Introduction General Information Of International Training Management Essay

Training is a process of improving employees behavior, attitudes and knowledge in a way that increases the probability of individual and organizational goal attainment. Training aims to improve current work skills and behavior, whereas development is a continuous improvement process towards objectives that aims to increase abilities in relation to some future position or job (Iftikhar.A and Siraj, 2009). International training refers to training for international assignments. There are three broad types of international trainings in MNEs. They are:

Preparatory training for expatriates: once a person has been appointed for an international assignment, pre-departure training is normally used to ensure the candidate has adequate skills and knowledge that are necessary for working abroad effectively (Jie S., 2005).

Post-arrival training for expatriates: after an expatriate has gone abroad, further on-site training is often used to familiarize the expatriate with the local working environment and procedures (Jie S., 2005).

Training for host-country nationals (HCNs) and third-country nationals (TCNs): Training should be provided to HCNs and TCNs to facilitate understanding of corporate strategy, corporate culture and socialization (Jie S., 2005).

Important of International Training & Development

Preparatory training for expatriates has received most attention in the international literature as expatriate failure is always regarded as due to a lack of adequate training for expatriates and their spouses. The expatriate failure rate is an important indicator for measuring the effectiveness of expatriation management. The costs of expatriate failure are high and involve both direct and indirect elements. In the case of expatriate recalls, the direct costs include salary, training costs and travel and relocation expenses. Indirect costs may be considerable and un-quantified, such as damaging relations with the host country government and other local organizations and customers, as well as loss of market share, damage to corporate reputation and lost business opportunities (Shen and Edwards, 2006)

The complex and ever-changing global environment requires flexibility. The organization’s ability to devise strategic responses, however, may be constrained by a lack of suitably trained, internationally oriented personnel. Croft (2007) identified that the use of more rigorous training programmes could significantly improve the expatriate’s performance in an overseas environment, thus minimizing the incidence of failure. Caligiuri et al (2006) has argued that cultural training enables individuals to adjust more rapidly to the new culture and be more effective in their new roles. “Highly relevant cross-cultural training created either accurate expectations or expectations of difficulty prior to the assignment” (Caligiuri et al., 2006).

International management development deals with identifying, fostering, promoting and using international managers. Its major issues include international management development schemes, approaches to international management development, promotion criteria and factors affecting approaches to international management development. International management development can also be expected to play a central role in MNEs because of its importance in developing a cross-national corporate culture and integrating international operations. According to Bartlett and Ghoshal (2005), global firms can enhance their inter-unit linkages by generate a pool of global managers from anywhere in the world.

2.0 Content

2.1 Training and development activity – McDonald Co.

McDonald has provided innovative program to improve the skills of the employee. For McDonald’s, training begins the moment an employee is hired and never stops, thus until today McDonald’s is still one of only twelve Fortune 500 companies to receive college credit for the training it provides its employees.

As a global food service retailer, it is important to provide a global training program in order to assist the employees’ skill and knowledge. McDonald has done successfully on the global learning program as they established Hamburger University (HU) which partnerships with higher education institutions and tuition support to educate more talented manager and employees become more effectively and efficiency. That campus boasts teaching classrooms, kitchen labs, a state-of-the-art service training lab, and more. According to McDonald 2011 Global Sustainability Scorecard shows the increasing of percentage of crew members satisfied that they receive the training needed to do a good job. (Refer to appendix 1)

McDonald has owned network of 22 regional training centers and seven additional HU campuses around the world. McDonald’s has supplemented HU campus with satellite campuses internationally. All of the campuses which establish internationally are applying HU’s “Global Learning Approach,” meaning they will integrate the training materials into diverse cultures and provide the course for employees to learn in 28 different languages. Furthermore, HU facilitate design and deliver the program’s core curriculum through a combination of hands-on lab activities, computer e-learning modules, classroom instruction, and self-study to improve the employees’ personal skills. Also, they support the training curriculum to advance specific career paths for the employee within the restaurant chain.

Besides, McDonald also included the business management course to train their employees as improve the management and leadership skill due to globalization of the company and the needs to manage the diverse cultural workforce. HR Design Center for McDonald’s Corporation has initiated the development of a special leadership development program for a select number of high-potential managers for possible promotion into regional manager (RM). (Carter, Ulrich and Goldsmith ,2005) It is important in develop the region manager skill which required to handle region market that comprised 300 to 400 stores that generated $480-$640 million in revenue. Jez Langhorn, Chief People Officer, McDonald’s UK mentioned that whether leaders, managers and trainers at all levels in McDonald are exceptionally committed to the apprenticeship programme. The programme is an integral part of career development within McDonald’s. It is valued highly and seen as being an important qualification for staff such as improves confidence and productivity for employees in turn resulted the improving on business performance.

