COB's first training and talent development class helps local companies

New to the Department of Management’s curriculum this past spring was the Training and Talent Development class. It’s a senior-level HR strategy course that focuses on the design, development, evaluation and ongoing management of content and delivery.

The inaugural class had 25 students that broke out into five separate teams to help two eastern North Carolina companies: Iconic Marine Group of Chocowinity, North Carolina and Hackney USA of Washington, North Carolina.

The students were tasked to identify opportunities to implement training programs that would allow both companies to achieve their strategic goals.

“This class was my first real step into the world of human resources. Not only did I learn valuable information on the topic of training and talent development throughout this semester, I gained an extensive amount of knowledge on what it means to be a team player,” said student Nicole Schwartz.

“Working on projects with groups has been a staple of the College of Business; however, this was my first experience presenting to a client directly through ECU,” said Maria Jose Quidel Espinoza, HR management concentration graduate. “Being able to collaborate with both my team and an external client on a human resource-related topic has given me the confidence to leverage my knowledge after college.”

The students first started by researching the company. They conducted a needs assessment and SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to each company’s approach to the training and development of its people.

After numerous interviews, research, conversations and an employee survey, they presented opportunities for training, intervention and development solutions for each company.

“The ultimate goal is for the companies to take what was presented to them and put the recommendations to work,” said Sharon Justice, teaching instructor, COB’s Department of Management. “Just as important, the intent of this class is to give students practical, real-world experience that allows them to analyze needs and identify options to train and develop staff.”

“Overall, I think the consulting project taught our team the most about actual business skills and applied our knowledge the most from any class I have had,” said student Mitchell Francisco.  “The project challenged me to think in-depth about the topics covered, and it helped our team formulate questions whose answers provided our team with the most useful information possible.”

Each student group contributed more than 250 hours of effort to the project.  Both companies were presented with several viable options to implement new training and development programs in their respective organizations.

“I enjoyed the multifaceted approach in which we were able to learn the information as the student, and then turn around in teams to use the information that we learned to develop a training program for an actual client,” said student Kenneth Palmer.

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