In 1970, The Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas opened in hopes of bringing the concept of aerobics that Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper wrote about to life. Cooper Clinic is one of the seven health and wellness entities under Cooper Aerobics. The seven entities include: The Cooper Institute, Cooper Clinic, Cooper Fitness Center, Cooper Spa, Cooper Hotel, Cooper Complete, and Cooper Wellness Strategies. Cooper Clinic exists to help patients reach and sustain the best health possible through its world-renown comprehensive physical exams. Cooper Clinic provides patients with individualized, in-depth pictures of their health, action plans to improve, and same-day test results, all in less than one day. The physicians at Cooper Clinic offer a broad range of medical services, including breast health, cardiology, preventative and cosmetic dermatology, direct medicine, gastroenterology, and imaging. Cooper Clinic’s brand positioning is: “To people for whom a life full of good health is a priority, Cooper is the health and wellness resource that bases its recommendations on its world-leading body of data and experience.”
Cooper Clinic has seven core values which are the guiding principles that dictate what they do in this organization. The seven core values are: prevention, research, excellence, fitness, integrity, compassion, and service. Cooper Clinic refers to their employee base as the Cooper Team. The organization, as a culture, reflects a well-rounded approach to health, fitness, nutrition, and life. Cooper Clinic coined the phrase Get Cooperized™ to reflect working on yourself as a whole. The market for Cooper Clinic consists of individuals wanting to live not only a long life but a healthy one. Cooper Clinic promotes services and products through the internet, social media, event sponsorships, corporate accounts and word of mouth. There are two locations for Cooper Clinic. The main location is Dallas, Texas which brings in customers from around the world. The most recent location is in Beijing, China which widens the clientele.
The ADDIE, Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation, Model “is a strategic plan for course design and may serve as a blueprint to various other instructional activities”. (Davis, 2013). The ADDIE Model is a method of frame work which has been used to design and develop educational and training programs for many years. This model will be used to create a learning program for Cooper Clinic. Once the learning program is completed, the learners should be able to complete the desired learning objectives.
Analysis
In order to analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of Cooper Clinic, I gathered information relative to the daily operations and turnover rate of employees. According to The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the industry standard turnover rate is 19.9%. (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 2016). Cooper Clinic’s turnover rate is actually lower than most, at 16.5%. Some of the practices they have correctly implemented leading to employee satisfaction, include: promoting from within, employee recognition and incentivization, and properly dividing up workload balance within a department. Cooper offers several incentives for their employees making their salary and benefits packages comparable to those on the national market. Their employees are incentivized through various performance appraisal methods such as: Cooper Stars Annual Ceremony recognizing employee achievements and Cooper Super and Shining Stars nominations. Cooper Aerobics utilizes a two to three step interview process with the first interview being with the hiring manager only, the second interview with a panel of managers and peers, and the third interview with the departmental manager or entity director, as needed. I further evaluated the interview process to determine how Cooper Aerobics approached their interview process. I determined Cooper Aerobics utilizes a combination of situational and behavioral interview questions during their process. Some of the questions utilized during this interview process are: What does customer service mean to you? Have you ever dealt with an unreasonable or difficult customer? How did you handle it? This is important because it enables the interviewer to gauge if the potential employee’s behaviors align with the organizational mission and culture. Lastly during my analysis, it has been expressed by current staff members that employees would like to see a time reduction in the hiring process. The average wait time between interview and job offer for Cooper Clinic is roughly two months. Once hired, however, employees reported great satisfaction with both their positions and the organization’s culture. A few areas of opportunity identified by the Human Resources department itself is their training as well as consistency in performing exit interviews. Human Resources, HR, has previously focused on managerial training and are now beginning to shift focus towards employee training and growth. This has been due to short staffing in the HR department which, once resolved, will enable the department to focus more time and energy on developing a curriculum and employee training and development. They also admitted they do not complete exit interviews for all employees who leave the company. Human Resources did advise, however, that they interact with their staff on a consistent basis and perform employee satisfaction surveys to gather feedback.
From the analysis conducted there are several position levels in need of a learning program. The first learning objective is subjective to all departments and includes department managers and executives.
1. Complete a SWOT analysis to identify weaknesses, define desired results, and determine areas of performance needing improvement for each department.
The next few learning objectives are mainly directed to Human Resources, since this is the department in charge of training processes, interviews, and employee departures.
2. Design an interview process to shorten the lag time between initial screening to job offer
3. Implement an organized, systematic training process by analyzing the training needs and objectives, selecting certain training methods, schedule, conduct and monitor the chosen training methods and measure the training outcomes.