2.2 Kentucky Fried Chicken Company

KFC is a global organization because from the point of global perspective, it is defined as having built productive cross-cultural teams that maximizes effectiveness of existing training, increases retention, and adapts to any culture, anywhere in the world. KFC culture believes in effective operation centered on quality customer service despite differences of culture or language. (Khurana, 2011)

Besides this, employees are encouraged to work together as a team. KFC is committed to making sure their employees cultivate to their highest potential. KFC does their best to make the job interesting and exciting for employees. The KFC focuses on training and education for all their employees and managers for their 30, 000 restaurants in 110 countries. KFC has intensive training which included workbooks, quizzes, and on-the-job competency based training. (Human Resource Management, 2007) The training according to be integrated into the company’s broader management trainings that deal with issues as sexual harassment, hiring and firing practices, interpersonal relationships, and conflict resolution.

Besides this, KFC Company engaged the expatriate policy as one of their strategies in order to establish restaurants that are suited to the culture of a given country because the expatriate understands with the culture is seen as an advantage to enter the country more effectively. Hence, KFC employees will undertake several trainings at different levels before they get promotion. Similarity, the general managers that they employ on their branches must have acquired appropriate training and experience from the company. In this way, both emigrants and immigrants will have the opportunity to incorporate the culture of KFC and their own culture to suit to the taste of their consumers. (Khurana, 2011)

All shift supervisors or managers participate in KFC Global Training curriculum. The training is designed and facilitated by accredited professionals included internal and external to ensure all shift supervisors or managers gain the skills, knowledge and experience to operate our successful restaurants. In addition, the company provides comprehensive training which consist leadership development, coaching skills, culture, interaction management, fire safety, first aid training, food safety, human resources, workplace health & safety, information systems, and financial & operations accounting. (Training and Development, 2012)

In addition, KFC had conducted e-learning to their employees to be recognized as an industry leader. So, every KFC restaurants have a dedicated learning space with all the right technology to back it up. The e-learning system is an online platform accessible to their employees in the business which regardless of what level of employee are at. The e-learning also designed to support the development of employees at KFC, bringing together their entire training program. (Training and Apprenticeships , 2012)

Furthermore, KFC had launched Graduate Program which gives an opportunity for the graduates to gain some experiences in the company in a variety of functional roles. This program is designed to give the employees broad experience across the business in real job. Therefore, the employees will rotate through various departments, including operations to ensure that they gain an unrivalled depth of business experience in a short period of time. By the end of the program, they will be set up to take on the challenge of a role in operations as an area coach or another excellent above restaurant role. (Marketing Project on KFC, 2005)

2.3 Domino’s Pizza Co (DPZ)

Domino’s Pizza, the pizza delivery expert which able to deliver in short time and drives more that 10 million miles every week to bring the best pizza for the customers. On 30 Nov 2011, Domino has awarded by the award which viewed as the most prestigious in the learning and development industry which is Top Training Journal Award. (McGill, 2011) Therefore, The Domino’s Pizza has been recognized as companies who provide effective and efficient training for their employees. In fact, Domino pizza has provided different training and development for employees based on different job scope of the employees.

In terms of Corporate Training, DPZ has established Domino Pizza Prep School which mainly for the employees who are not working in stores day by day. Thus, the company’s World Resource Center team will be the main focus group for this training programme. Because they recognize the need for this particular employees to know how their role supports those who are and always notice what is going on in the store and provide them store operations knowledge as well.

Besides, Domino’s pizza has offered DPZ University for the employees in order to assist the employees’ career paths to become successful. The objective for DPZ University is intent to develop the leadership skill or managerial roles for the employees and prepare individuals for future opportunities or promotion. This training and development programme has incorporates with technology which can enable employees to learn the leadership skill in homegrown learning portal and in a short time period. (Margolis, 2007) DPZ University has partnering with world – class organizations such as Harvard Business School, The Leadership Development Company; Ninth house, and others to ensure them able to deliver the best pizza on the worldwide.

Next, General Managers who have been in the position for 3 months plus will provided High Performance Management Training (HPGM) by the company. The HPGM training is a high energy two day training class and a challenge which mean scenario will be given for a groups of managers to solve it. Test will be given in this training programme to allow the DPZ company to measure how much the knowledge have been gained by the managers in the class. And Managers also required to done the assignment with changing the behavior according to different key role such as operator, customer care, sales builder, leader and trainer to ensure them able to play the entire key role and manage the different subsidiaries employees. The certificate will be awarded if the General Managers can pass the test successfully. (Gage and Wade) (Appendix 2)

Not only that, DPZ also has offered the distribution training for the employees who are taking the responsibilities such as warehouse , store delivery to ensure they able to deliver the pizza safely and efficiently. As we know DPZ is focusing on the delivery, thus the company has provided many safety and defensive driving classes for the employees.

