Employee Training Program

Capital Improvements, Inc. is a large regional home remodeling company located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The corporation’s annual revenues are approximately twenty-five million U. S. dollars. The corporation maintains multiple branch offices in the various states in which it operates. Each branch is subdivided into two primary divisions: the labor department and the sales department. The former actually engages in the home remodeling projects the company produces on behalf of its clients. The latter department procures contracts with homeowners who wish for the company to renovate their homes. 

The sales representatives employed by the sales departments perform multiple tasks. One of these is to respond to leads generated by a marketing division that operates as an adjacent division to the sales departments. These leads are generated through direct mail, telemarketing, billboard advertisements, television commercials, newspaper and magazine ads, and various forms of internet advertising. It is the responsibility of the company’s sales representatives to visit prospective clients at their homes, introduce the client to the company’s products and available services, and procure contracts to renovate the homes of clients. 

Sales representatives also engage in direct outside marketing. This includes a program of “grassroots marketing” or direct cold-calling to homeowners by means of door-to-door sales. Through the outside cold-calling program, sales representatives are able to increase their potential incomes by generating their own leads and procuring additional contracts on which they receive commissions in addition to the leads that are provided to them by the corporation’s marketing staff. Sales representatives are required to participate in the grassroots marketing program as a condition of their employment with Capital Improvements, Inc. 

Sales representatives are hired on the basis of their experience and success at an initial series of interviews where they are presented with an overview of the company’s operations and procedures. Interviewees are then asked to provide responses concerning the question of how they would manage particular scenarios that might arise during the course of carrying out their professional responsibilities while employed by Capital Improvements, Inc. Once the initial hiring process is completed, newly hired sales representatives are referred to a comprehensive training program. The foundation of the training program is a two-day process whereby new employees are given an orientation that includes the presentation of a wider overview of the corporation’s products, services, and internal procedures. Newly hired sales representatives are also given initial experience in the field of both an observational and participatory nature (Nadler, 1970). 

Upon their entry into the corporation, newly hired sales representatives first attend an orientation session. The orientation session and subsequent exercises are conducted for twenty employees at a time. The first day of the initial two-day training program begins with the orientation session. During this beginning part of the training process, a corporate officer provides an overview of the structure of the corporation, its history, and standing in the industry and the local business communities in which individual branches are located. The purpose of this part of the orientation is to better enable new sales representatives to discuss the company’s history and reputation with prospective clients who may have concerns about the company’s credibility. Trainees are provided with photocopies of the company’s various professional licenses, insurance forms, reports from consumer reporting agencies, and membership information from professional organizations to which the company belongs (Noe, 2010). 

Once the background information on the corporation has been presented, trainees are given a comprehensive overview of the company’s products and services by an experienced sales representative. The company’s product line includes its own unique brand of vinyl replacement windows, a trademarked brand of vinyl siding, a variety of bathroom remodeling products, and specially designed French doors. Services provided by the company include installation of all of these products plus the construction of home additions, decks and patios, sliding glass doors, roofing, exterior trim work, gutters, kitchen remodeling, exterior painting, landscaping, and lawn maintenance services. Trainees are provided with a comprehensive discussion of each of these products and services including live demonstrations of the company’s own trademarked products. This part of the training process includes an oral presentation by an experienced sales representative, a PowerPoint demonstration, the provision of trainees with product samples, and the distribution of various bits of literature, manuals, and advertising materials to trainees. The newly hired sales representatives are also given an opportunity to engage in an extensive question and answer session with both the corporate officer providing the overview of the company’s operations and the sales representative giving the introduction to the company’s products and services. The purpose of this second phase of the on-boarding process is to familiarize newly hired employees with the basic products and services they will be presenting to prospective clients during the course of their professional responsibilities (Bartel, 1989). 

After completing the orientation process and receiving their initial overview of the corporation’s products, trainees are then referred to online modules depicting dramatizations of fictional interactions between sales representatives and clients of the kind they will likely experience while employed by Capital Improvements, Inc. Each trainee is given a seat at a computer terminal and allowed to watch a series of online videos that have been previously produced by the corporation for training purposes. The production of these videos was initially commissioned by the corporation’s central headquarters for the purpose of training corporate staff throughout each of the company’s various divisions and branch offices (Brown, 2002). 

These videos were produced and recorded by a professional production company contracted by the corporation and feature professional actors assuming the roles of sales representatives and prospective clients. The scripts for these videos were written by actual sales representatives employed by the corporation based on their own on-the-job experiences with input from marketing and senior management personnel. Each successive video in the series presents a scenario the sales representative is likely to encounter in the field when interacting with prospective clients. Each video presents a problem the sales representative must overcome including the most frequently asked questions presented by clients, the most common objections to the procurement of Capital Improvement’s services offered, and the kinds of disagreeable personalities the sales representatives will encounter while doing their job. Once these videos have been viewed by the trainees, a series of online questions follow to which the trainees must give the correct answer. If the trainee provides an incorrect answer, the trainee must then watch the video once again and continue to answer the questions until the trainee is able to provide the correct answer. 

At the end of the first day of training, the newly hired sales representative will have undergone orientation, received a comprehensive demonstration of the company’s products, completed watching the video series online and answering the questions that follow. The first day of training is completed in the branch office while the second day of training takes place in the field. The day of field training is divided into two parts. Day two of training begins with each trainee accompanying an experienced sales representative on a visit to the home of a prospective client. The trainee will actually have the opportunity to directly observe the interaction between the senior sales representative and the homeowner to whom the company’s home remodeling products and services are being presented. The trainee will observe how the senior sales representatives pitch the company’s reputation and credibility to the client and proceed to give a detailed and convincing sales presentation to the homeowner for the purpose of procuring a sale. During this part of the training the new hire will accompany the senior sales representative on two to four visits to the home of a prospective client depending on time constraints. The second part of day two of training will consist of the trainee accompanying a senior sales representative as they engage in door-to-door sales and marketing efforts. The trainee will observe as the experienced sales representative engages in direct cold calling in residential communities, interacts with homeowners, presents products and services, and procures sales or leads to be followed up on at a later date (Hicks, Klimoski, 1987). 

The generalized costs of this training program involve compensation of corporate officers and sales representatives for the time they spend conducting the orientation and product demonstration sessions, the cost of the initial production of the training videos and online training modules, and the ongoing maintenance of these. Additionally, senior sales representatives are given bonuses for their efforts at training new hires. The trainees are unpaid for the two training days until they have successfully completed at least three days working in the field on their own without the supervision of a senior sales representative or manager. The training requirements and issues related to compensation are discussed in detail in the original interview and in the contract that is presented to new sales representatives who undergo the training process.

References

Bartel, A.B. (1989). Formal employee training programs and their impact on labor productivity: Evidence from a human resources survey. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper, July 1989.

Brown, J. (2002). Training needs assessment: A must for developing an effective program [PDF]. Public Personnel Management, Volume 31, No. 4, Winter 2002/  Retrieved from http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~antonvillado/courses/09a_psyc630001/Brown%20%282002%29%20PPM.pdf

Hicks, W. D. & Klimoski, W. J. (1987). Entry into training programs and its effects on training outcomes: A field experiment. Academy of Management Journal, Volume 30, No 3, September 1, 1987.

Nadler, L/ (1970). Developing human resources. Houston, Texas: Gulf Publishing Company.

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York City: McGraw-Hill.