4. Create a tracking system and record of why employees are leaving.
The workplace “requires a continual focus on learning, to improve productivity, to enhance the flexibility of employees and to develop and transform organizations.” (Boud, 2012). Due to the nature of adult learning, the following participants will need a clear explanation of the reason of learning. Each individual will have to intrinsically motivate themselves to complete this learning program or change will not occur. In the workplace, individuals are apprehensive to change. In today’s environment, “the ability to change rapidly, efficiently, and almost continually is a major dilemma for organizations”. (Zafar & Naveed, 2014). With this hesitation for change, the learning program will focus on transformative learning. Transformative learning will develop new perspectives which are “more inclusive, discriminating, open and reflective, and acceptable to their colleagues. This appreciation will form an important perspective when they negotiate training to develop the capacity of the health and community service workforce”. (Choy, 2009).
Design
The learning program will focus on four subjects: SWOT analysis, effective interviewing, training in the workplace, and exit interviews. These are the four subjects in greatest need of change for Cooper Clinic. Before the participants even start the course, they will be given a questionnaire to help the program designer understand what they do and do not know, and then these results will be compared to a post-course questionnaire. This questionnaire will have questions regarding the information being taught, like interviewing practices and managerial skills. The start of the learning program will be orientation for all employees undergoing training. Since most employees are of managerial level or higher, the likelihood of these employees having gone through orientation in the past 6 months is doubtful. Orientation will give the employees a refresh on the company’s organizational structure, values, goals, and mission statements. The use of orientation will also induce employee change. Employees are more likely to change behavior when it is beneficial for the company. The orientation process will not necessarily dive into the key learning objectives but will start the learning program off with why this learning program is essential for Cooper Clinic. The next portions of the learning program will be a mixture of online, face-to-face, and hybrid, online and in-person, trainings. Online learning materials “tend to deploy the media in a creative and productive way and to restructure the education to respond constructively and progressively to the technological and social change”. (Muruganantham,2015). Once Human Resources has conducted their own SWOT analysis, they will then lead an in-person training on SWOT analysis. This portion of the learning program will include supplemental material that will require the learner to perform before and after class reading and activities. The subject of interviewing and exit interviewing/employee departure will include both online, in-person, and hybrid training. After the visual, reading, and writing learning has occurred there will be a section to apply the skills learned in a kinesthetic way. The topic of employee training will be taught through online training with a focus on the importance of employee growth. After each subject has been completed, the learner will complete an assessment in a quiz form to test the information being taught. The quiz will contain questions specific to the subject.
The portion of the learning program for application of skills will include many activities. The first activity will be partners practice. This activity will include practicing the information being taught with another member of the learning program. For example, one of the learning objectives is design an interview process to shorten the lag time between initial screening to job offer. For this example, during the application process the participant will take their partner from the beginning to the end of the interview to hiring process, explaining specific areas of efficiency and knowledge they obtained during the online and in-person training, and describing how long the process takes. During this activity the partner will act as the interviewee/new hire. At the end of the practice the participants will switch roles and then provide constructive criticism to their partner.
The entire learning program from orientation to application of skills will be taught in a three-month span. Each segment of learning will last about 2 and a half weeks, with the final two weeks focusing on application. The learning program will use a multimodal learning preference. The use of all four learning styles will be of benefit to all employees since one learning style is usually not applicable for all adult learners. The learning program will include aural, visual, read/write, kinesthetic learning styles.
One of the constraints of the learning program is the budget. The budget will have to be based off what Cooper Clinic has available for quarterly employee training. Since some of the content is done face-to-face in house, this will cut down on cost of the overall training. The course will take three months, and employees will complete the necessary training during work hours.
Development
The “development of a program or course can assist developers in instituting a learner-centered approach rather than a teacher-centered approach, making the program more applicable and meaningful for learners”. (Peterson, 2013). The overall course in order to find ample material, extra instructions, and thorough training will take 3 months plus an extra month before the course begins. Ideally the course will begin during the first quarter of the fiscal year. Therefore, the analysis takes place during the end of the previous year to determine how to create a more successful subsequent year. The course design and content will be completed a month prior to the start of the course. This extra month gives the course designer a month to determine any areas that lack thorough instruction. Before the course is available for the learners the content will be verified through both beta and pilot testing. Beta testing will occur before the course is final to allow for any changes that might need to take place. It will include a thorough walk through of all of the information. The beta testing will start at the orientation and end at the section of employees applying the skills they learned. This will allow for the tester/program designer to make sure the information and course flows and there isn’t a topic lacking in information/instruction or subsequent materials. Since some of the course is online, the beta test will allow for the program designer to try out the programs to make sure it is easy to access and navigate. Once the information and course design are finalized a pilot test will occur. The pilot test is similar to the beta test. Therefore, the tester will go through the entire course from orientation to application.
