MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

Implementing a supply chain strategy is a major cross-functional effort and therefore requires the buy-in and support of almost every function in an organization. A solid business case for the change is often not sufficient to gain buy-in, but it is absolutely a necessary condition. The process of getting buy-in at all levels of the organization needs to begin on the first day of strategy development. As mentioned earlier, we strongly suggest that the supply team forms a cross-functional strategy team, including resources form sales, IT and finance, when starting to identify and prioritize new supply chain capabilities. We also suggest providing periodic updates to the senior leadership team and key stakeholders during the strategy development process, emphasizing the significant impact and benefits the supply chain can have in terms of financial performance of an organization and shareholder value. This activity needs to be part of a more comprehensive communication and change management plan that supports the strategy development and deployment process from “cradle to grave”.

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Objectives

01. Supply Chain Obstacles: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Efficient Cross-Department Communication; departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Bottom-Up Accountability; departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Standardized Goal-Setting; departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Online Learning and Development; departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Benefits of Engagement; departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Improving Workforce Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Strategic Customer Behavior: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Measuring Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Gaining Managerial Commitment: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. The High-Performance Model: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Committing to the Work: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Supply Chain Obstacles: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Efficient Cross-Department Communication: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Bottom-Up Accountability: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Standardized Goal-Setting: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Online Learning and Development: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Benefits of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Improving Workforce Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Strategic Customer Behavior: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Measuring Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Gaining Managerial Commitment: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. The High-Performance Model: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Committing to the Work: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Supply Chain Obstacles.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Efficient Cross-Department Communication.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Bottom-Up Accountability.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Standardized Goal-Setting.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Online Learning and Development.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Benefits of Engagement.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Improving Workforce Engagement.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Strategic Customer Behavior.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Measuring Engagement.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Gaining Managerial Commitment.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The High-Performance Model.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Committing to the Work.

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Introduction

Employee Engagement and Commitment

Employees that are enthusiastic about their jobs and dedicated to their employers provide significant competitive advantages, such as increased productivity and fewer employee turnover. As a result, it’s no surprise that businesses of all sizes and types have made significant investments in policies and procedures that encourage employee engagement and dedication. Indeed, business expert and former General Electric CEO Jack Welch recently ranked employee engagement first among the three best indicators of a company’s health, with customer satisfaction and free cash flow ranking in second and third, respectively.

Caterpillar is reaping the benefits of its efforts.

Caterpillar, a manufacturer of construction equipment, has had significant outcomes from its employee engagement and commitment efforts, including:

• Reduced attrition, absenteeism, and overtime saved $8.8 million per year (European plant)

• In less than four months, output increased by 70%. (Asia Pacific plant)

• a drop in the break-even threshold in units/day of nearly 50%, and a drop in grievances of 80% (unionized plant)

• a profit increase of $2 million and a 34% increase in highly satisfied customers (start-up plant)

But, exactly, what are employee engagement and commitment? This workshop looks at how today’s employers and corporate consultants define these concepts, as well as suggestions for improving employee engagement. Despite the fact that different organizations define participation in different ways, there are certain similar features that emerge. Employee satisfaction with their work and pride in their employer, the extent to which people like and believe in what they do for a living, and the notion that their employer values what they bring to the table are among the themes explored. The higher an employee’s level of involvement, the more likely he or she is to “go the extra mile” and perform admirably on the job.

Employees that are engaged are also more inclined to commit to staying with their current company. For example, software company Intuit2 discovered that highly engaged employees are 1.3 times more likely than less involved employees to be high performers. They are also five times less likely to depart the company on their own volition.

Clearly, employee involvement and commitment can lead to positive business outcomes for a company. This workshop contains principles for understanding and evaluating employee engagement, as well as creating and implementing effective engagement initiatives, to help you realize the rewards of an engaged, committed staff at your company. Human resource activities such as recruitment, training, performance management, and workforce surveys, as you shall see, may be effective levers for increasing employee engagement.

Employee Engagement: Key Ingredients

“Employee Engagement Defined” illustrates various organizations and consultancies’ engagement definitions. Employee involvement is clearly defined differently in different firms. Many executives are perplexed as to how such a nebulous term can be quantified. Researchers have developed measurement methodologies for a number of components under this umbrella term. The degree to which employees are fully immersed in their work, as well as the level of their devotion to the employer and role, are among these ingredients. Fortunately, there is a lot of research on these aspects of participation, including work from individual and group psychology. Some of these studies are highlighted in the sections that follow.

Engaged employees:

• Stay – They have a strong desire to be a member of the organization, and they remain loyal to it.

• Say – They promote the company by suggesting potential employees and customers, are friendly to co-workers, and offer constructive criticism.

• Strive – They put forth extra effort and engage in habits that help the company succeed.

Occupying the Job

To study the degrees to which people “occupy” employment positions, psychologist William Kahn drew on studies of labor roles and organizational socialization. To symbolize two endpoints of a continuum, he coined the words “personal engagement” and “personal disengagement.” Individuals fully occupy themselves— physically, intellectually, and emotionally—in their professional function at the “personal engagement” end. They uncouple themselves and withdraw from the job during the “personal disengagement” stage. How do people get emotionally invested in their work? Why are they more involved in some things than others? Based on their research into the psychology of commitment, academics have proposed answers to these concerns.

10 Common Themes: How Companies Measure Engagement

Employers commonly use company-wide attitude or opinion polls to gauge employee engagement. A review of the criteria included in such instruments finds ten similar engagement themes:

• Employer takes pride in his work.
• Employer satisfaction is high.
• Job fulfilment.
• Possibility of excelling at difficult tasks.
• Positive feedback and acknowledgement for one’s contributions.
• Personal assistance from one’s boss.
• Go above and beyond the call of duty.
• Understanding the relationship between one’s employment and the mission of the company.
• Possibilities for future advancement with one’s employer.
• Willingness to stay with one’s current employer

Because of linkage research, which links survey responses to bottom-line financial outcomes, this broad range of concepts has been dubbed “employee engagement.”

The Relationship Between Employer Behavior and Employee Engagement

How does a motivated staff produce tangible business results for a company? Employer practices such as job and task design, recruitment, selection, training, compensation, performance management, and career development are all part of the process. Employee engagement and job performance are both affected by such tactics. Subsequently, performance and engagement combine to achieve business outcomes. These connections are depicted in Figure 1.

Your company’s human resource processes must be improved in order to engage employees and reap the benefits of that engagement. However, like with any investment, you must assess the potential return—that is, you must commit resources to the HR practices that you believe will provide “the biggest bang” for your investment “buck.” You must consider how much participation and commitment your organization requires, as well as the cost. We’ll look at how employer practices affect employee engagement and commitment, as well as how to control these “levers” to influence engagement, commitment, or both, in the sections below.

Figure 2 depicts a simplified work performance model to illustrate how employer policies affect job performance and engagement.

A person has traits such as knowledge, skills, abilities, temperament, attitudes, and personality, as seen in Figure 2. He or she employs these characteristics to carry out work behaviors in accordance with organizational processes, utilizing tools, equipment, and/or technology. Workplace habits, in turn, provide the goods and services that make a company successful. Work behaviors are divided into three categories: those required to complete duties and tasks outlined in a job description (prescribed behaviors), “extra” behaviors that an employee contributes for the good of the company (voluntary behaviors), and behaviors that an employer prohibits (proscribed behaviors, including unexcused absenteeism, stealing and other counterproductive or illegal actions). Of course, job performance is influenced by organizational factors such as leadership, physical setting, and social setting.

