Developing People: Learning and Development Proposal for Red Telecom

The proposal demonstrated the issues faced within the organization while developing people at Red Telecom in Australia. There were issues associated with the changes within the organization while managing diversity and inclusion along with gender discrimination and pressure on employees, which deteriorated the work performance and failing to deliver the good quality services to customers as well.

Running head: DEVELOPING PEOPLE
Developing people
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Executive summary
The proposal demonstrated the issues faced within the organization while developing
people at Red Telecom in Australia. There were issues associated with the changes within the
organization while managing diversity and inclusion along with gender discrimination and
pressure on employees, which deteriorated the work performance and failing to deliver the good
quality services to customers as well. Due to this, there was need for training, mentoring and
team formation techniques were arranged to strengthen the leadership skills, communication
skills and making the employees follow the organizational policies to meet the performance
standards and enhance the workforce efficiency too.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Proposal objective............................................................................................................................3
Analysis........................................................................................................................................4
Workgroup profile...........................................................................................................................5
Problem statement...........................................................................................................................6
Needed competencies......................................................................................................................7
Proposed learning and development strategies................................................................................7
Key learning and Development interventions.................................................................................8
Learning and development proposal evaluation..............................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The main task is to prepare a learning and development proposal for fulfilling the needs
and requirements of the groups of individuals within Red Telecom, Australia and ensure working
as a group within the workplace to manage various intervention methods and techniques. This is
essential for the proper management of human resources along with creation of scopes and
opportunities to manage the theoretical aspects furthermore ensure that the senior management
approaches this to develop the most effective learning plan and intervention techniques within
the workplace of Red Telecom, Australia (redtelecom.com.au, 2018).
Proposal objective
The background information illustrates about Red Telecom, which is one of the major
companies within the telecommunications industry. The company provides broadband, mobile
and voice services by operating in both Australia and New Zealand. The company aims to define
diversity management by considering various aspects such as race, religion, gender, age, physical
disabilities while the cultural background, social class and education level are also considered
while managing diversity at workplace (Bryson, Daniels & Warf, 2013).
The major objectives of the organization are to improve the outcomes and services for the
stakeholders and manage diversity at workplace by engaging people from different background,
culture, ethnicity, religion, educational background, disability, etc. Red Telecom, the
telecommunications based organization, has focused on the objective of launching a new
diversity and inclusion campaign named Red’s Inclusive Strategy 2020, also known as the RISE
to overcome the barriers and risks associated with the existing approaches to diversity and

4DEVELOPING PEOPLE
inclusion at Red Telecom (Rees & French, 2016). To increase diversity, the company aims to
increase the engagement of women in the senior leadership positions, enhance the LGBTIQ
representation and disability along with the increase of CALD in senior leadership roles too.
Analysis
The analysis of case study shows that Red Telecom in Australia has undertaken the
initiative of Red’s Inclusive Strategy 2020 for managing diversity and inclusion of people based
on their characteristic features including their age, religion, color, ethnicity, social class,
background or culture from which they belong or even some kind of disability they do possess.
There were various issues related to the existing diversity and inclusion approach, because of
which, there were gender differences and also differences based on race and color (Stone &
Stone, 2013). The senior management team consists of employees who are male and white of
Australian origin while the customer support personnel include female workers and many of
them belong from the culturally and linguistically diverse groups or CALD. People with
disabilities, though appointed as part of the workforce, still few of them faced discriminating
behaviors from the customers due to lack of accessibility to certain features while dealing with
the clients of Red Telecom. The case study also illustrates how the HR department should
manage the diversity and inclusion through alignment with RISE and implement the right
strategy to overcome the issues (Fowler, 2013). The case revolves around the change
management perspective through restructuring of the Customer Resolution department and this
was done by moving the entire Unit was moved to the Australian call centre, due to which,
multiple workgroups were involved along with management of diverse sets of skills.

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Workgroup profile
The composition of group done properly could bring various benefits such as the
management of human resources accurately at Red Telecom, Australia and at the same time,
utilize the core skills and competencies of workers to overcome the gaps an develop the
workforce through learning and development strategies and intervention methods (Macdonald,
Burke & Stewart, 2017). There was a project managed by the organization that involved senior
management, where most of the workers were from Australian origin and white males, due to
which, there were gender differences with the customer support executives who were mostly
female workers and even belonged from some diverse group, also known as the cultural and
linguistically diverse groups or CALD. By implementing the diversity and inclusion strategy, the
company aimed to engage more people from diverse backgrounds (Bhardwaj & Puniam, 2013).
The present Customer Resolution team consisted of 8 to 15 members and they are assigned with
the responsibilities of reporting the leader about the various activities. Among the frontline
employees, 42 percent, 3 percent and 2 percent fall in the CALD, LBGTIQ and disabled
categories respectively. The dependence on the part time workers, most of which were female
workers while within the leadership team, only one leader was female whereas the others were
male workers (Holton & Dent, 2016). The RISE initiative was undertaken, which brought both
positive and negative opinions from the employees, some of whom believed it as a political
correctness gone awry while others believed that the goals and objectives to be met were
responsible for threatening the jobs security.
The core capabilities of the organization include proper skills and knowledge of the
employees, communication and interpersonal skills along with diverse sets of skills to manage
changes and bring improvements within the workplace of Red Telecom, Australia. It is important