Implementation
The entire training program should be completed within a quarter. This allows for amply time for training as well as applying the training to real situations. The learning program will focus on four subjects: SWOT analysis, effective interviewing, training in the workplace, and exit interviews. The training will start at the beginning of the fiscal year and continue through the first quarter. Each topic, SWOT analysis, effective interviewing, training in the workplace, and exit interview, will take two and a half weeks to complete. This allots for a total of 10 weeks to complete the instructional portion of the learning program. The leftover two weeks will be designated to application of learning, or to participants who did not pass the end of topic quiz. If all participants pass the four end of topic quizzes, then the two weeks will be divided into four parts for each topic application of skills. These two weeks give the learning program a little bit of flexibility. The full two weeks are not necessary, but are exceptionally beneficial, for application of acquired knowledge which is why learners have the ability to cut into this time when end of topic quizzes are not passed.
The facilitator is the Human Resources department. The Human Resources department will be aware of the objectives, activities, and assessments. The instructor will be given the information during the month of beta and pilot testing. This will allow the facilitator ample time to understand what they are going to be teaching. Of course, if any changes occur during the beta and pilot testing of the development phase then the instructor will be made aware.
During this phase of the ADDIE model, the learners will be given an itinerary on the learning program. This itinerary will prepare the learners for the coming three months ahead. In the itinerary there will be information on completion dates, online class times, face-to-face class times as well as location, dates for end of topic assessments, and materials needed during this learning program.
Evaluation
The evaluation of the learning program will include a formative evaluation, summative evaluation, and participant evaluation. Formative evaluation assesses a learner’s progress as they are completing the course/program. This allows for a design that corrects disparities as they occur instead of at the end of the course. Summative evaluation involves evaluating the learner’s results at the end of the course and comparing those results to the expected standard. Participant evaluation allows learners to give feedback on the learning program after the course has been completed.
Formative Evaluation
Formative evaluation occurs while the course is being completed and asses the learner’s progress. The purpose of formative evaluation is to improve students learning. An example of formative evaluation is an end of module or chapter quiz or discussion. This allows for the course designer to see if the information is efficiently being taught, and if not, then the designer can modify the material to induce efficient learning. For the learning program, after every two and a half weeks the learner will complete a short end of topic quiz over the information taught during the segment. The quiz will have questions specific to information from the topic of the training course just completed. If the information is understood and applied to the quiz, then the employee is able to move to the next course. If the information is not understood and the learner fails the quiz, then an extra two to three days will be allotted for supplemental material that will further teach and benefit the learner. After this supplemental learning material is thoroughly examined then the learner is able to retest. The program is designed for participants to have ample material and time to understand the concepts. This time will be taken out of the final two weeks of the learning program.
Summative Evaluation
At the end of the course there will be a summative evaluation. This evaluation tests the participants on their overall knowledge obtained from the course. The purpose of summative evaluation is to assess the learner’s achievements. Usually with summative evaluation the learner is assigned a grade. To use summative evaluation, the method of evaluation must be very specific and specialized to ensure the information collected in reliable and valid. A use of summative evaluations is end of course questionnaires. End of course questionnaires are also the least expensive with the largest sample size method of evaluation. The design of this learner program provided learners with a pre-course questionnaire. This questionnaire helped the program designer understand what they do and do not know, and then now compare the results to the post-course questionnaire. This questionnaire will have questions regarding the information being taught throughout the learning program but also specific to the topics discussed, like interviewing practices and managerial skills. The use of pre and post course questionnaires compares the information, practices, and behaviors of the learner before and after the course.
Participant Evaluation
A participant evaluation will allow learners to give feedback on what worked and did not work for them in the course and allows the designer to take this criticism and make changes if needed for future courses. A questionnaire will be used in order to obtain results from a high sample size and keep cost low. The participant questionnaire will focus on course satisfaction. The questionnaire will allow for a score from low to high and ask questions regarding the effectiveness, instruction, and timeliness of the course.
After the completion of the learning program derived from the use of the ADDIE Model, the learners should be able to complete the desired learning objectives: complete a SWOT analysis to identify weaknesses, define desired results, and determine areas of performance needing improvement for each department, design an interview process to shorten the lag time between initial screening to job offer, implement an organized, systematic training process by analyzing the training needs and objectives, selecting certain training methods, schedule, conduct and monitor the chosen training methods and measure the training outcomes, and create a tracking system and record of why employees are leaving.