Employers understandably want to encourage employees to engage in regulated and voluntary activities while avoiding those that are prohibited. Organizations utilize a variety of HR approaches to achieve these goals, which have a direct impact on the person, process, and context components of job performance. Employees’ levels of engagement and commitment are determined by their reactions to these techniques. Following that, we take a closer look at a few of these practices.

Designing Jobs and Tasks

The nature of work and employment has developed through a succession of stages during the last 250 years. Craftspeople and workers were initially employed on farms and in workshops. Then came cottage industries, where suppliers put together items and products for enterprises that sold them. People later worked for businesses in more established employment agreements. And today’s workplace is defined by flat, agile firms that outsource worldwide production of goods and services.

Similarly, the nature of work and task design has changed over time. Many American corporations, for example, embraced the “scientific management” approach to work design with the introduction of mass manufacturing in the early twentieth century. Companies simplified duties so that they could be completed by highly specialized, narrowly trained people thanks to scientific management. Although this system increased efficiency, it came at a price: Workers were dissatisfied with their work, were frequently absent, and quit employers in pursuit of more meaningful employment because they were uncomfortable with repetitive, machine-paced tasks that provided little personal control or autonomy. Fitting employment to efficient production methods, in other words, alienated employees and weakened their dedication.

Workers’ unfavorable reactions to job design in early twentieth-century America prompted organizational scientists to dig further into the human side of work. Several ideas of job satisfaction and motivation relating to job design had arisen by the 1950s, including the positive impacts of job expansion (expanding the scope of job responsibilities) and job enrichment (providing more complex and challenging tasks).

The impact of job design on worker motivation and productivity grew in popularity after the release of the job characteristics model in the early 1970s. This concept provided five “core” or motivational job characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance (all of which contribute to a sense of work meaning), autonomy, and feedback on performance. Internal motivation, personal accountability for performance, and job satisfaction—in other words, engagement—are all promoted by jobs that share these traits. Because management scientists have come to accept the job characteristics model, there have been very few studies of work design and motivation published in recent years.

Researchers began focusing at the social elements of work, such as interdependence of job duties, feedback from others, and opportunities to obtain guidance and help from co-workers, as employers increased the breadth of employee tasks in flatter organizations with less management oversight. Social qualities have a major influence on both employee engagement and commitment, according to work-design research.

Furthermore, academics have just lately begun to look into the relationship between job enrichment and proactive work behaviors—those self-initiated “additional” contributions mentioned in many engagement definitions. Managers who give enriched work (jobs with a high level of significance, variety, autonomy, and co-worker trust) drive employee engagement and passion, according to the findings.
Employees are more likely to define their work roles widely as a result of their involvement and excitement. Workers are more willing to take on issues that are outside of their immediate responsibilities when job functions are defined broadly. These challenges motivate people to think outside the box and solve problems before they become a problem. As a result, job enrichment encourages participation in both required and voluntary work activities.

Although preliminary, these studies provide useful insight into how your company might design work to encourage employee engagement and dedication. The important takeaways from this study are shown in Figure 3.

Recruiting

The messaging your company sends out when it’s looking for new employees might have an impact on future employee engagement and commitment. If your company has created jobs that are expressly designed to engage employees, make sure that your recruiting advertising highlight the positions’ appealing aspects, such as challenging work assignments, a highly skilled team atmosphere, or less monitoring. These characteristics are more likely to motivate applicants who notice and respond to these adverts.

Consider how you can find the top applicants from within your company. When you recruit current employees for attractive tasks, you increase their engagement and commitment (by maximizing the person-job match) (by providing growth and advancement opportunities to employees in return for their loyalty). When you hire from the outside when good internal candidates are available, you may unintentionally send the message to present employees that your organization does not value their loyalty. Existing employees may then begin to doubt their own dedication to your company.

You, on the other hand, hire external applicants for both the position and your company. Recruiting messaging for these applicants should emphasize appealing job aspects, corporate ideals, and commitment reciprocity. That is, in exchange for your hard work and dedication, your firm provides competitive salary and benefits, flexible work hours, and possibilities for development and advancement.

Also keep in mind that prospective employees have various obligations, and you’ll have to compete with those commitments in order to attract applicants to your company. When a new commitment is compatible with other duties, most people find it easier to make it. If you offer flexible work hours, family health benefits, and on-site day care, you can increase your chances of hiring a highly qualified single parent candidate.

Employee Selection

After your recruiting efforts have yielded a pool of qualified job prospects, you choose from among them to fill open positions. When you choose the appropriate people for the right tasks, your new workers will work more efficiently and have fewer performance issues. What’s the end result? Increased job satisfaction and engagement.

Identify those individuals who are best-suited to the job and your organization’s culture to improve engagement through employee selection. Use applicant assessment procedures that are clearly relevant to the position in issue, such as asking candidates what they know about the role and requesting work samples. These procedures will be seen more favorably by most candidates than exams with less obvious relevance, such as personality and integrity assessments. Successful candidates feel good about having “passed the exam,” and they perceive your firm as cautious and capable because they were chosen. A favorable first impression of an employer promotes the development of long-term commitment.

Training and Development

Additional levers for increasing involvement and commitment include training and development. Orientation is usually the first step in training for new employees. Orientation provides a number of valuable chances, such as clarifying salaries, work schedules, and corporate policies. Most importantly, it allows you to foster employee engagement by demonstrating how the new hire’s role relates to the organization’s mission. You explain how your organization is organized, introduce the new employee to his or her co-workers, give them a tour of the area where they will be working, and discuss safety standards and other procedural topics during orientation. In other words, you promote person-organization fit, which is critical for producing productive and loyal personnel.

You assist new and existing employees in gaining the information and skills they require to execute their jobs through training. Employees who improve their abilities through training are more likely to be totally engaged in their work since mastering new tasks gives them joy. Employees’ worth to your organization as well as their own employability in the job market are both enhanced through training. Furthermore, most organizations pay competent personnel higher remuneration to compensate for their higher value and to reduce turnover.

Consider proving to executives the links between training investments, employee engagement, and demonstrable business returns if your organization is hesitant to invest in training. Investigate how you can use digital technology and the Internet to get the most out of your training investments. Companies may now leverage technology to deliver self-paced and tailored training to employees in far-flung places, rather than having to train everyone in the same area at the same time. This type of training not only saves money on travel for your organization, but it also helps employees manage their other duties, such as family obligations. As a result, their dedication to your organization grows.

Compensation

Compensation, like the HR practices mentioned above, has a significant impact on employee engagement and commitment. Some elements of remuneration foster loyalty to employers, while others stimulate job engagement. It is possible to stimulate one while ignoring the other, although it is normally preferable to encourage both. For example, a company with a high performance incentive system but no retirement plan will likely see exceptional engagement from its employees; nevertheless, they may eventually switch to a company with an excellent retirement plan.

Meanwhile, a firm with good retirement benefits but a typical seniority-based pay grade structure may have dedicated employees; nevertheless, as they wait for retirement, these individuals may give mediocre performance. As a result, strategic consideration of employee involvement and commitment is required when establishing compensation programs.

Compensation may contain both financial (salary and benefits) and non-financial (perks) elements, such as on-site day care, employee assistance programs, subsidized cafeterias, travel discounts, company picnics, and so on. The most successful pay plans help your company achieve its strategic goals. If your company’s strategy is based on innovation, for example, your remuneration system should encourage and reward taking risks. A well-designed compensation plan gives your company an edge over the competition. How? It assists you in attracting the greatest job candidates, motivating them to perform at their best, and retaining them over time.

