Evaluation of Current Training and Change Communica-tion Services in Supply Chain Network

Abstract

This Bachelor’s thesis concentrates on evaluation of the success of current training services, communication and training materials provided by the functions appointed to those tasks. Also clarification of the additional training needs was one of the aims of this thesis. The thesis concentrated specifically on vocational trainings provided by employer to the employees of UPM Paper Supply chain functions. The thesis is built with the traditional model. First section consists of theories on Human Resources Development, Learning and Training. Latter part concentrates on the empirical observations and results as well as interpretation of the results of the survey conducted to the employees of the target company. Thus the study was conducted with a quantitative method. The survey included altogether 27 questions and was created with Qualtrics survey tool. It was sent out to 523 employees of which 245 started the survey and 192 completed the survey. All answers were included in the results and the final response rate was 37 percent. The results of the survey show that mostly employees were quite satisfied with the training possibilities and the trainings conducted in the target company. However there were some variation by location and function. There was a clear need to improve the trainings and communication towards supply teams and communication of system releases to the smaller sales offices. More practical and hands-on training was requested by most functions and locations. Also training material and work instructions although already currently available for all are not well known and cannot be found by a big amount of employees. These should thus be advertised more to the bigger audience. Also many of the respondents claimed that they would actually value training videos as part of training material and this is currently not available in the target company’s supply chain functions. Improvement ideas are presented at the end of the study