Identifying Areas of Wekaness in Thorntons

Methods of professional development and training

Identifying areas of weakness

In Thornton’s, there are areas of weakness that need to be reconciled in training and development, nothing is perfect is in business, but Thornton’s must strive to try and establish the weaknesses in their methods and develop new and more effective plans and systems for the way they function.

An example of this would be that some employees use the company for qualifications such as in the Administration department, training is used or use of I.T and qualifications are given out when staff complete training or in the manufacturing department where training is given in Health and Safety and packaging skills are trained. Employees may stay in the company until they are trained in whatever qualification and skills they need and then could leave the company, deserting the workforce and causing the company to loose money on recruiting and selecting new employees and then more costs on the training and developing of these new staff.

A suggestion to improve this weakness is to wait for employees to be at the company for a certain period of time before training them up, although this may be difficult at the start of the process as the business needs employees with the correct skills, in the long run this could be an advantage as once employees are trained, the company will probably retain them as if they have been at the company for a certain period of time, they will probably stick to it resulting in the retention of staff. To compensate for poorly trained staff at the beginning of the process. Agencies could be used to employ temporary staff, although this would be expensive, it would result in being cheaper than employees leaving and costs on recruiting and training new employees.

Another suggestion to this situation would be only using in house training and promotion as if staff have worked at the company for a certain period of time, they will probably be staying at the company in the long run, this could also help with staff motivation and incentives for staff to work hard if they see a promotion in their midst.

Another area of weakness in Thortons is that the business only trains staff in one particular part of their job, not all the skills that are needed in all of the departments. Although this would probably be costly and would take time it would be effective as if staff were absent, it would be easier for their jobs to be covered by other staff, as they would be qualified in all aspects