy 2016). Power control radiates from the centre and the management takes swift decisions which are possible. Role culture within the organisation is based on the rules and these can be highly controlled. Each of the members of the organisation has their own set of responsibilities and roles. In role culture, people see the delegated authorities within the highly defined structure. Task culture forms when the organisation addresses a specific problem and for the organisation, the task is the most important thing. The power within the team can be shifted and the status of the problem can be solved. In task culture, teams are created to solve the problem (Glisson 2015). Person culture is related to the individuals who see themselves as the superior and unique. The firms exist because of the people work for the firm. In person culture, the employees believe themselves to be superior to the business.

e. Adding value 

b. Business-led:

Value creation is the fundamental aim of any business and it helps to create value for the customers which help to sell their products while creating the value for the stakeholders (Tilahun et al. 2017). Value creation ensures the availability of future investment of capital to the fund operation. The organisations need to understand the factors which drive the value for the customers and the firms also make out the value proposition. The organisations also create win-win situation along with identifying the customers and segments. In the legal market, the law firms dramatically improve the alignment with the clients and they operationally and strategically deliver the values to the clients.

f. Consideration of the associated L&D budget and costs of the proposals 

Objectives: Objectives L&D within Wong Partnership are to focus on the future growth of the organisation and to develop the employees as per the needs of the organisation. The development process of the organisation helps the firm to fulfil future growth and it helps to improve the organisational climate.

Learning outcomes: Learning outcomes of training support to the staffs of Wong Partnership will be improved organisational climate and trained staffs. L&D within the Wong Partnership will reflect the broad conceptual knowledge and adaptive vocational and generic skills. This training will also focus on the results of the laws' learning experience. These learning outcomes will also reflect the essential knowledge and attitudes.

Items	Cost
Training manual	S$ 2000
Certificate	S$ 1200
Brochure	S$ 2300
Institutional supplies	S$ 1200
Outreach materials	S$ 800
CIT coordinator	S$ 1500
Equipment rental	S$ 3000

Techniques and processes used in L&D needs analysis and focusing on how these could be used in response to the scenario to determine KSA

Techniques and processes used in L&D needs analysis

Learning and Development need analysis is observed as a bit tough as there is no standard way to conduct the training. L&D practitioners have the tacit knowledge to come up with the right approach.  

Interview of managers:

L&D practitioners need to understand that it is significant not to ask the managers about L&D interventions they assume would be best for the staffs. The L&D practitioners would ask the senior managers about what they need to gain in the coming quarter and what are the key deliverables of their business plan. The L&D practitioners also check about challenges from all the aspects in the last few months. During the interview to the managers, the L&D practitioners can solicit about real-life examples. The meeting can be recorded for the future use and it would allow the employees to look for the trends across the business.

L&D practitioners can get the quantitative data by doing the survey of the staffs and this data provides the L&D needs of the staffs. This survey data provides useful information to feed into the analysis. During the interview, the L&D practitioners ask the questions on the subject matter; however, the survey provides the genuine needs of the employees. The L&D practitioners ask challenges faced by the staffs and the future challenges what they want to mitigate. The future strategy of the organisation can be solved using the survey (Haibach et al. 2017).

c. Horizontal Integration:

Analysing the development plan of the target population:

The L&D practitioners don’t need to review the large numbers of development plan; however, they can identify the key development requirements across the employee base. The practitioners can do the textual analysis and they look for trends and discount for any plan. The organisation needs to do the real needs analysis as the employees and managers decide for what is the right solution.

The management checks where the organisation is failing to measure success as the key metrics leads to some hidden needs. The management is responsible for producing an annual report and L&D practitioners must have the information in hand (Hedegaard 2017). The responsible persons need to get information from the key departments.

How these techniques can be used to determine the KSA

Interview sessions will help the learners to get the knowledge, skills and ability of the responsibilities which they have to perform in Wong Partnership. Before the interview session, the employees may have the vague generalisation which would not allow the staffs to find the trend across the business. Interview sessions will help to understand the challenges faced by the staffs. In addition, the survey helps to get useful information about the staffs and it would also help to achieve the goals (Salas 2014). Survey within Wong Partnership will be a brilliant tool to collect and analyse the general type of information. The staffs will be aware of the satisfaction and needs. The development plan for the target population will lead to identifying the requirements across the staff base. The staffs of Wong Partnership will understand the key metrics of the business and the staffs will know about increased customer complaints and increased absenteeism.