Pay-for-performance, often known as incentive pay, can have a direct impact on employee productivity (and consequently engagement) as well as dedication to your company (as workers learn to trust that they will be rewarded for good performance). Individual achievement is rewarded through incentive compensation such as piecework, annual bonuses, merit raises, and sales commissions. Profit sharing, gain-sharing, and employee stock ownership programs can also be used to link incentive pay to team or work group performance as well as organization-wide results. Most employees are motivated by financial incentives, and if the incentives your firm gives make it worthwhile to do so, they will put in more effort to produce more.

Of course, with incentive plans, you must first define and measure performance before deciding which components of success will be linked to pay. Because incentive-plan schemes can be time-consuming to administer, many businesses choose to reward performance that is easy to measure. However, this strategy may have unintended—and undesirable—repercussions. If you pay individuals based on how many units of a product they build every hour, for example, you can encourage quantity over quality: employees assemble the units as quickly as they can in order to obtain the incentive pay, regardless of whether they make mistakes.

The issue with incentive schemes is rewarding the most critical accomplishments for your company, even if those results are difficult to define. You should also encourage staff to “go the additional mile” rather than merely accomplishing the bare minimum in order to receive a reward. To that aim, you might wish to mix monetary incentives with recognition-based prizes to encourage the complete spectrum of performance that your company requires to remain competitive.

Consider competency-based (or skill-based) remuneration, which has been increasingly popular in recent years. Employees are rewarded not just for mastering job-relevant information and skills, but also for leveraging those abilities to achieve results that your company values through competency-based pay. Employees’ pride in their new mastery can boost engagement with this form of remuneration. It can also increase commitment because employees will see that the organization is eager to assist them in improving their employability.

As part of their remuneration package, many employers also provide retirement plans. Although these plans are typically available to all full-time employees, the specific plans available may vary depending on the job, the year started, the number of years employed, the highest pay reached, and other factors. As we’ve seen, well-designed and safe retirement programs can motivate employees to stay with your company for the long haul.

Consider the sensitivity of employees to equity while establishing financial forms of remuneration. Will they consider their pay to be fair in comparison to their contributions? Is the compensation comparable to that of co-workers who do the same or similar jobs? Is it reasonable in comparison to what other occupations in the company pay? Is it reasonable in comparison to what other employers pay for the same work? Employees may get disengaged and reconsider their commitment to your company if they perceive injustice. They may ask for a raise, look for work elsewhere, or give up on delivering excellent outcomes. And none of these results are beneficial to your company.

Performance Management

Employee engagement and dedication can also be improved with the correct performance management strategies. Begin by connecting job objectives to organizational goals while creating your performance management system. What are the priorities of your company, and how will each person contribute to achieving them? What outcomes does your company expect employees to achieve? How can you assist managers in communicating performance standards and goals to their direct subordinates within your organization?

Encourage managers to involve their staff in goal-setting. This method ensures that employees are aware of the objectives. It also encourages people to accept difficult goals by making them feel more invested in goals they helped establish. Consider how you and other managers will recognize and reward accomplishments that go above and beyond. When a piece of equipment breaks down, for example, Joe looks for different ways to keep production going rather than simply shutting it down and waiting for the maintenance crew to replace it. When a new assignment is presented to a less experienced co-worker, Sally offers polite mentoring rather than standing by and waiting for the inevitable blunders to occur.

Processes for performance management run on a continual basis. As a result, they present companies with some of the best ongoing opportunities to build employee engagement and dedication. Managers can, for example, use regular performance conversations and feedback sessions to identify which components of the job each employee enjoys the most and which activities are the most difficult. Managers can also define “going above and beyond the call of duty” and come up with suggestions for honoring such achievements during these discussions.

During performance appraisal meetings, an employee’s aims and career goals might be carefully considered. A supervisor can examine ways to improve the compatibility between an employee’s dedication to your organization and the employee’s other life obligations without prying into the employee’s personal life. By doing so, the company personalizes its relationship with each employee and offers support while also showing gratitude for their contributions—all of which are important drivers of engagement and loyalty.

Consider how to treat your organization’s most experienced employees to increase employee engagement and commitment through your performance management initiatives. In many situations, these individuals are more knowledgeable about the complexities of their jobs than their supervisors or managers. They may be passionately dedicated to high-level goals as a result of their extended association with your business. They put their knowledge to work in ways that newer personnel simply can’t. However, many of them, particularly those from the “Baby Boomer” age, may be preparing to retire soon.

Effective performance management systems, of course, also detect employees who aren’t performing up to par. Failure to address bad performance can erode other employees’ engagement and commitment as their workloads grow and they come to believe that the organization is willing to accept poor performance. If feedback, coaching, and remedial training are ineffective, the manager may need to shift the employee to a different position within the company where he or she can make a more valuable contribution, or let the employee go if there isn’t a good fit elsewhere.

A Closer Look at Workforce Surveys

Many companies utilize workforce surveys to determine the level of employee engagement and the links between engagement and key business outcomes. The results of such surveys can reveal which engagement initiatives are paying off and which are not, as well as how you might adjust your engagement-related HR policies and investment decisions.

Employee surveys today are usually shorter, more specifically targeted, and administered more frequently than older tools. Respondents frequently complete surveys online rather than using paper and pencil. Employee attitudes are now directly linked to business objectives in survey questions or phrases, such as “I can perceive a clear link between my work and Dell’s aims.”

Consulting firms have undertaken a lot of employee engagement research so far. This research validating engagement models have yet to be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals due to their proprietary status. The majority of this research is shielded from detailed review by outsiders. Despite this, various studies on linking have been published. According to these studies, aggregated employee opinions have a high relationship with important company results.

Given the significant expense and effort connected with firms’ initiatives to promote employee engagement, it is critical to understand the cause-and-effect interactions involved. Conducting research particularly tailored to answer these crucial issues in your own business is one technique to discover the causal direction.

A summary model (Figure 6) created by Jack Wiley, cofounder of Gantz Wiley Research (now part of Kenexa), demonstrates how employer leadership techniques, employee results of those practices, customer results of leadership and work practices, and business performance are all interconnected. The model is cyclical, demonstrating how corporate performance affects leadership approaches over time. Furthermore, this model identifies specific variables within each category that may influence employee engagement.

Aside from knowing how employee engagement affects business performance, polling employee opinions and attitudes can improve engagement and commitment in and of itself. Asking employees for their ideas and then taking positive action based on the results of the survey, for example, sends a message to them that the company values them and values their input. This improves participation. Employee surveys help establish a two-way employer-employee interaction, bolstering loyalty to your company.

Designing Engagement Initiatives: Guidelines to Consider

Job design, recruitment, employee selection, training and development, compensation, and performance management are just a few of the HR practices that can help your firm boost engagement and commitment. Keep the following criteria in mind when you contemplate adopting or altering these practices.

Make Sound Investments

Consider how your company now employs human resources in a strategic way. Which of these should receive more attention in order to promote engagement or commitment? Employees that are involved in their work or those who feel a strong sense of devotion to the organization are more vital to your company. Is one more significant than the other? How much is your company ready to spend on HR practices that promote engagement, commitment, or a combination of the two?

In some circumstances, depending on your firm’s objectives, you may wish to adopt specific HR practices to create work engagement but not commitment to your organization. In other cases, your goal may be to increase employee engagement and commitment over a short period of time. In others, maximal engagement and long-term commitment may be the goal. If your HR strategy relies on growing the use of contingent workers to minimize costs and generate more flexible workforce, for example, you’ll want to improve not only their engagement but also their short-term commitment. examples.

Make Persuasive Business Cases to Increase Engagement and Commitment

You may need to use your persuading skills to get the cash you need to invest in engagement and commitment projects. Increasing your chances of success by developing a convincing business case for these projects. How might you present your supervisor or members of the executive team with a business case for such investments? Demonstrate how these efforts have paid off for your company or others by demonstrating measurable business outcomes.

