The Training Model for Haoxin Credit Guarantee Co.

1. Context Description

1.1 Environment Introduction
Guarantee company, aiming at helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) achieve their financing objectives, is becoming a new commercial service industry in China and has great market potential. In recent years, guarantee industry is developing at a high speed, variety of new guarantee products emerge, such as guarantee for contract payment, guarantee for entrusted lending, and guarantee for contract bidding and tendering. Tianjin Haoxin Credit Guaranteed Co., Ltd (Haoxin) was established on November 14th, 2003, it is a professional guarantee institute. Now there are more then thirty employees working in company’s ten different departments.

Training department is one of the most important departments in Haoxin, the training team consists of four members: training manager, who leads the training and integrate training with company’s strategy; instructional designer, who designs training materials and puts up useful information on training department; trainer, who delivers, presents and facilitate learning; administrator, who are in charge of external training program selection, internal and external training programs evaluation, data collection and recording, and logistics.

1.2 Needs Analysis
1) Identify Problems
a) New employees’ working efficiency is comparatively low. They have troubles on communication and cooperation.
b) Employees make mistakes and/or have difficulties on issues which are relative to new guarantee products.
c) Performance problems during working hours: some employees dress casually; some make long private call; some private use of business computers on chat, updating blogs, exploring non-business websites, playing computer games, etc.
2) Analysis Causes
a) New employees are lack of basic skills and/or knowledge
Haoxin recruits six new members every year and most of them are new graduates. New employees are lack of basic knowledge such as company’s history and business field, company’s policies (e.g. office equipment using policy, rewards and punishment policy) and appropriate business manner (how to dress appropriately, how to consensus decision making, how to manage project).
b) Employees can not acquire new knowledge and skills instantly
Guarantee is a new commercial service industry. New guarantee products emerge almost every year. Employees need to learn those new knowledge and skills constantly.
c) Environmental deficiency
Although the company provides entrance training for all employees, performance problems during working hours still exist: some people dress casually; some make long private call; some private use of business computers on chat, updating blogs, exploring non-business websites, playing computer games, etc. Company’s working environment needs to be refined.
3) Select Optimal Solutions
a) Provide entrance training to all new employees. The entrance training includes basic knowledge and skills which new employees should grasp, such as company’s history, business manners and company’s policies.
b) Help employee select appropriate external learning courses, tailor internal training courses.
c) Refine entrance training, continuously conducted performance regulation training.

1.3 Intended Audience
The primary audiences are members of the training team:
· Training manager
· Instructional designer
· Trainer
· Administrator of training department

The secondary audiences are the general manager of Haoxin, who are always care the effectiveness and the efficiency of the training department, how is the training department operating and functioning. The audiences of this model also include all employees – the training receivers, who will benefit from this model.

1.4 Purpose of the Model
This model provides guidance to the training team in Haoxin on helping them build a systemic and systematic training system. I hope the follhowing outputs can be achieved through the guidance of the model:
· Employees engage in their work (motivation),
· Employees develop their related competency actively and constantly (knowledge and skills),
· Employees perform appropriately during working hours (motivation and organizational),
· Increase of employees’ working efficiency (performance).
This training model can also be implemented by other guarantee companies in China.

2. Model Description

2.1 Model Analysis (Edmonds et al. Components)
First, I will implement Edmonds et al. Components to analysis this training model, so as to help you have a general idea about this model.

Orientation: Prescriptive.My training model is a prescriptive model. It describes how to carry out analysis, how to design and implement the training and how to conduct evaluation. In general, the model outlines how the training/learning environment should be constructed and developed in order to achieve desired outcomes (Employees engage in their work/develop related competency/perform appropriately / increase of e working efficiency).

Knowledge structure: ProceduralIt is important to determine the type of tasks the model is intended to support: either procedural (how to reach a goal), or declarative (why we reach a goal) (Edmonds, Branch and Mukherjee, 1994). There are three major tasks for this model: provide basic knowledge and skills to the novice employees, regulate employees’ business performance, and help them develop professional competencies. The training focuses on training employees how to achieve desired learning objectives, so it should be a procedural model.

Expertise Level: NoviceThis is a model appropriate for the novice instructional designers. The training model consists of three major parts: how to conduct needs analysis, how to help employees select the most appropriate external training programs and how to design, implement and evaluate internal training programs. The model presents in detail how to perform in each part.

Structure: System-BasedWhen I design this model, I incorporated elements of the following models:
· The Smith and Regan Model
This training model follows the ADDIE process: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation, which is presented in Smith and Regan Model.
· Harless Front-end Analysis Model
The first phase of this training model is designed according to this model. There are three main steps in my model’s Analysis phase: analysis the problem, identify possible causes and select optimal alternatives.
· The Gerlach and Ely model
GE model is designed for the teachers. So, I embedded GE model’s five interactive and simultaneous activities: determination of strategy, organization of groups, allocation of time and space, and selection of resources, in the implementation phase of my training model.
There is clear sequence in this model, and the components of the model are interrelated and interactive. The model provides detailed step-by-step guidelines for the systematic design of instruction.Context: business contextThis is a business training model. It is intended to be applied in Haoxin, a new guarantee company, it can also be implemented in other small-sized guarantee companies.

