THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF BUSINESS TRAINING IN LOGISTICS

By Beatris Huber and Fernanda do Rego Monteiro

The challenges of logistical functions and constant changes in the market require companies to increasingly train and qualify their employees. In a survey conducted by ILOS with participants of the XX International Supply Chain Forum in 2014, 85% of respondents stated that the company they work for offers training.

The motivations for investing in executive training are diverse, as shown by the study Workforce Development and Business Outcomes, developed by the Economist Intelligent Unit group. The survey (Figure 1) was published in September 2014 and involved the participation of 295 executives from Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America who work in different sectors of the economy.

Figure 1 – Which of the results justifies the investment in workforce development?
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit (2014)

Despite the clear need to invest in the development of their professionals, companies still face many challenges when it comes to training and business qualification.

The 5 biggest challenges of corporate education

Geographic Dispersion

Globalization has brought many benefits to companies, but it has also made corporate reality more complex. If in the past it was common to stop an organization's operations to gather employees from an office or factory in a classroom and flood them with teachings, techniques and concepts, nowadays this is increasingly difficult and inappropriate. The teams are numerous and are spread across different parts of the country and the world. Thus, gathering professionals in a single place to train them entails high travel, accommodation and time costs.

Reduced Productivity

Often, in order to make investment in corporate training feasible, it is necessary to set up groups, removing a large number of professionals from their duties at the same time for training. This solution, however, implies a new problem: the paralysis of the company's activities, reducing the productivity of the areas that are undergoing training. Also, it's hard to find an opportunity on the agenda to pull all employees out of their roles at the same time and empower them.

Heterogeneous Classes

Corporate training naturally brings together groups with different profiles, experiences, interests and backgrounds. Thus, it is difficult to attend to everyone with the same training. For some people, the class may not be very interesting, as the concepts dealt with have already been mastered, while for others, what needs to be passed on may be a great novelty, requiring calm for the absorption of knowledge.

This effect can be further aggravated when, in an attempt to make investment in a given training feasible, employees who were not part of the initial target audience are accommodated in order to increase the scale and dilute the program costs. In this case, everyone is harmed: employees who need to develop receive less qualified training while the other participants spend their time learning techniques and concepts that will not be used in their functions.

High turnover

Employee turnover, or turnover, is another difficulty that Brazilian companies face nowadays. According to a survey carried out by the company Robert Half, Brazil is the country with the highest rate of employee turnover. The survey, released in October 2013, had more than 1.775 HR directors interviewed from 13 different nationalities. In this research it was pointed out that the turnover number of employees at Brazilian companies has increased by 82% since 2010, more than double the world average, which had an increase of 38%. This high turnover rate can be explained by the competition for qualified professionals, who are increasingly rare in the country. In this way, in the same way that companies are losing employees all the time, they are forced to hire new ones to fill these open vacancies, which means the need for training more frequently.

Constant Changes

Another major obstacle faced by corporations is the speed with which they and their employees are forced to adapt and respond to market challenges. If the market used to look for specialist professionals, who mastered specific knowledge, today companies are looking for generalist employees, capable of developing several different activities. For the logistics area, the challenge is even greater, as it requires highly diversified skills from employees and an integrated view of the supply chain. In this way, keeping professionals up-to-date and prepared demands even more from companies' corporate education programs.

This new reality poses major challenges for organizational development, encouraging the adoption of new techniques for training human resources and an innovative posture on the part of managers. To help overcome these obstacles, two major trends emerge in corporate education and are gaining more and more followers among companies linked to logistics: the E-Learning and Business Games.

E-Learning

O e-learning it is a modality of distance education whose teaching-learning process is mediated by technologies, where teachers and students are separated spatially and/or temporally, but are interconnected through the Internet.

The benefits arising from e-learning are numerous, both for companies and for participants. It allows training, recycling and training entire teams without having to travel and at lower costs. the scope of e-learning is the reach of the Internet.