Think about the Unintended Consequences

Consider the potential unintended consequences of altered rules while assessing options for restructuring HR procedures to enhance engagement and commitment. Let’s say you wish to incorporate flextime into your company’s overall work practices. If employee demographics vary by business unit (age, gender, etc.), the new flextime policy may result in higher levels of involvement and commitment in units populated mostly by single parents with small children than in units with varied demographics.

Keep in mind that each employee is unique. Each person may place a different value on the organization’s work environment and benefits. When making changes to company policies or perks, think about how they will affect employees in various life situations—married, single, older, with children at home, childless, and so on. Then double-check that the adjustment is beneficial to the majority of your employees. If you anticipate that some employees may be unhappy with the change, be prepared to address this openly and honestly. Consider implementing numerous adjustments at once that benefit different groups if possible. No one will feel left out this way.

Decisions about Investments should be Based on Solid Data

It’s critical to make data-driven judgments on engagement and commitment programs. Within a company, linkage research produces personalized guidance that identifies certain HR practices that are most likely to achieve the best results. Short lists of the highest-impact engagement levers and actionable survey items that distinguish top-performing units in your firm from less successful units are possible outcomes of this research.

Make sure to monitor employee engagement at least once a year to make sound investment decisions. Select a survey consulting firm to customize a standard engagement survey for your company by linking survey items to the company’s success metrics that support its business strategy. Profitability, productivity, efficiency, quality, safety, employee attendance, staff retention, customer happiness, and customer loyalty are examples of performance measurements that might vary based on the function of each business unit in supporting the overall corporate strategy.

Conclusion

Employees who are engaged can assist your company in achieving its objective, executing its strategy, and generating critical business results. Different HR strategies, such as job design, recruitment, selection, training, compensation, and performance management, have been emphasized in this research as approaches to improve employee engagement. However, these examples demonstrate that employee involvement is more complicated than it appears at first glance. Organizations define and assess employee engagement in a number of ways, implying that there is no single “correct” or “optimal” approach to describe or promote employee engagement.

The decision to spend in improving employee engagement or commitment (or both) is based on the organization’s goals and workforce composition. As a result, when determining which HR practices will receive scarce investment dollars, it’s critical to evaluate your own organization’s perspective on engagement, as well as its strategy and workforce mix. The studies, principles, and examples presented in this report, as well as the annotated bibliography, can assist you in weighing your alternatives and developing an investment strategy that is tailored to your organization’s specific needs.

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Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Supply Chain Obstacles

Supply chains are driving revenue growth and delivering new consumer experiences in ways we haven’t seen before for most businesses today. However, many are overlooking the most critical aspect of creating really intelligent supply networks. It is the people. Growth necessitates the hiring of more people—unavoidable—and its talent markets throughout the world are tight. Without raising manpower to unacceptable levels, technology can help firms achieve the growth they desire. Automating tactical, transactional tasks by connecting people and machines frees up time for the new work required in an intelligent supply network. While most supply chain executives are aware of this, only 38% believe their present employees will be advancing in the new skills required to succeed.

So, how can supply chain management ensure that their entire staff, from new hires to seasoned veterans, has what it takes to succeed in the future supply chain? The following are the most significant barriers to supply chain engagement:

• A lack of leadership
• A profit-driven culture
• Limited advancement opportunities
• Labor shortages

People and processes, as well as plant and equipment, are the fundamental hurdles to manufacturing productivity, as they are in any firm. Firms must work harder than ever to guarantee that everyone is working as productively as possible to produce commercial value, especially with skills and labor in high demand. Importantly, employees with in-demand abilities should focus on the task at hand rather than on paperwork.

Engagement is a constant difficulty in a sector where many employees are on low pay grades and/or temporary contracts. When employees simply deliver the bare minimum and staff turnover is rampant, productivity suffers. Smaller businesses may lack a specific HR department charged with employee engagement, but they must still guarantee that every employee feels appreciated. It’s easy to reject employee engagement as “too flowery” or “better suited to offices than factories,” but can you afford to ignore it when faced with skills shortages? You, like any other firm, must attract and retain talented people while also decreasing the economic burden of unskilled workforce churn.

While studies have shown that engaged employees are considerably more productive than their non-involved counterparts, employee engagement is disturbingly low in many businesses; according to a global Gallup study, 87 percent of employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged at work. For decades, the “secret” of employee engagement has been known: provide employees with the resources and authority to use their skills to improve their daily work, and they will rise to the occasion. As a result, respect for people is a founding principle that has been reinforced by hundreds of businesses.

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Chapter 2: Efficient Cross-Department Communication

Employees may feel disengaged or lack a sense of meaning and purpose in their work, depending on the magnitude of your supply chain management operations. Cross-departmental communication, on the other hand, can help your employees comprehend the wider picture behind effective warehouse management.

Individual employees can also benefit from feedback and coaching from managers, HR personnel, and independent consultants, who can help them create personal objectives or overcome stress and other work-related issues. Employee involvement will effectively rise to the occasion by introducing a communication mechanism to your supply chain management, allowing for much improved efficiency, less friction, and cooperation across all aspects of your firm.

It’s crucial to emphasize that this is always going to be a work in progress. Soft skills and communications are always developing and adapting to the current needs, therefore this alignment will never be “done.”

The more the company’s whole attention is on the value it provides, the better everyone will work together to achieve that goal. More important than how each department functions are letting go of egos and thinking about the company’s improvement. It’s important not to be offended when you hear something negative; it’s not about you. If your coworkers are unwilling to let go of their egos, you must lead the way!

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Chapter 3: Bottom-Up Accountability

Employees today want their effort to be appreciated and meaningful at the end of the day more than anything else. As a result, incorporating reward and recognition systems into your business model can lead to increased employee happiness and engagement in the long run.

Recognizing your employees’ efforts is strongly advised, whether it’s through “employee of the month” blog entries, minor awards for performing teams and departments, or verbal acknowledgement by management. Employee quotes, testimonials, and other work-related snippets can also be shaped into social media and web-related material using systems like Evernote, Be Graded, WriteScout, and Readable to boost their sense of belonging and accountability.

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Chapter 4: Standardized Goal-Setting

Supply chain management can sometimes feel disjointed, with no clear understanding of what each shipment or order represents in the big picture. As a result, offering defined KPIs and goals for employees to measure over time would most likely help them objectively understand and relate to day-to-day activity.

Employee engagement can be increased through specific goal-setting approaches such as SMART goals or goal-tracking tools such as Trello. Following the definition of supply chain management goals, the KPIs should be given to various department managers for approval and implementation in their respective sectors. This can be linked to a reward and recognition system, allowing for healthy competition and staff involvement in your supply chain management.

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Chapter 5: Online Learning and Development

Employee engagement is aided by learning and development (L&D). In fact, according to a study conducted by Udemy, 80% of employees believe that learning and development opportunities will help them feel more engaged at work.

You’ll not only establish a more skilled, confident workforce by offering your employees access to courses and tools that help them refine their abilities and expand their knowledge, but you’ll also demonstrate to them that you care about and are prepared to invest in their personal growth. All of this contributes to a productive, engaged, and happy workforce.

Learning and growth are equally crucial to the success of your company. You may solve skill shortages, increase your employees’ talents, and develop your organization for the future by providing effective learning resources to your staff, whether it’s online training, workshops, or authorized courses.

Here are some compelling reasons why your company should invest in learning and development.

Improve retention

People enjoy the opportunity to advance their talents in today’s competitive employment market. As a result, if employees have the opportunity to grow as individuals and advance their careers, they are significantly more likely to remain loyal to their employer. According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning & Growth Report, 94 percent of employees said they would stay at a firm longer if it invested in their professional development.

