Question
PLEASE LET IT BE LONG, I NEED LOT OF EXPLANATION AND ANSWER IN DEPTH, MAKE IT LENTHY PLEASE PROVIDE APA REFERENCE PLEASE INSERT INTEXT CITION
PLEASE LET IT BE LONG, I NEED LOT OF EXPLANATION AND ANSWER IN DEPTH, MAKE IT LENTHY
PLEASE PROVIDE APA REFERENCE
PLEASE INSERT INTEXT CITION
Case: Corporate Universities: Teaching the Tools of Quality
Although most of us are familiar with major public universities like Michigan, Ohio State, Florida State, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), we are typically unfamiliar with corporate universities such as Motorola Solutions, Intel University, and the AT&T Learning Center. Corporate universities are a fairly new concept, created to serve the needs of a particular company"s employees and other stakeholders.
The term corporate university has been adopted by firms that have significantly upgraded their training and development activities by creating learning centers within their corporations. These learning centers are typically designed to prioritize a firms training initiatives and to share quickly with a firm"s employees the skills, techniques, and best practices that are necessary to remain competitive. For example, when a new quality tool or technique is developed, it is often the responsibility of a firms corporate university to develop a plan to equip the firms employees with the skills necessary to incorporate the new tool or techniques into their work areas quickly.
The following is a brief description of two corporate universities. After reading these descriptions, ask yourself the following rhetorical question: Are these corporations well-equipped to teach their employees the tools of quality?
Motorola Solutions:Motorola Solutions began in 1981 as the Motorola Training and Education Center. During the 1980s, the purpose of the university was to help Motorola strengthen its training efforts and build a quality-focused corporate culture. Through the years, the university has grown in both size and stature, and now has a staff of more than 400 employees and seven facilities around the world. The stated objectives of Motorola Solutions are as follows:
- To provide training and education to all Motorola employees.
- To prepare Motorola employees to be best in class in their industries.
- To serve as a catalyst for change and continuous improvement to position Motorola Corporation for the future.
- To provide added value to Motorola in the marketing and distribution of products throughout the world.
To accomplish these objectives, Motorola Solutions does many things. For example, each of the companys employees is required to take a minimum of 40 hours a year of job-relevant training and education. The university also provides its employees consulting services in a number of areas, including benchmarking, cycle-time reduction, quality improvement processes, and statistical tools and problem-solving techniques.
One unique aspect of Motorola Solutions is that it reaches beyond the Motorola Corporation. The university provides training and certification programs for Motorola suppliers and also provides consulting services and training for other corporations on a fee basis.
Sears University:Sears University was established in 1994 with the ambitious goal of becoming an intricate part of the companys turnaround efforts. The university was opened with the idea of offering a wide selection of formal training and self-study courses for Sears employees. In its first year of operation, approximately 10,000 of the companys employees participated in formal programs ranging from one day to one week in duration. Another 4,000 employees completed self-study courses each month.
In addition to offering training programs in areas such as merchandising, operations, customer service, and human resources management, Sears University also provides the companys employees programs designed to help them function as change agents and strategic leaders within the corporation. For example, participants in financial management training programs use computer-based simulations to model the effect of various financial strategies on business unit performance. Particular attention is paid to trying to help employees see the companys operations from the customers perspective. The courses are taught by seasoned line managers along with professional facilitators and Sears University personnel.
Questions
- Are corporate universities a good idea? If so, why or why not?
- In what ways can a corporate university do better job of teaching a firms employees the tools of quality than can traditional training programs?
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