Training Practice Questions

Item A: Harelands Garden Centre

Harelands Garden Centre (HGC) is owned by Priya Sandhu. It sells plants, tools and garden furniture from a six-acre site in Devon and employs 14 permanent members of staff. Each spring HGC takes on 10 temporary employees to cope with the busy season.

At present, a temporary employee is given a 20-minute talk by a supervisor on the first morning and then works on the tills alongside an experienced member of staff. Last spring HGC received complaints that temporary staff could not answer questions about plants, did not know where products were kept, and left the delivery gate unlocked overnight.

Priya is considering a one-day induction programme for all 10 temporary employees. It would include a tour of the site, fire and health and safety procedures, meeting the permanent staff, and practice on the tills before the garden centre opens.

Table 1: Costs of the proposed one-day induction programme

Cost item	Cost
Trainer's time for the day	£180
Handbook for each temporary employee	£4
Wages paid to each temporary employee for the induction day	£84

Item C: Ashdown Kitchens Ltd

Ashdown Kitchens Ltd (AK) manufactures fitted kitchens in Leeds and installs them in customers' homes. It employs 60 people: 44 in the factory, 12 fitters and 4 office staff.

Factory employees use heavy cutting and edging machinery. Every new factory employee completes a two-day induction before starting work. The induction covers health and safety and machine shut-down procedures, AK's quality-checking system, and a meeting with the eight members of their production team. AK has had no reportable factory accidents in three years.

AK gives every customer a five-year guarantee and repairs faulty installations free of charge. Demand is high. Each fitter installs two kitchens a week and AK makes an average profit of £300 on each kitchen installed.

Item D: Ashdown Kitchens Ltd

Four of AK's 12 fitters joined in the last year. A new fitter is shown what to do by the team leader on the first morning and then works alone in customers' homes. Most of the fitters who have been with AK for more than 10 years were trained when kitchens used only wooden worktops. AK now sells composite worktops, which have to be cut and sealed in a different way.

A free repair costs AK an average of £210.

Table 2: Customer complaints about kitchen fitting in the last 12 months

Cause of complaint	Number of complaints
Damage to composite worktops during fitting	48
Cupboard doors not aligned	26
Appliances wired incorrectly	12
Fitting not completed on the agreed date	9
Total	95

Item A: Swiftline Logistics plc

Swiftline Logistics plc delivers parcels for online retailers across the UK and the Netherlands. It employs 3 600 drivers and 900 warehouse staff. Drivers are paid £13.20 an hour and almost all are employed on permanent contracts.

Two years ago Swiftline had a problem. Large numbers of drivers left within six months of joining. New drivers were given a two-hour induction and were then sent out with a hand-held scanner they had never used before. Complaints from online retailers about damaged parcels and missed deliveries rose sharply.

Last year the operations director, Femi Adeyemi, introduced a new training programme. Every new driver now spends five days working alongside a mentor before driving alone, and all drivers complete two days of refresher training each year on the scanner software and on safe loading. Drivers also have a performance review every six months with their depot manager. The programme costs £1.9 million a year.

Recruiting and inducting each new driver costs Swiftline £2 500. Table 2 shows the number of drivers who left Swiftline in each of the last two years.

Table 2

Year	Number of drivers leaving
Year 1 (before the programme)	480
Year 2 (after the programme)	384

The finance director has asked whether Swiftline should continue the training programme.

Item A: Quillmere Software plc

Quillmere Software plc writes accounting software used by businesses in 40 countries. It employs 1 800 people at offices in Manchester, Berlin and Bengaluru, having grown from 400 employees five years ago. Chief executive Noor Haddad says that the business sells its software on the promise that it is easy to use and never goes wrong.

Every developer at Quillmere receives ten days of off the job training a year, and new employees complete a six-week induction programme before they are allowed to work on customer software. Together these cost Quillmere £2.1 million a year. Team leaders hold a performance review with each developer twice a year, in which training needs are agreed.

Last year 210 developers left Quillmere, many of them joining rival software businesses that pay up to 20% more. Quillmere spends £900 000 a year on recruitment, and 40% of its advertised developer posts take more than three months to fill. Meanwhile, customers have complained about faults in the latest version of the software.

Noor Haddad believes that training is the key to the future success of Quillmere. She is considering increasing each developer's off the job training from ten days to fifteen days a year, which would add £600 000 a year to the cost of training.