Giving your employees access to courses and tools that will help them grow their knowledge and sharpen their abilities will improve your company’s employee value proposition. However, in order to truly influence your employees’ career choices and enhance your company’s employee retention, the learning opportunities you provide must be targeted to their individual needs. You’ll be assisting your employees’ professional development and career advancement in this way.

Drive motivation

By investing in learning and development, your company is demonstrating to your employees that you appreciate them as individuals and are concerned about their personal development. Knowing this, as well as having the opportunity to learn new skills and grow their abilities through their work, will naturally raise employee motivation. They’ll be more involved in their professions and prepared to put in more effort to assist not only their own careers but also your company.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a great place to start. The pyramid below depicts the five primary requirements that drive human behavior. Learning and development are part of the ‘Self-Actualisation’ category and are at the very top of the pyramid since they relate to personal progress, fulfillment, and realizing our full potential.

Boost employee wellbeing and confidence

People often relate their self-worth to their performance, successes, and position at work in today’s “always on” world, when productivity and advancement are held in such high regard. As a result, a lack of variety or advancement at work can have a negative impact on people’s self-esteem and overall well-being. L&D is thus the ideal antidote, as it satisfies our natural drive to learn and allows employees the freedom to broaden their horizons and grow as professionals.

E-Learning Boosts Supply Chain Management Expertise

Because of the fast-paced nature of business, we must all invest in our teams while acquiring new skills and taking on new responsibilities. The supply management industry is becoming more strategic, necessitating the development of new skills by professionals who are already working full-time.

Successful businesses understand the need of investing in training and development, and they actively seek out and reward people who have a desire to learn new things. As a result, businesses and professionals who place a premium on lifelong learning and development are well positioned for success.

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Chapter 6: Benefits of Engagement

Now that we’ve gotten a better concept of how employees might be more involved in supply chain management to boost their productivity and efficiency, let’s look at the long-term advantages. Employees who are happy with their positions and how top management treats them are more inclined to extend their contracts, advocate for the company, and seek out new opportunities on the job.

“While it is true that revenue growth and client satisfaction are high on the list of business priorities, both of those goals will constantly be out of reach if your staff are dissatisfied with their positions, management, and organization,” Melissa Sykes, Head of HR at Studyker, said. Take the effort to establish employee engagement mechanisms, recognize top performers, and offer your employees a purpose to come to work other than the obvious “you work, I pay” mantra.

Once such a system is in place and your staff feel engaged and purposeful in supply chain management, your organization will begin to exhibit numerous key characteristics, including:

• Higher employee loyalty, trust, and productivity
• Improved staff health and morale
• Increased supply chain profitability and shipment turnover
• Better industry positioning and brand recognition

Parts of a Whole (Conclusion)

A business is made up of various divisions that rely on one another to keep the organization afloat on the market. As a result, in supply chain management, paying more attention to your staff will allow the company to thrive within. Aside from the obvious boost in productivity, this will also improve your company’s market reputation and make it more appealing to potential employees. Meet your team halfway and start a meaningful conversation; you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

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Chapter 7: Improving Workforce Engagement

Employee engagement, defined by Deloitte as “an employee’s job satisfaction, loyalty, and inclination to expend discretionary effort toward organizational goals,” has become a primary focus for companies looking to align individual performance with overall business outcomes.

Employees are the lifeblood of any organization, even in highly mechanized areas. Many supply chain optimization methods emphasize new technologies and workflows, but any good strategy must also take into account the workforce.

Employee engagement is one of the most crucial elements to consider. No supply chain can reach its full potential without a motivated workforce.

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Employee engagement, or the degree to which individuals are engaged, interested, and enthusiastic about their work, is difficult to measure but crucial to success. Highly engaged teams are 21 percent more profitable, with 59 percent less turnover, and 41 percent fewer absences, according to studies.

Despite these advantages, many businesses fail to engage their workers. In January 2021, only 39% of American workers said they were engaged at work. While that number has risen over time, it still implies that the majority of employees are dissatisfied with their jobs.

Employee engagement is not only warranted; it is critical in a country where firms lose $300 billion in productivity each year owing to disengaged workers. According to Deloitte, firms with highly engaged employees had 2.3 times more revenue growth over the course of three years than those with ordinary engagement. Despite this, only 4% of executives say they are “very good” at involving different generations in the workplace.

Establishing Critical Links

Employee engagement is especially important in the supply chain. Every step in the process from raw materials to final items is represented by a link in the chain. If even one of these critical linkages fails, the ramifications can be felt throughout the whole supply chain.

“Supply chains resemble actual metal chain: Each step in the product’s creation and distribution is a link that plays a critical role in turning an idea into a tangible, deliverable product,” writes EE Times’ Hailey Lynne McKeefry in Engage Employees in Supply Chain. “However, when a link weakens, the entire chain loses strength or breaks altogether.”

McKeefry believes that executives at all levels of the company must take steps to address these difficulties and cultivate a more productive supply chain. Action, on the other hand, does not imply harsh reprimanding of inattentive staff or providing them larger salary in the hopes that they will work harder.

“It means taking the time to understand what is causing disengagement in the first place, and then working to fix those underlying issues,” she writes. “While it takes some work on the front end, increasing employee engagement creates a stronger, more efficient supply chain in the long run.”

If your supply chain is in need of a boost in engagement, follow these best practices to get things back on track:

• invest in employees’ careers
• listen to employee feedback
• create volunteer opportunities
• host social events
• recognize commendable performance
• pay attention to worker health
• remove inefficiencies and complexity
• lead by example

Employees that are engaged are more productive. With engaged staff, supply networks become significantly more efficient. If logistics organizations can implement one or more of these eight tactics, they will be able to better engage their workers. They can then optimize their human potential, reducing the industry’s workforce concerns.

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Chapter 8: Strategic Customer Behavior

Building an Emotional Connection

With all of the automated customer engagement technologies available – online order entry systems, mobile applications, chat bots, and clever search engines – it’s tempting to conceive of a customer contact as a low-touch procedure designed to increase productivity and serve customer needs as quickly as possible. However, those astounding advances simply emphasize the importance of the human connection between a living consumer and a breathing employee. People have an insatiable desire to connect. Customers must see a firm as responsive and staffed by individuals who follow through on their commitments in order to form an emotional bond with the brand. Employees seek meaningful work and must understand how their job affects others in order to feel fulfilled.

We often focus solely on the customer’s satisfaction with a transaction. Customer-employee relationships, on the other hand, are by their very nature interpersonal. Each gives the other verbal and nonverbal cues to convey their sentiments and desires as well as provide information. We obtain a much deeper sense of it as an interpersonal experience rather than just a simple economic transaction by widening our thoughts and looking at how enjoyable the conversation was for both parties.

Integration of customer experience research systems with employee engagement systems has this kind of capacity. In terms of customer and staff engagement, this is the new frontier. Integrating those various systems shows those magical moments when a customer becomes a brand ambassador and employees feel truly valued and appreciated. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

• The brand is aware of the customer experience in real time – whether positive or negative – and can react quickly.

• Employees have access to client feedback, which provides them with a clear picture of their worth and tangible evidence of appreciation.

• Managers can use individual magical moments to demonstrate exceptional service to the entire team.

Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report found that “when organizations successfully engage their customers and their employees, they experience a 240% boost in performance-related business outcomes.”

Driving Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is just as important as consumer engagement for overall business success, as proved. Because of their position at the organization – usually in the contact center or in customer services – some employees are more profoundly and directly connected to customers. However, in many businesses, this represents only a small portion of the total consumer base. The majority of staff can be kept away from clients, yet the company still needs to know what they want.

