4. Review Chapter 8A - Healthy Sips: Strategic Talent Development and answer the following questions:

a. State the core challenge Healthy Sips currently faces. What are the barriers and constraints that exacerbate the problem?

b. What best practices are explained in the case data collection during a needs assessment?

c. What recommendations would be appropriate to operationalize the strategies in the Healthy Sips Learning and Development strategy map?

d. As a learning and development or OD professional, what steps would you take to implement the Strategy Map and make the changes stick? How will you implement the strategies to yield the most positive impact for all stakeholders?

e. What measurement and evaluation tools could be implemented to track the progress of the L&D initiatives?

Please include references. Thank you!

Joyce works as the senior VP for human resources at Healthy Sips, a privately owned corporation founded 40 years ago but recently purchased by one of the franchisees, Robert, who now serves as the chief executive ofcer. Healthy Sips is branded as a healthy beverage and snack alternative to help people live healthier lifestyles in today's fast-paced, fast-food environment. The company is in growth and development mode to increase the number of franchises available both inside and outside the United States. Robert has a goal to double the number of franchises from 1,500 stores to 3,000 worldwide within 3 years and plans to take the brand public. Unfortunately, many current franchise owners and employees experience confusion over standard operating procedures of the business. To complicate matters further, the corporate ofce is concerned with quality of products, brand messages, and overall consistency of policies throughout the franchises. With rapid growth of the company, coupled with increased turnover in the executive ranks, Joyce knows that the lack of systematic and consistent policies are a disaster waiting to happen. Joyce joined the team at Healthy Sips 10 months ago with over 20 years of progressive career experience working with various successful restaurant chains. She brings to the table a deep knowledge of working with fast-food, casual, and ne-dining restaurants. Joyce began her professional journey as a server and then was promoted to team lead, then trainer, assistant manager, manager, and vice president of human resources. Through her many positions, she realized that she has a real passion and love for developing people. She enjoys helping people learn how to do their jobs better while helping companies maximize profits. She is a big-picture thinker and can see gaps where improvements could enhance the customer and employee experience. Over her career, she helped several struggling food venues thrive and maintain viability. As Healthy Sips tenaciously works to improve systemwide sales, increase overall nancial performance, and increase customer satisfaction while increasing the numbers of stores, Joyce recognizes that the learning & development (L&D) function plays a critical role for company growth. At its core, L&D departments aim to improve group and individual performance by increasing and honing skills and knowledge. L&D should include a talent management strategy designed to align group and individual goals and performance with an organization's overall vision and goals. As a strategic business partner looking through the lens of today and tomorrow, Joyce advocates at the executive meetings that L&D must deliver learning and development that helps management drive business. The talents and skills of the company's greatest resource, its people, must be developed. Joyce must convince Robert that if Healthy Sips can achieve specific learning and development goals, the results will positively impact the overall goal of doubling the number of franchises while improving quality of products and customer service. To illustrate her point about the value of L&D as a corporate-wide solution, Joyce decides that she must fully understand the needs of the business. In Joyce's previous organizations, she worked with an external organization development consultant, Joel. She trusts Joel and values his professional experience and opinions. In fact, he and his team, two other human resource development professionals, worked on many projects in companies where Joyce was previously employed. Joyce and Joel share the belief that there are always multiple solutions to any business issue and if you listen closely to employees, the answers will be revealed. Joyce and Joel also have a shared vision for building a more robust L&D function linked to corporate business goals. In order for Healthy Sips to continue on the rapid grth trajectory, an effort to understand the mission, direction, and current learning and development needs of the organization was launched. Twenty-two Healthy Sips employees at various levels across the organization were interviewed, including the CEO, COO, general manager, vice presidents, training specialist, franchise owners, managers, and store openers, totaling over 20 hours of interview transcripts. In addition to the formal interviews, Joel and his team listened to the needs of employees and learned about existing practices from franchise owners and employees at the Healthy Sips annual sales conference. The conference brought together over 200 franchise owners and employees from all over the world. Informal conversations between Joel, his team, and Healthy Sips employees at the conference provided valuable insights about the employees' current workplace realities. Joel and Joyce developed a nine week plan to collect data from employees. In the first week, Joyce invited employees to participate in face-to-face interviews via an e-mail invitation. Potential participants were informed that the data from the interviews