Master of Business Management in Marketing Program

For Group and Individual Assignements

Subject Details
Subject Human Resource Management
Subject Code MBMM 51033
Students Details
Group Name
No
Student Name Student Number Signature
1 Sheran Dunlas MBM/E/2019/70
2

Nature of the Assessment Report / Case

Assignment topic HR Issue on Advisory

Learning Outcomes
Word count
Time for the presentation (Eg: 10 Min & 5 min Q
&A)

Due date / Time Monday, 29 June 2020, 6:25 PM

Individual / Group Declaration
We (Group) certify that the content of the above assignment is one of our original work and not
copied from any of the published or internet based documents. Without references we have not
used any of the other person’s original work or ideas. So the report or the work we have done is
free of plagiarism.
Group leader’s
Date
Signature

Signature (Individual
Date 29 June 2020
Assignment)

Contents

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
Executive Summary:..............................................................................................................................3
Company Overview...............................................................................................................................4
Case: Low participation / completion of e-learners...............................................................................5
Allocation of E-Learnings...................................................................................................................6
E-learning delivery.............................................................................................................................7
Follow-up on learning completion:....................................................................................................7
Findings:............................................................................................................................................7
Threats or Problems........................................................................................................................11

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
Executive Summary:

Advisory is a small firm which is part of a global company and having its office in Colombo.
Being part of a global network, they have a wide range of resources and standards that they
need to adhere.

One of their company objectives is to continuously improve their employees by providing

trainings which is relevant and necessary. As mentioned, Advisory being part of a global
network has access to a wide range of resources. This includes e-learnings from various
subjects. Each employee is allocated times to complete these e-learners within the year.

In this paper, we identify that the completion rate of these e-learners by the employees of
Advisory are considerably low. Following are some of the key reasons that are identified
from surveys and discussion conducted internally:

 Lack of time to focus on e-learners

 E-learners seem to take a long time to complete
 Allocated e-learners seem irrelevant for certain employees
 Some employees do not see the value of these programmes
 Management team is not motivating their employees to complete the e-learners
 There is no measurement or direct benefit for employees completing these e-learners

Due to the lack of engagement in these e-learners, the firm as identifies three threats that has
been ongoing from previous years. The threats are categorized as High and Medium as per
the impact.

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Company Overview

Advisory is a company that is part of a global network and their core business is providing
consultation on projects such as Human Resource, Deals, Corporate Finance, Mergers &
Acquisition. They have been working in Sri Lanka for over 20 years with experience staffs.

Advisory has always focused on training and upskilling their employees so that they will be
up to date with the internal processes as well as the external changes that is happening around
the globe. This is an initiative that is conducted by the company globally around its network.
The company has its own learning platform which is updated on a daily basis with free access
to 1000+ learnings from various subjects.

The advisory consists of 80 staffs from 11 divisions which has its own respective business
models and processes. Each of these employees are allocated 40 – 45 hours of online training
which they should complete within a year.

Apart from online learning, the employees are also given opportunities to take part on
physical trainings respective to their job area and as per their professional development
requirement.

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
Case: Low participation / completion of e-learners

Though the company has all the training facilities, resources and budget. It is seen that the
participation and completion rate of the training allocated to the employees are very low.
Even though the employees are participating in physical classes when allocated, they do not
complete the allocated e-learners at the end of the year. The overall completion rate is very
low.

The following table illustrates the number of employees in each division and the completion
rate of their total e-learnings for the year 2019. (Please note that the total number of
employees in the year 2019 was 76)

Business Unit # Employees Learning Completion

Cyber Team 8 75%
Sales / BD 17 59%
Risk Management 4 75%
Audit 5 40%
Human Resource 7 57%
Legal 2 50%
IT 6 67%
Academy 8 25%
Marketing 6 17%
Finance 10 60%
Operations 3 67%
Total 76 54%

As per the system report the total number of employees that have completed their e-learners
are only 54% out of 76 staffs.

The following table illustrates the completion rate of e-learners from 01 January 2020 to 31
May 2020 is as follows:

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
 Business Unit # Employees Learning Completion
Cyber Team 10 80%
Sales / BD 20 15%
Risk Management 4 50%
Audit 4 25%
Human Resource 6 50%
Legal 2 0%
IT 6 17%
Academy 8 25%
Marketing 4 50%
Finance 12 42%
Operations 4 25%
Total 80 35%

As for the current year, the total completion rate of the e-learners is only 35%

Allocation of E-Learnings

 To find and allocate the training requirements for employees, the following criteria
are taken into consideration at the beginning of the year
o Based on the job role and seniority of the employee
o As per the requirement of the Business Unit Head
o Information extracted from the previous annual review of the employees
 An average of 10 – 15 e-learners and 02 physical trainings are allocated for each
employee for completion
 Each employee are provided 40 – 45 hours on their worktime to complete the e-
learnings within the year.

