Good Training And Development At Cac Case Study Example

Introduction

Training and mentoring are essential activities that form integral components of any business or venture. The training session for a casino at Changi Airport would make the recruited employees more familiar with the culture of CAC group of Gaming Operations, the ethics and code of conduct being followed at Changi Airport, rules and regulations about CAC’s and similar casinos and many more such beneficial services. Because of previous poor records of training and development experienced by CAC Gaming Development Cell, there is a need to identify and come over the drawbacks of previous training session so as to make the next one really successful and beneficial for the upcoming casino to remain competent with other two already established and running.

Loopholes in Training Sessions

In the previous training sessions of about 100 employees or croupiers, it was observed that the benefit which was expected out he training turned into a complete opposite scenario of dissatisfaction and downfall of the reputation of the company. This was because of some of the potential errors or loopholes left in the training practices pertaining to transfer of learning or mentoring the participants in a practical form.
First and foremost, the training given to croupiers is a continuous five day course which aims at building up leadership, team building and efficient customer service skills. These continuous five days leads to disturbance in the company which requires shifting of employees from other shifts and extending their working hours leading to dissatisfaction, escalated level of unhappiness and finally resignation for some of the permanent croupiers. The training sessions arranged by Director of Training and Development became a threat to the image of the company handling the responsibility for casinos at the airport (Michael, 1983). A fee of the small errors at the training session was making it bore for the participants and not being able to motivate them to practice for their entry and employment at the airport.The training given to the employees should not have been completely theoretical making it irrelevant for the purpose of customer service at the casinos.The working schedule of the employees was tight therefore, the training did not pay any attention or focus towards the practical implications and execution of the theoretical principles learnt. The skills that are learnt without practice are of no practical use in the actual job scenario of customer service handling. The current job demanded a close observation of the working employees giving them a correct way and technique to handle the games at the casinos and serve their customers. The training did not fill the gap between training given for local and regional casinos and the training required for a high level of airport based casino.
Therefore, these were some of the potential errors that led to dissatisfaction and discontentment of Margaret Chan from Caleb Tan and his mode of training.

Kirkpatrick’s Four Level of Evaluation in Training Model

Adding onto the concepts of four level of training evaluation to training and development at Changi Airport, it can be analyzed that it is essential to analyze the effectiveness of the training. The four levels pertain to reaction, learning, behavior and result.
Reaction level of the evaluation training model measures the reactions of the trainees. Any instructor may want the training session to be valuable and worth living. It is quite important to measure the reaction to improve the outlook of further trainees and identify the important drawbacks of the present training sessions and important areas which needs improvement. For the training cell at Changi Airport, the scenario is that the reaction of the previous trainees was not at all good rather demotivating and dissatisfying for the future training sessions. The presentation, content, delivery and purpose of the whole training sessions bore wrong and negative reactions from the trainees (Fitzgerald, 1992). The need is to improve the sessions for a better and satisfactory response. The second factor learning measures and evaluates the quality and quantity of what they have learned. It is the measure of increase in the level of knowledge as the result of the training. The learning objective of the sessions must be clearly defined prior to the start of the training session and it must be closely related with the complete coursework and schedule of the whole session. It would result in evaluation of the skills, knowledge and attitude required in the future sessions for a better response from the participants. The learning out of the session given at Changi Airport for gaming training was not as per the required standards and would require improvement of learning lessons, knowledge given and methodology of practical learning. The behavior is the aspect that how the behavior of trainees have been changed during the course of the session also before and after it. Favorable and positive changes are expected out of a session to apply in the practical life. The behavior of the employees though changed after the training but it was more on a negative aspect and bend of it and therefore, steps should have been taken to improve the training session for a positive response from the participants to motivate the future trainees and refine the process of training for casinos. Results are the final dimension that includes the output and outcomes of the whole practical session for the good of the business, employees and good for the whole organization. The results for the training session must be focused upon fewer complaints, higher morale, higher quality ratings, more production, higher retention etc. These results should form the prime aim of the training session given for the casinos at Changi airport.Thus, Kirkpatrick’s four level model of evaluation gave an inherent insight into the shortcomings of the training process at Changi airport with a need to further refine the process for retaining of the trainees and their positive response.