The truth is that the closer all staff groups are to the consumer, the more enthusiastic and engaged they will be. The majority of employees desire to be more involved in customer interaction and feedback. Employees will eagerly listen to and respond to consumer feedback when given the opportunity.

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Chapter 9: Measuring Engagement

Measuring employee engagement is far more than just a vanity metric. It can become a significant component of your company’s success if done effectively.

When you measure employee engagement in a systematic way, you give employees a voice, you can spot bad patterns early on, and you can boost team productivity and corporate performance.

Should Your Team Be Measuring Employee Engagement?

We can use employee engagement as a barometer for a lot of things that happen in your company. It can show you when things are functioning smoothly while also assisting you in anticipating any potential issues before they arise.

In fact, studies suggest that motivated employees are up to 22% more productive, resulting in higher profits for their companies. According to a Gallup survey, organizations with highly engaged employees generated roughly 147 percent more earnings per share than companies with low motivation.

What are the benefits of measuring employee engagement?

• Giving employees a voice
• understanding patterns
• detecting problems early and taking corrective action
• Keeping employee turnover to a minimum
• Increasing the efficiency of a company

Employee engagement is a key performance indicator (KPI) that displays how your employees think and feel about your organization. You risk a reduction in morale, a loss of team loyalty, and even spontaneous resignations if you don’t track employee engagement.

Because the primary figure is directly tied to the company’s success, monitoring employee engagement has strategic value. HR departments must keep a close eye on this critical figure since they should work as partners to management – after all, they “control” the most significant business resource, the employees.

Measuring Employee Engagement: A Framework

To do so, we examine a variety of indicators along the Candidate and Employee Journey. The crux, though, is in the measurement itself. Microsoft, for example, is increasingly depending on the analysis of indirect data sources, such as the volume of e-mail traffic in teams as an indication of dedication and work happiness. This reporting aids in the comprehension and visualization of data.

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Chapter 10: Gaining Managerial Commitment

Managing by Commitments

What distinguishes an excellent manager from the rest? It varies depending on who you ask. Many believe the key to success is exceptional strategic insight—the ability to determine where and how a company should compete. Others emphasize discipline, believing that the superior manager’s ability to implement plans is what distinguishes them. Others believe that a successful manager is first and foremost inspirational, capable of uniting an organization and inspiring employees to achieve greatness.

Of course, all of these points of view are valid. However, while they provide insight into how executives’ personal attributes differ, they provide little insight into the underlying practice of management—the acts that great managers take to weave strategy, execution, and leadership together. The popular answers divert our attention away from how executives manage by emphasizing on who they are.

Commitments have a number of advantages within a company. They assist employees prioritize and coordinate their actions by providing a distinct feeling of concentration. They’re also energizing. They can, in particular, instill excitement and vitality in employees during difficult times, motivating them to continue in the face of adversity.

Poor management is one of the main causes of low production, according to a growing body of evidence. ‘Our managers are, on average, less proficient than many competitors,’ according to the UK government’s recent Industrial Strategy, and it has been suggested that strengthening basic managerial skills is critical if we are to solve the ‘productivity issue.’ Line managers, on the other hand, are facing increasingly complicated challenges. The current emphasis on more robust approaches to performance management, in particular, increases the likelihood that managers will be forced to have “tough talks” with their employees and will be in conflict with them.

Despite the fact that line managers play a critical role in creating employee experiences, there is mounting evidence that they lack the abilities required to effectively manage people and recognize, handle, and resolve complex personnel issues. As a result, training programs aimed at improving their ability to deal with conflict could be one method to ensure increased employee engagement and productivity.

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Chapter 11: The High-Performance Model

Although high-performance organizations have been defined in a variety of ways, there is a common emphasis on engaged and empowered employees as well as high-quality goods and services. The OECD, for example, defines them as organizations that are moving toward a flatter and less hierarchical structure, where people work in teams with greater autonomy and trust, and where communication and trust are valued.

The following are the components of high performance working as defined by the CIPD:

• A vision based on boosting customer value by distinguishing an organization’s products or services and working toward tailoring its offering to specific consumers’ needs.

• decentralised, devolved decision-making by people closest to the client, to constantly renew and improve the offer to customers.

• leadership from the top and throughout the organization to create momentum; People skills development at all levels, with a focus on self-management, teamwork, and project-based activities.

• develop trust, passion, and dedication to the organization’s direction by supporting systems and culture that include performance operations and people management processes that are aligned with organizational objectives.

• equitable treatment of people who leave the organization, as well as participation with the needs of the community beyond the organization—a vital component of trust and commitment-based relationships, both inside and outside the organization.

While there is some debate over what defines a “perfect system” and how it should be defined, the research consistently shows that improved organizational performance and overall employee engagement result from a mix of practices.

Knowledge the skills-performance link requires an understanding of the importance of employee attitudes to business performance. Employee motivation is a significant intervening variable in achieving improved performance, according to a corpus of studies on engagement (e.g., Barber et al 1999).

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Chapter 12: Committing to the Work

The Importance of Emotions Today

Businesses can and do rely on big data and algorithms to make choices, allowing them to increase operational efficiency and improve customer experience in real time. Humans, on the other hand, do not have that option for the majority of our decisions. People want to assume they make reasonable judgments, but research reveals that most decisions are impacted primarily by emotions and then rationalized later as people defend their choices to themselves and others.

That is especially true when it comes to one of the most critical decisions your employees make every day, even if they aren’t aware of it: whether or not to put up their best effort at work. Employee engagement isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Though Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises paradigm shifts in companies’ ability to customize an employee experience, and progress in machines’ ability to detect human emotions is being made, the ability to tailor engagement strategies in meaningful ways to the experience of each individual worker using these advancements is still a long way off for the vast majority of companies.

While data may absolutely assist a business in improving the overall employee experience, aggregated data is practically useless when it comes to motivating individual employees. Instead, effective firms continue to emphasize the human aspect, assigning primary responsibility for employee engagement to the individual’s manager.

The Influence of Positive Feelings Positive emotions in the workplace have been shown to promote creativity, increase attention and intuition, improve problem-solving, memory, and efficiency in extremely complicated decision-making, and enhance cooperation, according to extensive study. Employees’ emotions might be just as essential as the skills and information they bring to their jobs when it comes to their performance. Furthermore, happy emotions appear to aid in the successful implementation of organizational transformation.

Given that many businesses today operate in quickly changing settings, the capacity to implement organizational change effectively is critical. Employee resistance is one of the most common roadblocks, according to researchers, and new research suggests that pleasant emotions can help to reduce the negative reactions that commonly accompany change initiatives, resulting in more favorable outcomes.

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Curriculum

Global Supply Chain – Workshop 1 – Buy-in & Commitment

1. Supply Chain Obstacles
2. Efficient Cross-Department Communication
3. Bottom-Up Accountability
4. Standardized Goal-Setting
5. Online Learning and Development
6. Benefits of Engagement
7. Improving Workforce Engagement
8. Strategic Customer Behaviour
9. Measuring Engagement
10. Gaining Managerial Commitment
11. The High-Performance Model
12. Committing to the Work

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Distance Learning

Introduction

Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Global Supply Chain Development corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.

Study environment

You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.

Study tools & rules

Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.

Successful distance-learning

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.

Self-assessment

Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.

Accepting responsibility as a student

Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.

Planning

By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.

Management

Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.

Study objectives & tasks

The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.

Study forecast

As a guide, the Appleton Greene Global Supply Chain Development corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.

Performance management

It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.

With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.

With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.

Keeping in touch

You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.

Work colleagues and family

You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.

Making it relevant

The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.

Distance-learning check-list

Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.

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Tutorial Support

Programs

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.