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to overcome the gender differences and make sure to provide the disabled individuals too with
accessibility to various features for ensuring proper coordination and collaborative working. The
management of diversity and inclusion, being the major organizational goal, should require
proper management of communication and prevention of discrimination based on sex, race,
religion or ethnicity (Dawson, 2014). The human capital includes the knowledge, social and
personal attributes like innovation and creativity skills to ensure economic value creation.
Problem statement
The problem statement illustrates the issues revolving with the organizational change
context and there were cases of gender inequities due to the presence of male workers in more
numbers than the female workers. The Customer Resolution department was also moved to
another location, due to which, there were significant changes in structure, which also affected
the work teams and made them unable to handle their job roles properly. The staffs felt
pressurized and faced difficulties in coping up with the new structure and new working
environment. The frontline customer service employees included female employees from CALD
background, only few from the LBGTIQ category and 2 percent have disability (Duffield &
Whitty, 2015). The problems include entire dependence on the part time staffs, while on the
other hand, there was only one female team leader while the other team leaders were mostly
male.
Due to pressure and frustration with their job roles, the employees’ performances
deteriorated and it affected the performance of Red Telecom. There was lack of diversity and
accessibility to the various website features, which further made many of the employees face
discrimination while dealing with the clients. The RISE initiative was implemented though, still

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it managed to get both positive and negative feedbacks related to poor accessibility features for
the disabled individuals and the performances of workers were not monitored too, which created
performance gaps and affected the business performance negatively too (Harris et al., 2013).
There was gender discrimination, due to which, female workers were provided with very lesser
opportunities to excel in their individual professional career with ease.
Needed competencies
The HR team possessed relevant skills to conduct the Training need analysis to evaluate
the needs for training and development within the Consumer Resolution department, furthermore
allow the objectives of obtaining feedbacks based on their performances, complaints of clients
and opinions from the team leaders too. The learning and development interventions are
implemented to enhance the workforce efficiency through shifting of employees’ attitudes and
behaviors towards collaborative working and preventing discrimination too.
Proposed learning and development strategies
The training and developmental sessions should allow for enhancing the skills,
knowledge and expertise of employees, furthermore develop teams and providing mentoring to
accomplish the business goals and objectives with much convenience (French, 2017). The team
leaders are responsible for the mentoring sessions, which do possess the ability to make
individuals informed about the particular issue and how it should be dealt with by sharing
resources and networks al throughout the workplace.

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Key learning and Development interventions
The competency based learning could be an effective intervention procedure to facilitate
the learning and development process along with the integration of strategic human resource
development objectives into the operational plan at Red Telecom, Australia. The competency
based learning should promote exclusive rights for the managers, leaders, HR practitioners and
employees to manage the rights and responsibilities properly as well as ensure preventing any
form of discrimination based on gender, race, color or religion within the workplace (Kolb,
2014). The training courses are arranged to focus on the career management skills such as
interview skills along with assessment of job applications properly to select the right candidates
for the right job roles at the organization. Nowadays, online training programs are managed to
save lot of time and money along with informational consistency regarding change of behaviors
associated with the restructuring of the organization and its department moved to a new location
(Woolcock, 2013). The orientation employee training is managed by the HR manager by
shedding light on the company’s vision, mission statement, corporate culture and structure that
the employees must be known to for following the organizational policies and rules. The
technical skills development training could enable analysis of data and information along with
use of social media platforms and applying the right programming techniques to engage the
employees and keep them updated with the latest technological developments at Red Telecom,
Australia. The soft skills’ mentoring sessions are aimed at improving the communication or
interpersonal skills, leadership skills along with ability to manage time and work as a time by
adapting to different circumstances after organizational change (redtelecom.com.au, 2018).
The cognitivism theory would revolve around the concepts of managing conscious
thoughts, make decisions and analyze own mental processes required to develop and grow