Recommendations for alleviating the errors

The training can be improved by the means of incorporating certain techniques which can be mutually beneficial for the gaming department and the development cell.The training should be carried out at the gaming casino itself so as to preserve the shifts and the duties of the croupiers. The training can be arranged as a mix of theoretical lectures and practical hand on sessions arranged on a week long schedule and comprising of different batches for not disrupting the work schedule of the employees at CAC. These training sessions should embellish with practical hand on sessions given to the participants so that they may learn closely and observe to performtheir tasks. The training sessions should be redesigned to incorporate the essential requirements for the training specifically relating it to the culture of the airport and the casinos made especially for the airport.It should include customer service handling, gaming rules and regulations, handling at the Changi Airport and other such ethics about the CAC Company.
The trainers at the Training and Development cell should be inspiring and motivating so as to hold the spirit of the participants and make them glued to the training session. There must be provisions and highly experienced mentors who can fill the gap between the training given at the local or regional level and the one given for the international airport level casinos. The trainers should act like a bridge between the training sessions for local and global level. Another recommendation can be to plan the strategies well in advance with an alliance with the gaming corporation and complying with the rules as suggested by them. The training could have been more effective once the ethics of the airport casinos are well understood by the trainers themselves and more stress is laid over practical training rather than giving theoretical lectures about the customer service handling or leadership traits required at the job.

Strategies for demanding Support

It is required to win over the support of the Gaming Operations Director so as to complete the procedure of training and leverage the benefits promised out of it in the casinos. The croupiers should be made comfortable and inspired to work for the casinos in the trained and coached format. There can be many strategies to win over the trust of the Gaming Operations Director again to make her convinced about sending another 100 employees for a two day training and allowing other employees to participate in the training at the office itself (Pareek, 1990). It would extend to a one week training plan including the batching system taking employees from consecutive shifts. The manager for training and development should pre plan all the sessions with the Director of Gaming Operations so settle upon mutually beneficial schedule for training. A requirement specification document should be prepared prior to the training initiation so that the Director is not angry with the sessions and provide with the full support in the sessions.There can be a member from the Gaming Department that can be made a part of the training committee as a supervisor giving periodic reports to the Gaming Operations Director. The support may be in the form of office space for practical training, time schedules within the busy duty hours, resources required in the form of hand outs, presentations, experts in the customer service routine etc. There can be a written agreement signed between the two companies to uphold the stature in any situation and to give best of the most suitable training to the employees as suggested and demanded by CAC.Promotional activities should be done for the training sessions so as to allure the Director of Gaming Department towards these sessions and make her realize its importance if implemented effectively without disturbing the schedule of work or reputation of the company. With the time duration of training reduced and segregated to span up on an entire week within the casino, e learning techniques and strategies can be made a part of the training course. There can be provisions to supply the participant with learning materials for theoretical lectures so that they may learn at their own pace in the free time at their homes without compensating the work time at the casinos and thereby fulfilling both the missions. E learning can also foster better insight into theory and practical sessions can be guided by training experts. Therefore, with the blend of suggested strategies and recommendations the training cell may be able to persuade Gaming Operations Director to leverage full support to the team for CAC Training purpose.

Conclusion

There can be plethora of strategies that may benefit the organization in a both the ways by providing right guidance to the employees in the form of training and upholding the position of the company among all three casinos at the airport. Therefore, this session can be made successful by cooperation of both the departments.

References:

Lynton, R. P., & Pareek, U. (1990). Training for development (No. Ed. 2). Kumarian Press.
Fitzgerald, W. (1992). Training versus development. Training and Development Journal, 5, 81-84.
Hunt, D. M., & Michael, C. (1983). Mentorship: A career training and development tool. Academy of management Review, 8(3), 475-485.