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Support available

You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.

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Support Process

Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.

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Time Management

It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Global Supply Chain Development corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Global Supply Chain Development program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.

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Distance Learning Guide

The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.

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How To Study

The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).

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Tutorial Support

Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Global Supply Chain Development corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.

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Tutorial Support Tips

Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.

Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails

Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.

Think about the impression that you want to create

Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.

Remember that quality is preferred to quantity

Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.

Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers

Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.

Keep a record of your tutorial support emails

It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Individual training workshops or telephone support

Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Tutorial Support Email Format

You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.

Subject line of your email

Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.

Main body of your email

Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)

Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.

Question 1

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 3

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 4

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 5

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.

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Procedure

* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.

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How To Study

Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.

Planning your study environment

Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.

Planning your program objectives

It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.

Planning how and when to study

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.

Planning your study tasks

You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.

Planning your time

You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.

Keeping in touch

Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.

Charting your progress

Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.

Making it work

To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.

Reading methods

Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.

Speed reading

When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.

Content reading

Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.

Making structured notes on the course manuals

When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.

Organizing structured notes separately

You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.

Question your understanding

Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.

Clarifying your understanding

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.

Question your interpretation

Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.

Clarifying your interpretation

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.

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Qualification Requirements

The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Global Supply Chain Development corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Global Supply Chain Development Specialist (AGSCDS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.

Global Supply Chain Development – Grading Contribution

Project Study – Grading Contribution

Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%

Qualification grades

A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.

When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:

Pass with merit

A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory

Pass with distinction

An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory

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Preliminary Analysis

Gallup Business Journal

How Employee Engagement Drives Growth: Engaged companies outperform their competition,

A Gallup study shows by Susan Sorenson, 2013.

“It’s great when companies try to improve employee engagement and even better when they measure it. Measurement is the first step companies must take before they can implement meaningful actions to improve engagement. But if they don’t measure the right things in the right way, those actions won’t matter — and they won’t have a measurable impact on business outcomes or the bottom line.

“Measurement is one thing, what you measure is another,” says Jim Harter, Ph.D., Gallup’s chief scientist of employee engagement and wellbeing. “You can measure a lot of things that have nothing to do with performance and that don’t help a company implement a system that allows managers to create change.”

Gallup’s Q employee engagement assessment is designed to uncover the things that really matter to employee engagement and business performance. It’s backed by rigorous science linking it to nine integral performance outcomes. And Gallup researchers continually study findings from research on the Q to learn more about employee engagement and its impact on organizational and team performance.

Predicting key performance outcomes Every two to four years, Gallup completes meta-analysis research — a statistical technique that pools multiple studies — on the Q . By conducting this research regularly over time and increasing the number of work units analyzed, Gallup stays on the cutting edge of how well employee engagement predicts key performance outcomes.

In 2012, Gallup conducted its eighth meta-analysis on the Q using 263 research studies across 192 organizations in 49 industries and 34 countries. Within each study, Gallup researchers statistically calculated the work-unit-level relationship between employee engagement and performance outcomes that the organization supplied. Researchers studied 49,928 work units, including nearly 1.4 million employees. This eighth iteration of the meta-analysis further confirmed the well-established connection between employee engagement and nine performance outcomes:

• customer ratings
• profitability
• productivity
• turnover (for high-turnover and low-turnover organizations)
• safety incidents
• shrinkage (theft)
• absenteeism
• patient safety incidents
• quality (defects)

Given the timing of the eighth iteration of this study, it also confirmed that employee engagement continues to be an important predictor of company performance even in a tough economy. “When you ask people about their intentions during a recession, it’s pretty clear that disengaged workers are just waiting around to see what happens,” says Harter. “Engaged workers, though, have bought into what the organization is about and are trying to make a difference. This is why they’re usually the most productive workers.”

To continue reading this research paper, please visit:

http://www.dyckerhoff-bdu.de/images/Downloads/Dyckerhoff_Gallup_Studie_How%20_Employee_Engagement_Drives_Growth.pdf

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Leadership & Organization Development Journal for Emerald Insight

Xu, J. and Cooper Thomas, H. (2011), How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 399-416.

“Introduction

Employee engagement concerns the degree to which individuals make full use of their cognitive, emotional, and physical resources to perform role‐related work (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004). This fits with other recent psychological approaches that draw on positive psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), and focus on making best use of individual strengths (Hatcher and Rogers, 2009; Luthans, 2002). Thus, employees who are engaged in their work have an energetic, enjoyable, and effective connection with their work (Kahn, 1990; Macey and Schneider, 2008). In addition to humanistic reasons for pursuing engagement, there are commercial incentives also. Higher levels of employee engagement are associated with increased return on assets, higher earning per employee, higher performance, greater sales growth, and lower absenteeism (Banks, 2006; Harter et al., 2002; JRA, 2007; Salanova et al., 2005; Towers Perrin, 2003). Further, greater engagement is associated with decreased costs, including reduced turnover, lower cost of goods sold, and fewer quality errors (Banks, 2006; Harter et al., 2002; JRA, 2007; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004; Towers Perrin, 2003). Moreover, a recent study shows that engagement is a conduit for the effects of broader individual and workplace factors on job performance (Rich et al., in press).

Previous research has typically adopted one of two approaches to understanding antecedents of engagement. One approach is Kahn’s (1990, 1992) psychological conditions of engagement, where the employee needs to have sufficiently meaningful work, have the personal resources available to do that work, and feel psychologically safe in investing themselves in that work in order to become engaged in their work (May et al., 2004; Rich et al., in press). A second approach is the job demands‐resources model, in which the availability of constructive job resources leads to engagement (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Bakker et al., 2007; Mauno et al., 2007; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). These resources can include organizational factors such as job security, interpersonal elements such as supervisor support, and also role and task features such as role conflict, and autonomy.

Although there is a growing body of literature investigating engagement, scholars have noted that academic research lags behind practitioner developments (Macey and Schneider, 2008; Robinson et al., 2004). This is particularly notable with respect to the role of leadership in employee engagement. While there has been initial research on the relationship of leadership dimensions with engagement, this literature is limited in that measures of engagement have not been provided for scrutiny (Alban‐Metcalfe and Alimo‐Metcalfe, 2008; Papalexandris and Galanaki, 2009), or have assessed antecedents of engagement rather than engagement itself (Atwater and Brett, 2006). Aside from these, researchers have confirmed both indirect relations (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004; Rich et al., in press) and moderating effects of leadership on engagement (Bakker et al., 2007). Yet there remains a lack of research looking at the direct effects of leadership, using a clear measure of engagement. Such a relationship looks likely given the wealth of evidence that good leadership is positively related to follower attitude and behavior concepts that overlap with engagement. Past research has shown that transformational leadership is positively associated with follower commitment (Lee, 2005), job satisfaction (Judge and Piccolo, 2004) and work motivation (Judge and Piccolo, 2004), and leader‐member exchange is positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviors (Ilies et al., 2007). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct relationship between leader behaviors and follower engagement.”

To continue reading this research paper, please visit:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01437731111134661/full/html

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Commitment in Supply Chain Management: Commitment as a component of supply chain management,

by UKEssays (November 2018):

“Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh (1987) describe the term “commitment” as “an implied or clear assurance of the continued relationship among trade partners.” Commitment is an important component for successful durable relations that are a constituent of the implementation of Supply Chain Management (Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995).

Morgan and Hunt (1994) defined commitment as “the partner in an exchange is believing that the current relationship with other partner has so much importance that it deserves the optimum level of efforts to sustain it; that is, the party who has made the commitment believes in the enduring relationship for committed party believes the relationship endures for the foreseeable future.” and commitment plays and essential role in relational exchanges among the firm and the partners.