In addition to geographical barriers, the e-learning it also breaks down time barriers. It allows training to be held at the most convenient times for users and organizations, as the Internet allows access to content 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Compared to face-to-face training, this is an advantage, as the availability of courses does not always correspond to the availability of employees, who increasingly find it difficult to use part of their working hours to take courses. The possibility that the employee does not need to be away from the company for long periods means that he does not miss opportunities to generate business.

Flexibility in the pace of learning is also another advantage highly valued by students. The pace and absorption capacity vary from person to person, so that when a group of students is required to learn a certain subject at the same time and at the same pace, losses certainly occur in the process. At the e-learning, the participant prints the desired or possible pace, slowing down or accelerating learning according to his/her capacity. In addition, the participant who does not immediately understand the content can review the material as many times as necessary, avoiding the embarrassment of asking the teacher in front of the class.

A big advantage that e-learning brings to companies is the possibility of analyzing and generating customized reports on the participation of each employee and performance evaluation. Because the training is on the network, information about students, professors, courses, classes, assessments and various statistics is instantly available, as well as the crossing of these data and corresponding graphs.

The financial savings brought by the use of e-learning is one of the main reasons that explain the popularization of this methodology among companies in recent times. Around the world, large corporations are investing heavily in remote learning via their intranets and the Internet in hopes of lowering the direct and indirect costs of business education. O e-learning it becomes more economical than conducting face-to-face courses when the number of trained students is large, since the savings with airfare, accommodation and per diem for employees who need to take courses in remote locations is very significant.

O e-learning it also has its advantages when the class is not large enough to support a face-to-face program. Depending on how the course is set up, it is possible for a single participant to start developing in that environment, without having to accumulate a minimum number of participants and paying only for that access.

Still on the side of organizations, the e-learning it can provide important contributions in the development of human resources to face the need for agile and effective responses generated by the speed of changes currently occurring in the markets. The format of the training allows updating of lessons and materials on the network instantly, keeping the content fresh and consistent.

O e-learning it also develops in students complex and valuable skills for their careers and even for their personal lives, such as autonomy, discipline, self-study, time self-management and career self-management.

Figure 2 summarizes the benefits of e-learning which may be more or less present, depending on the form adopted.

Figure 2 – Benefits of E-learning
Source: ILOS

Given these benefits, the e-learning proves to be a great solution to meet the current challenges of corporate education: geographic dispersion, reduced productivity, heterogeneous classes, high employee turnover and constant changes. However, despite the benefits, online training still has a deficiency: the lack of physical interaction between colleagues and teachers. This deficiency is alleviated through technological evolution that, through discussion forums, cats, virtual communities and social networks, allows interaction between students and teachers and also reduces barriers to participation such as prejudice and shyness.

This interaction, however, does not fully replace face-to-face programs. Contact with other participants and the teacher is important to develop behavioral skills such as teamwork and group problem solving. In addition, the exchange of ideas and eye-to-eye debate are important to generate awareness, commitment and bonding among participants. To meet these interaction needs, another methodological approach has been gaining prominence when it comes to business training in the area of ​​logistics and supply chain management: Corporate Games.

Company Games

Company games work as a kind of laboratory, where the participant tests strategies and decisions and evaluates their results. In the same way that physicists, chemists and biologists carry out experiments in laboratories, or a pilot uses a flight simulator, executives can use company games in training programs, dissemination of knowledge, or even to reflect on certain behavior.

To allow for a quick decision-making speed by the groups without harming discussions – fundamental in this type of program – the game must simulate reality in a simplified way, highlighting what is relevant. On the other hand, the model – game processor – must be quite sophisticated and calibrated in a way that adheres to reality to allow participants to feedback consistent with business practice. Because it is an exercise, it can often be interesting to amplify some real effects, such as certain costs or indicators, when these are related to the purpose of the game. Therefore, the game must have its real purpose clear, allowing the correct factors to be highlighted.

The parallel with reality has the purpose of convincing the participants that the effects verified in the simulation are the same ones present in real life. On the other hand, the counterpart of this relationship should not be pursued: not all the parameters present in the day-to-day activities of companies must be present in the game, at the risk of it becoming complex and not very dynamic.