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cognitively. The constructivism theory focuses on the effectiveness of social influences to
enhance human consciousness and ability to think critically for working as a team and in
collaboration as an unit. The average costs of managing these training and team building sessions
are $50000 annually considering the recruitment, selection, team formation and training
expenditures (MacLennan, 2017). The Belbin’s theory should be beneficial for enhancing
leadership skills and keep the workforce motivated to drive business performance.
Learning and development proposal evaluation
Training would include the team leaders who would train the employees at the new
location and keep them motivated as well to perform to their potential. This would take a time of
1 month. The formation of teams should need a time frame of 2 months considering the
recruitment selection and engagement of workers to manage group dynamics and utilize the
resources efficiently for bringing positive outcomes. The mentoring sessions should be managed
by the team leader or HR department head by monitoring their performances and keeping the
employees under close observations, further provide them with training to strengthen their
knowledge, skills and capabilities (Masalimova & Nigmatov, 2015). This should surely influence
their behaviors to work as an unit, in coordination, and prevent discrimination to manage
diversity and inclusion for accomplishing the objectives of engaging more women members,
create convenience for the disabled workers, prevent gender discrimination and even create
scopes for them to excel in their professional career and this would automatically resolve the
issues based on complaints made by the clients regarding the services delivered
(redtelecom.com.au, 2018).

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Conclusion
The case study analysis showed that there were more male workers than th female
workers at Red Telecom and thus the company decided to manage diversity and inclusion to
create more scopes for female members and provide accessibility features for the disabled too.
With the management of an initiative, there were various issues like gender discrimination along
with customers’ complaints due to the lack of efforts put by employees caused from pressure and
lack of interest in work. The intervention methods included training, mentoring and team
formation should assist in making the employees feel interested with their job roles and conduct
project efficiently, furthermore achieve business goals of maintaining diversity and inclusion at
workplace.

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References
Bhardwaj, A., & Punia, B. K. (2013). Managerial Competencies and their influence on
managerial performance: A Literature review. International Journal of Advanced
Research in Management and Social Sciences, 2(5), 70-84.
Bryson, J., Daniels, P., & Warf, B. (2013). Service worlds: People, organisations, technologies.
Routledge.
Dawson, P. (2014). The processual perspective: studying change in organisations.
Duffield, S., & Whitty, S. J. (2015). Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for
organisational learning through projects. International journal of project management,
33(2), 311-324.
Fowler, A. (2013). Striking a balance: A guide to enhancing the effectiveness of non-
governmental organisations in international development. Routledge.
French, S. (2017). Disabled people and employment: A study of the working lives of visually
impaired physiotherapists. Routledge.
Harris, A., Day, C., Hopkins, D., Hadfield, M., Hargreaves, A., & Chapman, C. (2013). The
changing context of leadership: Research, theory and practice. In Effective leadership for
school improvement (pp. 19-35). Routledge.
Holton, V., & Dent, F. E. (2016). A better career environment for women: developing a blueprint
for individuals and organisations. Gender in Management: An International Journal,
31(8), 542-561.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and
development. FT press.

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Macdonald, I., Burke, C., & Stewart, K. (2017). Systems leadership: Creating positive
organisations. Routledge.
MacLennan, N. (2017). Coaching and mentoring. Routledge.
Masalimova, A. R., & Nigmatov, Z. G. (2015). Structural-functional model for corporate training
of specialists in carrying out mentoring. Review of European Studies, 7(4), 39.
redtelecom.com.au. (2018). Retrieved from https://redtelecom.com.au/
Rees, G., & French, R. (Eds.). (2016). Leading, managing and developing people. Kogan Page
Publishers.
Stone, R. J., & Stone, R. J. (2013). Managing human resources. John Wiley and Sons.
Woolcock, M. (2013). Using case studies to explore the external validity of
‘complex’development interventions. Evaluation, 19(3), 229-248.

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Appendix
Learning plan
Objectives Resources/
strategies
Achieveme
nt
evidences
Target
dates
Criteria
for
evaluation
Status
or
progress
I will try my
best to
improve my
communicati
on skills and
self
awareness
skills to
consult with
others
regarding the
proposal
based on
developing
people within
organization
The strategies and
resources will
include working in
groups and in
coordination along
with gaining
support from my
leader, which can
help me to gather
enough evidence
regarding the same
and discuss about
the feasibility of
the training and
other
developmental
techniques
required to
I will be
assessing
secondary
data sources
including
journals,
articles,
documents
and internet
websites
containing
information
about the
topic,
furthermore
gain proper
evidences
to
The target
set by me is
one year,
i.e., 12
months
within
which the
learning
and
developmen
t plan will
be
accomplish
ed
I have
selected
the article
concerned
with the
developme
nt of
people
within
organizatio
n and have
engaged in
team
meetings
to examine
about the
ways and
practices
The key
points
have
been
achieved
during
the
mentorin
g and
training
session
managed
by the
team
leader
and HR
manager
for the

14DEVELOPING PEOPLE
enhance employee
skills within the
company
participate
in
discussions
and group
activities
required to
enhance
skills of
employees
at
workplace
time
period of
12month
s. The
status is
currently
ongoing
and it
will
likely to
be
finished
at the
end of
the year