TOP MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT:

Top management commitment is when there is direct contribution by the people acquiring top rank positions in some definite and significantly vital aspect of an organization (BusinessDictionary, 2010).

In the study of Morgan and Hunt (1994), they said that commitment by the top level management executives can provide results that will promote effectiveness, efficiency and increased level of productivity.

Without senior management commitment up to the CEO of the organization, the vision needed for the success of supply chain cannot emerge. Only the top levels of the management can dedicate resources and realign the rewards and measures that are needed to make Supply Chain Management an organization-wide priority. When there is lack of support from top management, it almost guarantees that the integrative efforts are ineffective and superficial.(Ogden, Fawcett, Magnanand Cooper, 2006)

A. Keramati, and M. A. Azadeh (2007), Top management commitment happen to veracity when the acceptance of the responsibility for a successful business plan implementation comes from a manager of company or division. The manager should show his involvement and interest and should add special talent and expertise that enabled him to become a president. The term “top manager” is usually referred as chief executive. All the activities including communication of company’s quality value, buttressing quality messages congregating with the work force as well as the customers providing formal and informal recognition, to receive training and training others all come under the umbrella of top management commitment. Top level management develop and facilitates the achievement of company’s mission and vision, create and develop values that are required for long-term success and apply these by means of appropriate actions and behaviors, and show their personal involvement in ensuring a developed and implemented organization’s management system.

Krause and Ellram (1997), in their research of “Success Factors in Supplier Development” stated various factors that are related to the top management commitment. These included supplier development actions such as site visits, supplier recognition, and direct investments in supplier’s firm. Hacker and Couturier (1999) gave a conceptual model about trust that sets for three elements: capability, commitment, and consistency. When there will be lacking top management commitment, then the resources may proscribe capability, there will not be any firm intention to cooperate. Certainly the supplier or the supply manager can’t be counted on to the consistently performed. So, this will result in no trust. Zsidisin and Ellram (2001) in their research argued that top management of the firm determines the measures of the supply chain success. In order to receive support and be successful, the measures of Supply Chain performance must support the performance measures of the organization.

Mentzer, Witt, Keebler, Min, Nix, Smith and Zacharia (2001) in their study stated that top management commitment and support plays an important part in determining the standards of an organization, its direction and orientation. Day and Lord in 1998 stated in their research that the top level management executives have a generous impact on the performance of any organization. Lambert, Douglas, James and Lisa (1998) proposed that support, headship and commitment from the top management are crucial predecessor to the implementation of Supply Chain Management. Within the same framework, Loforte (1991) argues that when there is lack of support from the top level management, it is then considered as a barrier or hurdle to the Supply Chain Management.

Kimball and Stanley (2004) stated in their research that without top management commitment, the successful relationships can also become unsuccessful in the upcoming period. There are various reasons for this, but many of them are very clear and evident. Successful supply chain relationships straddle between the organizational boundaries and it functions.

One of the ways in which the relationship management ability can be built is by providing widespread training and edification the existing decision making bodies. Top management has to be familiar with this skill as it is a necessary condition for successful implementation of the supply chain. (Blackwell and Blackwell, 1999)

To achieve desired collaborative breakthroughs, the key is to establish a strong managerial commitment to Supply Chain Management (Akkermans 1999; Lummus, 1998). Commitment should come from all the levels of the organization and also from the key channel “partners.” Marien (2000) in her research stated that top level management must endorse Supply Chain Management initiatives and provide necessary resources. The dedication of resources and realigning the incentives for developing true cross-functional capabilities can only be done by the top levels of the management. At the same time, the managers at lower level and workers across variety of functions who should implement the initiative must enter into the Supply Chain Management program or it cannot be succeeded (Blackwell and Blackwell, 1999; LaLonde, 2000; Bowersox and Closs, 2002; Tyndall, 1998).”

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Alfalla-Luque, R., Marin-Garcia, J.A. and Medina-Lopez, C. (2015). An analysis of the direct and mediated effects of employee commitment and supply chain integration on organisational performance.

International Journal of Production Economics, 162, pp.242–257.

1. Introduction

Supply chain management (SCM) has strategic relevance because increased competitive pressures have pushed many firms to turn their supply chains into competitive weapons to enhance performance (Fine, 1998). Effective SCM is a source of potentially sustainable competitive advantage for organisations and supply chain integration (SCI) plays a crucial role in this (Van der Vaart and Van Donk, 2008). However, despite the potential benefits of SCI, the effective integration of value-added activities along the supply chain (SC) and the competitive influence of SCI have been questioned. Thus, more empirical research is needed in this topic (Leuschner et al., 2013).

Despite the fact that numerous studies have addressed SCI, it can be seen that it is not a well-defined concept (Fabbe-Costes and Jahre, 2008). SCI does not have a single, accepted definition or operationalisation (Pagell, 2004). SCI should consider the strategic, tactical and operational levels. SCI could be defined as the degree to which SC members achieve collaborative inter- and intra-organisational management on the strategic, tactical and operational levels of activities (and their corresponding physical and information flows) that, starting with raw materials suppliers, add value to the product to satisfy the needs of the final customer at the lowest cost and the greatest speed (Alfalla-Luque et al., 2013b).

SCI needs both intra and inter-company integration across the entire SC in order to work as a single entity (Alfalla-Luque and Medina-Lopez, 2009). In consequence, SCI research should take into account internal integration (INTI) and external integration (EI) with supplier (SI) and customer (CI), as well as the external integration orientation (EIO).

However, previous research has not always taken the different dimensions of SCI into account (Fabbe-Costes and Jahre, 2008). Droge et al. (2004) suggest that the joint use of EI and INTI has a synergistic effect on firm performance. Other studies show that one of the reasons that prevents a high level of EI being achieved is a low level of INTI (Gimenez and Ventura, 2005). Moreover, INTI seems to be the starting point for broader integration across the SC. However, there is over emphasis on customer integration (CI) and supplier integration (SI) alone, excluding the important central link of INTI (Flynn et al., 2010). As stated by Zhao et al. (2011), despite increasing research interest in SCI, we still have a very limited understanding of what influences SCI and what the relationships between INTI and EI are. This paper seeks to provide empirical evidence on this relationship.

The prior literature is not unanimous in stating that the relationship between SCI and performance is positive. Some papers conclude that a higher level of SCI positively influences performance (Li et al., 2009), but others have not been able to demonstrate this relationship (Swink et al., 2007). So, additional research is necessary to test the relationship between SCI (separated out into its various dimensions) and performance. This relationship could be affected by the existence of variables that act as antecedents. Some studies have found that SCI has a mediating effect on performance (Vanichchinchai, 2012), but a limited number of studies have been conducted in this respect. As a result, determining the antecedents and performance consequences of SCI is a key focus of recent SCM research (Droge et al., 2012).

The apparent inconsistency in the findings and doubt about the relationship between SCI and performance suggest a missing variable. Taking into account the literature, our interest lies in including employee commitment (EC) as an antecedent in this relationship. Previous research has analysed the effect as an antecedent of workforce practices on performance for some operations management (OM) practices, e.g. TQM, JIT and TPM (Cua et al., 2001) but little research has been done on the effect of workforce practices in SCI, or even in SCM in general (Fisher et al., 2010). However, Fawcett et al. (2008) state that human nature is the primary barrier to successful SC collaboration both internally and with external SC partners.

This paper therefore focuses on the relationships among the different dimensions of SCI themselves, and on the relationship between EC and the SCI dimensions to explain several performance measures. It analyses EC as an antecedent of the effect of SCI on performance. For this we use a multiple-informant international sample originating from the third round of the High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project. Fig. 1 shows the research framework.”

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