Level: unit-levelThere are two types of training in this model: internal training and external training. Only the internal training will be considered here. The internal training programs not only include training presented face to face by trainer, but comprise many specific sessions, such as skill and knowledge exchange sessions and sessions held by experts. Considering the number of the participants is not big, and the training topics and tasks are specified, the training will be applied upon the unit-level.

2.2 Model Components
Training team and each members’ responsibilities:

Training manager:
Analysis needs
Identify problems
Cost analysis
Identify and select optimal alternatives
Lead the training and integrates the training with company’s strategy.

nstructional designer:
Designs training materials and training support
Lesson plan
Handout
Media production
Manuals, job-aids, guideline
E-learning materials
Develop survey and questionnaire for training assessment and evaluation
Put up useful information on training department

Trainer/facilitator:
Specify training content and objectives
Determine training strategies (e.g. group, time, space, materials, activities)
Delivery training
Invite expert for sharing skills and knowledge
Hold/facilitate skills and knowledge exchange sessions
Training assessment
Exploding new training and learning methods

Administrator:
External training program selection
Assess training receivers’ internal and external training outcomes
Evaluate internal and external training program
Data collection and recording

Phase 1 – Analysis

There are three major phase in this model. The entry point of the model is need analysis. It involves seven procedures. The training managers will be in charge of this. The objectives of company, department and individuals will be considered. Generally speaking, there are two types of problems exist in the company, the problems facing by employees, such as knowledge deficiency and the problems existing in employees, such as inappropriate performance problems. Through observation, investigation, and communication with HR and many other departments, the training manager should firstly identify all the problems, and pinpoint the gap. The next step is analyzing the causes. In this step, the problems that can be solved by training will be identified. The solution might not be sole, so the training should conduct cost analysis, and then select the optimal alternatives. When indicating selection, company’s strategy should be well considered as well. The training managers will determine whether the problem will be solved through internal or external training, fill “Needs Analysis Form”, and give it to instructional designer (internal training), or the administrator (external training). The major information listed in “Needs Analysis Form” includes:
· Needs description
· Budget
· Schedule
· Recommendation

Phase 2 – External Training

As being mentioned above, there are two information channels in this model – internal training and external training. The administrator will be in charge of the external training phase. First, he will read the “Needs Analysis Form” provided by training manager, in order to identify the learning needs, the schedule, the budget and the training manager’s recommendation. And then, he will help the employees select the most external training program. There are two factors need to be considered. First, Employees’ previous training record, it can prove the effectiveness of the training program for the employee. Second, the information of external training program, such as the location, the schedule, the charge, and the social/employees’ feedback. The administrator will communicate with the employees to identify the training program. When the employees finish the program, thy will be asked to write a training report, to present what they have learnt, and how they will implement the knowledge and skill to their future work. If there is a required, they should share the skills and knowledge and skills they have learnt with other peers. A survey will be used as a data collection instrument to evaluate the external training program. The administrator will collect all the data and analysis them. The outcomes will be applied to help the administrator make future decision on program selection.

Phase 3 – Internal Training
There are three roles in this phase: the instructional designer, the trainer and the evaluator:

1) Instructional Designer
The instructional designer will be in charge of design all the instructional materials and supporting materials, such as lesson plan, handout and job-aids. Considering the learning time can be extended beyond the classroom and all the employee can access to internet, so the instructional designer’s responsibilities also include designing E-learning materials, such as some short and practical topic like 10 minutes/day learning on effective email writing, 10 minutes/day learning on commercial English; guidance for departments. Putting up useful information on training department and designing the survey and questionnaire are also instructional designer’s duty.

2) Trainer
The training will be in charge of implementation. As mentioned above, I incorporated GE model’s five interactive and simultaneous activities in this part. First, the trainer should specify the content and the objectives simultaneously. The characteristics, organization of groups, allocation of Time and space, represent a continuum of strategic cues for determining necessary resources. So, the emphasis of the trainer is place on selecting rather than developing instructional materials. Besides selecting instructional materials and delivering training, the trainer’s responsibilities also include holding and facilitating skill exchange session and expert sharing session. By the end of the training, the trainer needs to assess training receivers’ learning outcome, so as to make appropriate adjustment to his whole training process.

3) Evaluator
The administrator will be in charge of the evaluation of the internal training program. The evaluation will concentrate on training efficient and effectiveness, training material design, trainer’s performance. Different data collection instruments will be implemented, such as survey, questionnaire, and interview. The evaluator will write the evaluation report and present the report to all training team members, so as to help them make appropriate adjustment and increase their working efficiency.

3. Conclusion
In conclusion, this training model clarifies the major roles of training manager, instructional designer, training and administrator. It facilitates Haoxin training team’s work and increase team members’ working efficiency and effectiveness through providing the team a systematic and systemic working process. It is hoped that this model will be helpful to help the company, departments, and individuals achieve desired goals.