Interview and survey to the staffs will help to identify the training needs and the L&D practitioners can chalk out the training sessions. In the Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners can design the development plan of the staffs after verifying the survey and interview. During the survey session, L&D practitioners would understand the training needs of the staffs and they would plan their training sessions and development method based on the survey and interview. Wong Partnership sets the objective of improving the performance of the staffs’ skills and quality; therefore, understanding the needs of the staffs through survey and interview will help the organisation.

Kolb's learning model and the application to the design of the L&D solution

Kolb explained experiential theory where learning has been viewed as a four-stage cycle. The development stages of learning which Kolb identified are acquisition, specialisation and integration. Acquisition stage is between birth to adolescence period and in this stage, learners grow the basic abilities and their cognitive structure. Specialisation is the schooling stage and personal experience of adulthood. In this stage, learners grow with particular specialised learning style shaped by educational, social and organisational socialisation. In addition, the integration stage is associated with mid-career through later life and this stage shares the expression of non-dominant learning style in work and personal life (Kolb 2014).

d. Structure and Culture

Diverging: (Feeling and watching –CE and RO)

The learners like this are able to look at different perspectives and this type of learners is sensitive in nature. This type of learners prefers to watch at first rather than doing anything and diverging learners try to gather information using their imagination. Diverging learners are best at watching the concrete situation at several types of viewpoints. As stated by Renninger et al. (2014), this type of people is diverging because people can perform better in different situations which require idea-generation. Mainly, brainstorming people are diverging in nature and they like to gather information as they are emotional in nature. In Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners will try to find the diverging people who love to work in group and P&D practitioners will listen to an open mind and they like to receive the personal feedback. L&D practitioners need to know about divergent learners and they are endowed with various types of personality traits which may separate the leaders from the general population. In Wong Partnership, changes in teaching from the trainers can accompany with the restructuring of the training plan, peer interaction and cooperative group learning.

Assimilating: (watching and thinking –AC/RO)

 Assimilating learners believe in a logical approach, concepts and ideas which are more important than the people. This type of learners likes to require good and clear explanation rather than a practical opportunity. The learners excel in making out wide-ranging of information and the learners have the ability to make clear and logical format. People have the assimilating learning style as they focus less on the people and they believe more in the abstract concept (Dixon 2017). Assimilating learning style is very important for the general formal learning situation and they prefer in reading. In Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners have to understand the ability of the staffs in understanding the lectures and they can explore an analytical model which has the time to think differently. In Wong Partnership, the trainers will take the approach of delivering the concise along with logical approach which is based on abstract and ideas concepts. Learners will take the assimilating type that requires clear argument rather than practical comprehension. The trainers will make understand the learners about varied information and it needs organising the logical format on appreciate or logic-based theories.

Discussing the range of L&D methods available and focus on those you consider most appropriate for delivery of the proposed response to the scenario

Leader-led: Staffs are the best ambassadors of the organisation and L&D practitioners mainly believe in the internal knowledge of the staffs should be leveraged. Therefore, the L&D practitioner can provide training to the team leaders so that the team leaders can provide justified training needs regarding laws and regulation to the staffs (Bredekamp 2014). By working with the leaders in Wong Partnership, leaders can nurture the upcoming talent to share their knowledge. Leader-led learning and development method will be appropriate for Wong Partnership as it is important to leave capability behind to enable the business to continue to grow. This training to the leaders will actively look for better ways to improve the skills of the staffs.

e. Adding Value

Face-to-face: In Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners can provide training to the staffs through workshops, mentoring, coaching and keynote sessions. These are the face-to-face training for the learning and development of the staffs and this strategy is easy to learn from internal and external law related matters. L&D practitioners can engage with learner before and after the training sessions and it ensures long tail embedding the learning becomes part of the way of working (Pollock et al. 2015). Participants of the training sessions need to make sure that they must retain the maximum knowledge and learning.