The use of business games in logistics training programs and events to raise awareness of the impacts of more efficient and integrated logistics management has been growing every year. Through the games, the participant experiences the challenges he faces in his role in a controlled environment, with “accelerated” time, allowing him to evaluate in minutes the results of decisions that would take months in real life. This reflection is often not feasible on a day-to-day basis because, in company management, decisions do not have immediate repercussions and learning is not as direct as in a game, where the participant can quickly evaluate mistakes and successes and correct the course of your fictitious company.

Games as part of Training

Business games have great synergy with other teaching techniques, such as lectures and the case method. Among the factors that contribute to the success of these programs are:

• The practical application of the concepts learned in the training, facilitating the association of the content with the challenges of the business reality.
• The great integration of the group during the application of the games, increasing participation even in the rest of the training.
• The rich exchange of experiences between team members who, when defending their arguments within the group, bring the knowledge accumulated in professional experience.

Expository sessions (face-to-face or online) allow working with a broader scope of content than a business game. However, games present more results as a teaching and development tool. In the business game, participants live experiences and actively build their learning, allowing better assimilation of content and the development of skills such as a practical sense of decision-making (Figure 3).

Figure 3 – Business Games as a training methodology
Source: ILOS

Games as an awareness-raising tool at business events

A decision taken in the company can affect different areas, such as logistics, information technology, production, finance, sales and marketing, which makes it necessary to disseminate concepts and strategies throughout the organization. Despite the interdependence between areas, on a day-to-day basis each sector makes individual decisions based on its local role, making interfaces increasingly distant.

In this sense, company games have become an important tool for group integration and the exchange of knowledge, ideas and best practices. This type of application allows participants to assume functions that are different from their routine, experiencing experiences and understanding the relationship between their function and the other areas of the company.

Business games can be applied, for example, in events involving the commercial and logistics areas, as a way of raising awareness of the importance of information and planning to service the operation. In addition to internal events, the concept of Supply Chain Management has also aroused interest in events that bring together customers and/or suppliers to raise awareness of the need for greater integration and exchange of information between companies. An example of a game that meets these goals well is the Beer Game, which was developed in the 60s at MIT and is still used today to simulate supply chain relationships.

Games make it possible to train heterogeneous groups, both with regard to the diversity of skills and the level of knowledge, without ceasing to be interesting for all participants. Discussions within work teams allow for a rich exchange of experience and function as a mechanism for disseminating training. During the game, professionals are also more receptive to new information and new knowledge. The ludic style of the games involves the participants, who react actively to the progressive need to evaluate results, plan strategies and make decisions.

Final Words

We can conclude that online courses are an efficient way to overcome the current challenges of corporate education when it comes to learning a technical competence in logistics. It is possible to learn in a flexible and certifying way some concept or methodology, such as inventory management models or stages of a supplier selection process, for example, without the geographical dispersion, the high turnover, the need to maintain productivity in the company's activities and heterogeneity hinder the development of employees.

However, it is important to say that the use of e-learning does not mean that the classroom should be abandoned. Face-to-face training also has its benefits, such as the possibility of great opportunities for teamwork, group problem solving and bonding between participants. One way to make face-to-face meetings more dynamic and efficient is through Company Games. They serve both as part of training, which can be associated with an online course, and to raise awareness and motivate teams. In this case, business games can be a great ally for organizing results presentation events or those seeking engagement at a time of change, especially when the event involves the participation of different areas or partner companies.

The ideal training program in logistics and Supply Chain Management combines the two methodological approaches and allows you to extract the best from each: technical development obtained through an online course and the development of skills, awareness and engagement absorbed in a business game. Furthermore, if game participants have already completed an online course, mastering the concepts and techniques, the face-to-face meeting tends to be better used, making the experience even more valuable.

Bibliographic references

• JACOBSOHN, L., 2003, The contribution of e-learning in the development of administrator competences: considering the undergraduate student's learning style. M.Sc. Dissertation, USP, São Paulo.
• The C-suite Imperative: Workforce development and Business Outcomes, The Economist Intelligence Unit, Sept. 2014
• Business Games and Logistics Operations, Maurício P. Lima