E-learning delivery

The e-learners in the LMS includes the following types pedagogy in order to deliver the
programmes

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  Presentations  Interactive videos
 Reading Materials  Quizzes
 Animated videos  Podcasts

Follow-up on learning completion:

 As a reminder and follow-up on the e-learner completion, the L&D team from the HR
sends an email to all the staffs on the total completion rate on monthly basis. This
email includes the above table and only mentions the Business Unit completion rate.
 A separate email to all Business Unit Heads is also sent on the completion rate of each
team in weekly basis. This email includes details only of their particular Business
Unit with the detailed completion rate of each of his/her team members.

Findings:

In order to identify the reasons for the lack of completion rate, a sample survey as well as
conversation among certain team members we conducted.

 Online Survey:

A short casual survey among employees were conducted to identify the common reasons that
causes the low completion rate of e-learners. The survey was conducted online by randomly
selecting 20 employees from all the Business Units. The questions were single choice
questions. The survey results are as follows:

How often do you check your trainings

Between 2 - 3 months

Monthly

Weekly

Daily
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

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 Is the allocated training relevant for you
Somewhat relevant

No

Yes

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

How often does your BU Head motivates you to compelete

the trainings
Never

Monthly

Weekly

Daily

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Which trainings do you prefer

Online training

Physical class

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
 What is the major challenge you face when completing the
training
Training isn’t engaging or effective

Language of Delivery

Lack of Motivation

Lack of time

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

 Conversation with employees:

Apart from the survey, informal conversation with employees from different teams were also
conducted in order to identify their thoughts on the trainings allocated and the reason for not
completing the learnings. We talked with four operational level employees and one of the
Business Unit Heads. Their answers are as follows:

Employee Name: Suresh Yogarajah

Designation: Senior Sales Executive

“I do not have enough time to complete the trainings as I am always traveling out to meet
clients. With the targets that we have, I find it very difficult to spend time on these training.
As one of the senior members of the team, It is also my duty to train new recruits for our
team as well. At the end of the day, I see that our management does not consider what I learn,
what they look into is if I have completed my targets.”

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Employee Name: Lasanthi Perera

Designation: Business Development Executive

“I go through the learning materials whenever I get a reminder but with the current workload,
I don’t have the time to focus on completing them. I am completed few halfway but never
manage to finish. Also, some of the e-learners that are assigned to me does not seem to
relevant to me in my current job.”

Employee Name: Sashika Wijesiri

Designation: Executive – Finance

“The available learning courses are really resourceful. I have completed most the courses
assigned to me. I even went through some additional free courses available. Though our
manager tells all of us to complete our e-learners, most of our team members don’t see the
value in it. They only take time in completing mandatory trainings but not the remaining
ones.”

Employee Name: Dhilhan Fernando

Designation: Senior Associate – Legal

“I actually do not have the motivation to complete them. What benefit do I get from
completing those e-learners? It is not like they get captured in our annual appraisal or we get
any incentives.”

Employee Name: Nuwan Dishan

Designation: BU Head – Cyber Security

“I always encourage our team to complete their trainings routinely. If I see that the team have
not completed them, I tell them to finish the learners first by taking at least an hour before
focusing on their work. Last year the whole team was unable to complete it as we most of
them were busy with some important project but this year I make sure that all them complete
it at least 4 months before the year end.”

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Sheran Dunlas | MBMM 51033
Threats or Problems

Following are identified as threats due to the current issue of the low engagement in the e-
learners by the employees of the company. These threats are identified as High and Medium
as per the impact it has on the firm

High: The primary objective of these e-learners is to upskill the employees, so they
understand the new changes in the environment and new ways on completing their tasks.
Since they do not take part in these programme, most of the employees are still completing
their processes in the traditional way instead changing. This in terms reduces the company
efficiency.

High: Since Advisory is part of the Global Network, one of the key performance indicators
of the firm is the measurement of these e-learning completion of the firm’s employees.
Though the company has been successful in terms of revenue and financial activities, they
have always failed in terms of employee development. Due to this reason, the company index
on people development is very low.

Medium: Though the available e-learners are free for the employees to access, the company
annually pays a fee for these materials and its online learning platform. Close to 40% of the
L&D budget consist of the expense for the platform and e-learners.

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