Blue sky session: The staffs of Wong Partnership are all about prompted and explorative discussions. The audiences of training sessions have the opportunity to challenge and discuss what they learn (Dixon 2017). In Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners will continue discussion sessions after reading an article and teaching a session. This is a good opportunity for the staffs to learn more about handling the clients and reading more about laws. Blue sky sessions can provide an opportunity to challenge existing thinking in an engaging and constructive way.  

Digital learning: L&D professionals can provide training and learning to the staffs through digital platforms and this type of learning will be like off-the-job training. Large numbers of staffs can get the training by receiving and interacting with the same content through a digital platform. Digital learning is virtual learning and it allows the learners to have the ultimate flexibility to select the time of learning (Freeman et al. 2016). E-learning allows the business to quickly assess and quantify the level of capability and knowledge within the terms.

Action learning: It is used for the real business challenges as it supports the development of knowledge and skills within the talent groups and leadership team. Therefore, emerging leaders can take the responsibilities of conducting action learning as action learning is ‘on-the-job training with the group and with mentors and coaches. Participants can develop the problem-solving skills and to handle execution skills while implementing the solutions to have identified real business challenge.

As opined by Panchenko (2015), delivering training to the learners is not all, the trainers need to know how significant it is to measure the effectiveness. Kirkpatrick developed a model which has four levels to evaluate the training.

Reaction: First level measures how learners can react to the training and the trainers can want the learners to feel that the training must be valuable for the learners and the learners must feel good about the topic of the training, about the instructor, materials and presentation and the venue of the training. As stated by Baik and Lee (2016), it is also significant to measure the reaction as it may help to understand how well the training is received by the learners. The reaction will help the L&D practitioners in Wong Partnership to develop the training for the future trainees and it is included in identifying the significant areas which are missing in the learning sessions. The training sessions can be done through a workshop or from the digital platform training. L&D practitioners can take a reaction by providing oral reports to the participants. L&D practitioners can provide a post-training questionnaire to the learners.  

Learning: In this stage, the trainers have to measure what the learners have learned. The trainers strive to know how much knowledge it has increased through training. According to Storey (2014), before starting the training session, the trainers always list the specific objectives of the training. Therefore, these objectives are the starting point of measurement. In Wong Partnership, L&D practitioners will measure learning by checking the attitude, skills and knowledge of the staffs. L&D practitioners measure this by knowing the learners will improve the skills by training.

Behaviour: In this stage, the trainers understand how far trainees change their behaviour after the training session is over. It is also significant to realise that the behaviour of the people can only change if the training session will be favourable. The training must be effective in order to change the behaviour of the staffs. In Wong Partnership, the behaviour of the staffs will be checked by conducting the questionnaire survey and the staffs will be provided with a task, which the staffs have to perform. On the other side, the staffs may learn everything they taught; they do not have the need to apply the knowledge themselves (Niemela et al. 2016).

Results: In Wong Partnership, the L&D practitioners need to analyse the final result of the training as the management needs to learn about determining the good for the business. Results of training can bring satisfaction to the clients in the law field. Therefore, results should be discussed with the staffs exactly so that the staffs must know what to expect.

Wong Partnership will invest S$ 12,000 and the organisation wants Return of Investment (ROI) of S$30,000 extra revenue after two years from the Asia Pacific and the Middle East section. This training will increase the skills of the staffs and it will also boost the client satisfaction from the staffs' end. Return on Equity (ROE) can be measured through the financial performance of the organisation by calculating the net income by shareholders' equity. Return of Asset of Wong Partnership should be increased by 5% in the next two years to understand the result of the training.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that Wong Partnership will definitely get good outcomes from the training programme as effective training programme management will help the organisation a beginning of quality training session. As an L&D, I will make a team to evaluate the needs assessment of the staffs in Wong Partnership where the team will interview, survey and make a development plan for the staffs. Wong Partnership in Singapore has been doing well in the legal and law field; however, the organisation has been facing the issue of lower client satisfaction and legal knowledge of the staffs and executives who work under the lawyers. The training plan of Wong Partnership will align with the training needs of the staffs and before setting the training programme for the staffs; we need to measure the goals and metrics. The leaders within the organisation Wong Partnership should understand their roles and they need to show creativity to make understand the responsibilities to the staffs. The success of the training programmes will be measured through skill application, skill attainment and behavioural changes of the staffs.

References

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