The senior managers of a large financial institution recognize the importance of training and development for their staff. They have a clear policy that not only should staff be trained and developed to meet the licensing and legislative requirements that apply to their area of business, but that staff should also be encouraged and enabled to engage in other appropriate development activities. The middle managers, who largely look after staff performance and development, all welcome this policy. They have made it clear to all of their staff that development opportunities are available and can be applied for at any time. Many individual managers have therefore put together a lost of courses that they think might be of interest to their staff, and make these available to staff so that individual members of staff can pick-and- mix the courses that they feel they would like to attend. There is no restriction on the number of courses that are allowed for each staff member, and it is up to each middle manager whether to allow attendance. Common practice is that staff just mention to the manager what they would like to do, and then a secretary books the place. The staff member then receives the letter from the training provider inviting him or her to the event, which he or she then attends when the due date arrives. The staff appraisal system is good in that the process described in organizational paperwork is good practice, but in reality, it does not happen, because mangers do not have time and have not been properly trained. When an appraisal interview does take place, it is usually short, and development needs tend to be addressed at the appraisal interview with the question ‘What do you want to do this year?’, and then arrangements made after listing the responses. Cost have never been a barrier because money is said to be freely available for development purposes. When staff are to attend a course, they are supposed to let their line manager know about their impending absence, but this does not always happen. Neither does the manager hold any pre- or post-attendance discussions, nor does the organization have any mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of any course (or, for that matter, any mechanism for checking that the member of staff actually attended). Some courses are held in-house for those areas of specialism where there is plenty of expertise, but these do not seem to be very effective. One employee recently missed half a day of a two-day course – and no one even noticed. Some courses are particularly important to the organization, especially those that re-licensing staff to enable them to operate in their specific financial area. However, staff are responsible for their own updates and re-licensing – the organization does not keep records of when events are due or attended for any except the most essential staff. Rumor has it that many update courses are boring and inessential, so that it is not actually clear whether staff are or are not attending, and therefore may or may not be fully up to date. Following a merger with a similar but slightly smaller concern, new staff are not to be incorporated into the wider organization. In the smaller firm, training and development was of a very focused nature and a very high standard, as it had to be to keep the small firm competitive. The larger firm is now faced with some pressing issues. The recently arrived staff appear to be expecting detailed development discussions prior to training course attendance, and a debrief of what was learned following the course. They are also complaining about the appraisal system that appears to be blocking what they call proper discussion about their future, and the development needs that they have in order to position themselves to be ready when promotion opportunities arise. They have noted that training appears only to be courses, and are questioning this approach. In the meantime, shareholders have begun to ask questions about the size of the training budget when compared to the size of the training budget when compared to the size of the dividend budget that was recently set. Managers in the wider organization, feeling suddenly under the spotlight, are now said to be unhappy with what they see as challenges to their way of doing things by both these newcomers and the shareholders. A further complication is that new legislation requires all of the professionals in one of the major fields of operation to be retrained and tested to ensure that they are advising customers in an appropriate way. As a result of these growing challenges, the new bigger organization has appointed a Head of Learning and Development to oversee the whole are of staff development, with the remit to obtain an overview of the key issues that have to be tackled, and to implement the most effective and cost-effective development scheme possible. Imagine you are the new Head of Learning and Development. 1. Make a list of the issues that you should consider tackling.