Training and Development Program for Bass Pro

Training and Development program for Bass Pro Shops Top Managers Training and Development Final paper Bass Pro Shop Company Overview Bass Pro Shop (Outdoor World) is a private retailer known of selling hunting, fishing and camping gear related to all outdoor and recreational activities that started in Missouri in 1972. By 1974, Bass Pro Shops became very popular and its first catalog first was mailed out. Soon, it became the world's largest mail order sporting goods store. Around 1995, Bass Pro Shops Sportsman's Warehouse opened in Atlanta, Georgia, its first store outside the state of Missouri.Today, Bass Pro Shops became one of America’s premier outdoor retail leaders serving over 75 million sportsmen. Bass Pro Shops have over 39 stores within the US and have several other stores that do not fall under the Outdoor World flagship brand The article we will be analyzing for this paper is called, Bass Pro Failed to Hire Blacks and Hispanics at its Stores Nationwide, EEOC Says in Suit. The article was press released on September 21, 2011 by The U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World is being accused in a nationwide federal lawsuit of discriminating against qualified black and Hispanic employees and applicants since 2005 (EEOC, 2011). Bass Pro Shops is additionally being accused of retaliation against employees who were against the discriminatory practices, firing them or forcing them to quit their jobs. They also destroyed or did not save documents associated to internal discrimination complaints that made racially derogatory remarks about minority employees and employment applications.In the lawsuit it cited examples from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Indiana showing a national pattern of discrimination. Analysis of the EEOC Article This topic and article was chosen by our team from the EEOC website for the following reasons: 1) It is a credited article 2) It includes the findings and the fact based upon the EEOC filled t he lawsuits against Bass Pro 3) It is well written, accurate, verifiable, clear and concise 4) Broad in its coverage: (a) It addresses the main aspects of the topic; and b) It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail 5) Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each. 6) It is very detailed in the findings and investigation processes. 7) It provides information and help for those who have been discriminated against and never dared to file a lawsuit or complain. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency charged with enforcing antidiscrimination laws in employment.The EEOC found evidence of nationwide discrimination by Brass Pro under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, â€Å"which prohibits discrimination based on race and national origin, and prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who complain about employment discrimination and requires them to keep certain employment recordsà ¢â‚¬ . (EEOC, 2012) Bass Pro is been held responsible for consistently denying jobs to qualified minorities based on their race (African-American), ethnicity (Hispanic or Latino) or national origin not their skills, knowledge, abilities or work experience.The EEOC did an investigation and found statistical evidence based on the number of minority employees working nationwide for this employer that Bass Pro has engaged in discriminatory hiring procedures. The underrepresentation of minority employees and applicants was so noticeable that the possibility that it could happen without discrimination is extremely small. The EEOC found plenty of data to accuse Bass Pro with a national pattern of discrimination. In the lawsuit there were a number of examples of racially derogatory remarks made by management at different Bass Pro stores.Some of the examples are the following: â€Å"it is getting a little dark in here, you need to hire some white people†, â€Å"Hispanics are wetback s†, â€Å"Hispanics should be shot at the boarder by the Border Patrol†, â€Å"hiring black candidates did not fit the corporate profile. † (Samuel, Post, 2011) The EEOC also specified in the lawsuit that Bass Pro did not offer any evidence that the company is using fair hiring practices. On the EEOC website you can find what is considered Race/Color Discrimination and Harassment.The EEOC considers harassment to include, â€Å"racial slurs, offensive or derogatory remarks about a person’s race or color. Harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision such as the victim being fired or demoted † (EEOC, 2011). The reason Bass Pro is being sued by the EEOC is because they believe they have a case against them based on the evidence and data they collected throughout the investigation. Needs Assessment Organizational Analysis:The top manager s of Bass Pro Shops are reluctant to apply diversity practices on their recruitment processes, which has significantly damage their reputation and organizational climate. The successful implementation of a training and development method focused on promoting diversity will attract more customers and skilled employees to Bass pro shops stores. Thus, improving the reputation of the company in both employees and customers. The lawsuits derived from their discrimination practices has already damage Bass Pro’s reputation and might jeopardize their cost structure.Thus, the implementation of a diversity training method is a good strategy to change the top managers mindset and promote the benefits of having a diverse workforce across the organization. Person Analysis: The top managers of bass pro shops need to be trained to understand the importance of having diverse workforce across the organization. This means, that trainers should ensure that the managers are committed with the tr aining before the implementation of the program.According to (Brighthub, 2011) it is essential for managers to understand the problem they are involved in and be mentally committed to change their mindset regarding discrimination acts. On the