would be used to improve current practices throughout the organization and data would be kept strictly anonymous and confidential. An introduction of Joel and his team was included in the invitation, as they would be conducting the interviews. The use of an external and nonbiased consultant to conduct the interviews helped ensure that participants would answer questions freely and honestly. Participants were asked to contact Joel directly to schedule an interview (Week 2). Once the interviews were scheduled, Joel and his team traveled to franchise stores to conduct the interviews (Weeks 375). In Weeks 6 to 7, Joel analyzed data using an Interpretive Phenomenological Approach (IPA). Findings were communicated to stakeholders at Healthy Sips in Weeks 8 and 9. See Table 8.1 for a schedule of data collection and analysis. At the beginning of the interviews, participants were informed that interviews would be audio recorded for transcription purposes. Interviewees were assured again that all information would be kept anonymous. Using a semistructured interview process with open-ended and probing questions, Joel and his team asked a series of questions pertaining to (a) performance issues; (b) existing policies, procedures, and systems; and (c) customer service. Each interview took approximately 1 hour. Once interviews were completed, the team utilized the IPA process to analyze the data. The process seeks to understand an individual's relationship and the meaning of activity occurring around them. The IPA guidelines for analyzing interview data include a six-step method for the first case and continues the procedure until all interviews have been analyzed. The IPA guidelines include the following steps: Reading and rereading: Once the interviews were transcribed, the interviewer team listened to the audio recording to ensure the interview was transcribed correctly. Repeated reading provided the interviewers with an understanding of the data and linkages between topics, general and specic information, contradictions and general events. Initial noting: The interviewer produced an inclusive set of notes and comments about the data collected during the interview. Steps 1 and 2 merged as the interview team commented on similarities, differences, and contradictions provided by the employees. Developing emergent themes: The analysis shifts as the team reviews emergent themes and simultaneously attempts to reduce the volume of details. The team transitions from working on the transcript to focusing on the interview team's notes. Search for connection across emergent themes: This step involves exploring how the chronological themes t together. The interview team reviewed the themes as they occurred and produced a structure of the most important aspects of the employee's experience. Moving to the next case: This phase required taking the next interview script and repeating Steps 1 through 4. Allowing new themes to emerge with each case was important in the IPA process. Looking for patterns across cases: This means examining themes across cases, looking for similarities and differences, and exploiting themes useful to understanding the organization. Ten themes emerged representing the suggestions, concerns, and areas of immediate improvement for Healthy Sips: Focus on people as the most important element of the business, both internal (employees) and external customers. Create training that is easy for managers to deliver and employees to grasp. Utilize existing talent as a resource for design and development of high-impact and technology-enabled training materials and processes. Utilize technology-enabled solutions for more efficient and impactful systemwide learning (i.e., videos, apps, webinars, etc.). Utilize customer satisfaction surveys to drive learning and development focus and increase prots. Increase product knowledge and customer service through targeted training, technology- enabled training, and hands-on and face-to-face solutions. Help managers screen for and hire the right talent for franchises. Create facilitator and participant manuals for training solutions. Create onboarding systems for employees in the franchises and at the corporate office. Track training activities through a Learning Management System and tie to performance evaluations. Working closely with Joyce, Joel's team used the data from the interviews to create a strategy map to answer the question: How can Healthy Sips make future learning and development effective, efficient, but above all strategic, to meet the future growth needs for the company's rapid growth? The map visually depicts a strategic plan specific for the learning and development function, identifying five L&D strategies that link the 10 themes derived from the interviews and listening sessions. Strategy 1: Establish a Healthy Sips Center of Excellence (COE) designation. Objective: Decentralize the learning and development function into designated Centers of Excellence (franchises and corporate stores) for more efficient and effective delivery of product and customer service. Strategy 2: Establish enterprise-wide learning and development for employees at all levels . Objective: Create a system for achieving and documenting learning at all levels for each employee role. Strategy 3: Utilize technology-enabled learning systems to distribute learning throughout Healthy Sips. Objective: Deliver learning and development solutions in more efficient and effective modes for increased knowledge of product and improved customer service. Strategy 4: Establish a Measurement Framework to evaluate and monitor the effect of training efforts on the bottom line. Objective: Manage learning and development to more effectively and efficiently impact the bottom-line results of Healthy Sips. Strategy 5: Create the environment for a culture of trust and growth