STIRLING INTERNATIONAL – BRIEF FOR TRAINING CONSULTANTS

Coursework assessment

You are a learning and development consultant, specialising in the design and provision of online training courses to small and medium sized businesses in Scotland. You have been asked by a client - Stirling International - to design a training course for them. You are to present the design within a report that explains how you determined the learning needs of the organisation, the learning theories the course has been designed using, and the evaluation method you will be using.

The separate tasks in this assessment are:

• contacting the client to understand what their company needs are.
• contacting the participants to understand their learning needs.
• designing the course in outline format and presenting it on the suggested template
• deciding on an evaluation strategy
• writing a report that explains how you went about the tasks listed above of 3500 words +/- 10% excluding reference list and appendices, but including the course design.

The brief for the assessment continues below.

STIRLING INTERNATIONAL – BRIEF FOR TRAINING CONSULTANTS

Stirling International is a highly respected, global HR consultancy, working with a range of UK and internal clients to deliver excellent quality HR advice and organisational policy, practice, and culture interventions. Based in Stirling, Scotland this consultancy company makes full use of a range of digital platforms in order to service clients remotely. Stirling International are committed to being a carbon-neutral company and offer their employees and clients flexibility in working hours. This means that the majority of their work – and employees – work remotely and online.  

The most basic work that Stirling International offer clients is recruitment support. They work with clients to source high-quality candidates for their latest job vacancies. But as they also have mid-level employees working with clients on restructuring of organisations, pay and reward packages for international management cohorts, and due diligence checks for corporate takeovers.

As part of their outreach work, Stirling International run a paid internship programme for students studying HRM at Stirling University. The organisation welcomes up to a dozen students per year who work part-time for a maximum of 6 months for the organisation. After an induction programme, the interns are assigned to work groups who mainly support clients who need recruitment assistance, although some of the more able interns are sometimes invited to work with the senior partners on more challenging contracts.

Routine meetings and presentations are undertaken using digital technology and video meeting software, such as MS Teams and Zoom.

The CEO of Stirling International, Dr Linda Perriton, has noticed that – although the interns are knowledgeable in HR matters – they seem to struggle with the discipline of working from home and without the structure of a formal workplace. The CEO has noticed that working hours appear to be erratic, sometimes interns are dressed inappropriately for professional work, and there seems to be little scheduling of work or breaks. The CEO would like a basic course on 'Working from Home' to be part of the next intake of interns' induction training and has asked you to research and outline a course that could be offered to the interns.

Client requirements for the training course design

•  The client uses Canvas as their virtual learning environment; therefore, the online learning module must be based on Canvas conventions and functionality.
• There are to be no more than 10 ‘pages’ of content in the module.
• The design must show all navigation options on each page
• The design must be engaging and varied, and show a mix of text, illustration, and multi-media material e.g. video and podcasts, that can be accessed from the main pages
• The design must include an appropriate assessment at the end of the module for interns to demonstrate their learning.
• Any multimedia material included should not exceed 30 minutes in length in total.
• The design must show an awareness of accessibility requirements
• All source material must be acknowledged and referenced correctly.

Training proposal format

The client is expecting a professional proposal from your training company that addresses the training need that they have identified. This proposal should be written to the client demonstrating your own command of direct, professional writing, and include the following:

• An introduction outlining the issue that the client presented with and the context
• An explanation of the method by which you undertook your training needs analysis, including the presentation of the raw data of your TNA with prospective participants in the appendices
• A justification of your training design and delivery choices
• A plan of the training course you have designed
• A plan for its effective evaluation.

The proposal should base its explanations and justifications in the academic and practitioner literature studied on the module. It should be fully referenced and presented as if you were contracting with an external client.

Word limit: 3500 words +/- 10%, excluding reference list.