other hand, the managers of Bass pro shops have sufficient technical skills that allow them to utilize technological equipment and understand software solutions that the training program might contain. Task Analysis: The task analysis would be focused on the top manager’s job. The activities that the program contain involve the interaction of top managers with non-white employees.The main objective of the interactive activities is to break up with the existing bias that top managers have of non-white employees. Thus, the creation of activities that require the collaboration of both managers and employees will improve the knowledge and skills that top managers require to get along with non-white employees. Recommendation: According the in formation stated in the article, Bass pro shops have four main issues that we as consultants are trying to address by the implementation of a training and development program for the top managers of the organization.The four main issues include, the misconception of the basic assumption, which is the organization necessity to hire only white people in order to maintain customers satisfaction; the legal implications derived from their discriminatory practices against afro-American and Hispanic people in their hiring policies; the potential high costs of losing the case and the bad reputation the organization might build with these discriminatory practices. According to (Noe, 2010), There are six stages that the training and development method should accomplish in order to positively impact the main issues that the organization is facing.These include: Ensuring Managers’ Readiness for Training & Creating a Learning Environment in an open dialog with diversity counselors. This i s very important because managers can get feedback regarding their performances. That way, the manager can evaluate the employees perspectives regarding his/her own diversity practices. According to (PACT Training, 2006) The development plan of a succesful training and development program should always start with the definition of the learning outcomes. There are two learning outcomes of the training and development plan for Bass Pro Shops.The first learning outcome is to increase the knowledge of top managers about discrimination acts, and the seccond learning outcome is to build in top managers, skills and behaviors that enables them to effectively apply diversity practices. If managers successfuly learn how to apply these two expected outcomes, there must be a decrease in the number of complaints and litigations against the Bass pro shops. Thus, reducing the potential costs derived from lawsuits and improving their public image. A Cost-benefit analysis will also be a part of the developing plan.Costs such as the purchase of the training program, learning materials, equipments, facilities, and the salary of trainers will be included in the analysis. Some of the specific benefits that the program will pursue include: improvement of managers performance derived from diversity practices, increase of the number of customers, increasing sales of products, and cost saving derived from a decrease in lawsuit payments. Selecting Training Method The training program has to be in adherence to the legislation.Bass Pro Shops need a training program that helps its managers to understand when their behaviors violate the equal employment opportunity laws. Some of the strategies used to enforce this knowledge include: †¢ Encourage managers to learn about Title VII online. Managers can the web to self-train their knowledge about laws. When the self-training is finished, use evaluation test such as online tests or paper-based tests to evaluate the learning outcomes. †¢ Use case studies (Noe, 2010), to encourage anagers to understand the legislation. Managers might find in case studies, a more practical exercise to learn about behaviors that may violate the law. †¢ Incorporate diversity-related news items into the content of the program (PACT Training, 2006). For example, the article mentioned that Abercrombie & Finch had to paid over $50 million dollars to settle employment discrimination suits in 2004. This type of news might increase the awareness of top managers about the implications of engaging in discriminatory practices. Conduct adventure learning activities that encourage the interaction of top managers with non-white employees (Noe, 2010). These type of activities promote trust between the two groups, which allows top managers to deeply observe the characteristics of non-white employees. Thus, improving the managers ability to hire based on skills qualifications rather than hiring based on a specific race. Monitoring and evaluatin g the program There are different techniques that Bass pro Shops can use to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the training program.Bass Pro Shops can use test methods to evaluate the impact of the training. These test can be conducted online and paper-based, and they will be focused in measuring the training outcomes. Some of the tests that Bass pro shop can use to evaluate the training program include: Performance appraisal and pretest/posttest evaluation methods (Noe, 2010). Both of these evaluation methods will strive to evaluate the extent to which the top managers apply diversity practices in the organization, and how the results are aligned to what was taught, practiced and expected.Additionally, they will also measure the extent to which the employees performance has improved as a result of the diversity practices. Bass pro shops can also encourage managers to research about workforce diversity best practices and continuously put new practices into action as a part of the monitoring process of the program. These new practices maximize the skills, satisfaction and retention of the employees as well as promoting a continuous learning environment. References Basspro. com (2012). Retrieval April 3, 2012, from Bassproshop Website: http://www. basspro. com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPageC? storeId=10151&ca