Procurement Management Training Plan
Despite having in-depth insights into the company's financial, supplies, and spends, the Procurement team frequently struggles to leverage these insights to enhance operational efficiency and shaping business decisions. To address this, the Head of Procurement Department and I investigated potential knowledge and skills gaps and considered whether targeted training could benefit the team.
​Audience: Procurement Officers
My role: Project Lead, Learning & Development Specialist, eLearning Developer
Goal
Enhances Procurement Officers' competences to increase cost savings, reducing stock audit discrepancies and ensuring compliance with agreements and contracts.
Solution
A six-month program that includes workshops, eLearning courses, and design challenge, supported by job aids for efficiency and compliance.
Outcome
Increased compliance rate with critical activities.
Project Goal
This training aims to increase trainees' confidence and capabilities in demonstrating business value on a strategic level, including:
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Increasing cost savings and tangible examples of business decisions influenced by Procurement insights
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Reducing discrepencies during stock audits
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Increasing transactions compliance with agreements and contracts
Design Process
Prior to shaping the training plan, meetings were held with the Education Manager and Head of Procurement to identify the following:
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Objectives that we aim to influence with the training including their success indicators
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Activities that team members need to perform alongside key competencies to execute those activities
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Team members' existing knowledge, experience, challenges, and needs
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Skills gap based on existing understanding and resources, thereafter we brainstormed on the key competencies that need to be addressed
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Following further analysis sessions, we discovered the following gaps:
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Understanding the value of a procurement function in business
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Interpreting the insights availabile in [IMS]
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Stakeholders engagement
Consequently, our training plan is designed to address these specific areas.
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We opted to make eLearning courses the primary component of the training due to their cost-effectiveness compared to in-person training Even better, this allows reusability for onboarding new team members and cross-training initiatives.
Solution
A combination of workshops, eLearning courses, and a design challenge are spread over six months. In addition to the training, I suggested my stakeholders to develop job aids which provide guiding check-list for critical activities, with a focus on operational productivity and compliance.
The eLearning courses incorporate a real-life scenario to convey unfamiliar concepts and enhance comprehension and retention. The first course focuses on topics and processes that are unfamiliar to the target audience, as discovered during the needs analysis.
Upon completing the Procurement Essentials course, trainees proceed to the "Transforming Data into Strategy with [ISM]" course. This focuses on the analysis of cross-departmental decision-making processes, identify potential risks, and formulation of mitigation strategies. This course is concluded with a design challenge to assess trainees' comprehension.
The design challenge is presented to sharpen and assess the trainee's skills in formulating supplier sourcing strategies that align with business needs, procurement regulations, and CSR considerations.
The Education Manager is also considering to adopt an AI-driven evaluation tool for written assessments, as it also provides additional value to their other training initiatives.
Stakeholder Engagement Workshops would be delivered once all trainees have succesfully completed the "Transforming Data into Strategy" course and design challenge. Additionally, an existing eLearning course on key stakeholders would be updated, and trainees are encouraged to participate in this course and general communication courses to enrich their workshop experience.
Outcome
My stakeholders were highly satisfied with the training outline and plan due to its alignment with their needs and objectives; elevating the department to the industry standards. The Education Manager expressed the desire to use this design process and outline as a new standard for their training programs. Originally tasked with outlining the training plan, the positive reception led to my involvement in developing the resources and content to create a foundation for their future training initiatives.