Consequently, People Pipeline Programme had offered by DPZ to develop the future best leaders. It is important to ensure that future leaders able integrated into new positions in a series of rotational assignments. The trainees in this programme are required to perform job rotation task such as International, Human resources, Public relations, Communications, Legal, Marketing and etc.

Since Domino’s Pizza is a international company, above training and development programme is the need to ensure the leaders, managers or employees able to fit with different external environment and culture and able to compromise with it.

Conclusion

The companies we have chosen for our assignment are McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and Domino’s Pizza. These 3 companies are American-based companies while they also are international companies that operate their business over the world. At the same time, these 3 companies are managing their business in the same industry which is fast food industry and requiring a good reputation in the industry.

Based on our assignment, we found that they put much effort and emphasized in training to gain the customer satisfaction on their services. In today’s competitive marketplace, the consumer’s perceptions become more important for gaining sustainable competitive advantage. Nowadays, the perceptions of consumers on eating habits have been changed. For instances, consumer will tend to discover the restaurant that can make them curious in trying compared to older dinners and seek environment that can make them feel comfortable with the products and facilities that suit their needs and want.

Besides that, the increasing of people consuming fast foods become international trend has been influenced by changing lifestyle of consumer. McDonalds, KFC and Domino’s Pizza are provided world class training to their employees to educate them become more competitive and valuable to their corporate.

McDonalds, KFC and Domino’s Pizza have the similarities in their training functional. Regarding to our assignment for these 3 international fast foods companies, we can conclude that the training function between McDonald’s, KFC and Domino’s Pizza have focus on the same area which is global learning program to enable those future leaders able to adapt the culture and environment while they face the changes of culture and environment.

For instances, has been mentioned in content part, KFC has been built productive cross-cultural teams that maximizes effectiveness of existing training and adapts to any culture because KFC believes that in effective operation centered on quality customer service despite differences of culture or language. The other reason of McDonalds, KFC and Domino’s Pizza designed the course of materials in diverse culture and different language also is because of they are global organizations, their employees are come from different background and country.

Furthermore, McDonald’s, KFC and Domino’s Pizza have been established their own university for their employees, has been mentioned on content part, Hamburger University (McDonald’s) and Domino Pizza Prep School (Domino’s Pizza). Even though KFC do not have the university as McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza but it also required training center that involve e-learning system, on-the-job and formal classroom it. The reason why they spent a lot money to establish university is due to provide an opportunity for their employees to learn how to manage the business in the industry and company can generate the trust and confident to their employees. . A company who intended to increase the education of their employees and provide the opportunities for employees to get promoted to higher position can make the employees to work hard to fight for their opportunities. This can create a high motivation among employees in doing their job and present their best to the company. This is to ensure that all the employees in their companies have the opportunity to gain high level position if they are capable regardless where they come from. It can also impose loyalty among employees to the company as the company is providing them lifelong opportunity to gain knowledge and improve themselves in their job.

Even though McDonald’s, KFC and Domino’s Pizza are run their business in the same industry, the training program that they designed should different from each others. For instances, KFC Company engaged the expatriate policy as one of the strategies. This strategic is not applying by McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza in their training functional.

Moreover, as mentioned above, KFC had designed Graduate Program which gives an opportunity for the graduates to gain some experiences in the company in a variety of functional roles. This is the advantage of KFC over the other McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza which they do not offer this kind of program. This program is designed to give the employees broad experience across the business in real job. KFC will rotate their employees position through different department.

This assignment gave us the opportunity to learn about the why international company emphasized on training function and how they educate their employees in term of knowledge, skills and services. There are a lot of benefits of training employees.

Training and education can produce job satisfaction among employee. An employee who posses the skills to do particular job in the company will feel more satisfied and happy with his job. The employee will be more confident in doing his job when he owns the information of what he should do and know very well in his job. In contrast an employee who is not educated in the field related to his job may feel incompetent and useless compared to his colleagues who have more knowledge than him. This will be very de-motivating and causes low work force of that employee. Provide training for employees for the job they needs to perform not only empowers them to do work but also greatly improve the quality of their work. This can reduce the occurrence of mistakes by employees and hence increase their confidence to take up more challenging jobs.

Next, employee training can increase productivity of employees. When an employee is being trained of the skill he needed in the job, he can done his job more efficiently and hence increase the productivity. Less time is required to finish a particular job because the employee had already knew and being told what he should do and has own the skill of doing that particular job. Safety level in the workplace can also be increased by training the employees with right skills in doing their job. Safety is especially important for the fast food companies, KFC, McDonald and Domino Pizza because the employees are doing their job in the kitchen. For example, they have to face hot stuffs such as hot cooking oils and hence the right skills and knowledge in handle ling the kitchen condition are important to ensure employees’ safety during work. A good company should appreciate their employees as employees are the weapons for them to keep compete with other company.