There could be number of issues and problems which an employee has to face whilst working in a business organization. In this particular project, we shall take account of training program based at Riyad Capital, Saudi Arabia consisting of provision of training and development of employees in terms of their first aid training. The whole project was divided into different steps which included needs assessment of employees in the organization. It was imperative to understand first of all, as to what the current status of employees is.
The process will start with simple exercises to understand if they have any knowledge in regards to first aid training. Depending upon the results found from that exercise, further steps in regards of training process shall be implemented. These days, organizations have their separate doctors and first aid related facilities, but no organization would like to take a chance in matters which include health and wellness of employees. In conditions when nobody is around to assist, the employees must be able to help each other so that first aid should be given to any suffering body. ObjectivesFirst and foremost objective of this training plan is to assure that at the end of process, employees are trained enough to provide first aid to their colleagues or family in case of any contingencies.
It should be noted that our objective is not to make out medical experts out of the employees. Rather, we are just looking forward to teach them basic and fundamental first aid.Designing the First Aid Training Program requires the utilization of qualitative and quantitative information that have to be used to create a program that will be in synchronization with the organization. The Riyad Capital First Aid Training Program will be the first aid training program. Its aim is providing young employees at the institution with the necessary base on the conduction and performance of first aid.For evaluation purposes, a list of eight vital objectives was recognized from the project documentation: 1.
Training of twenty selected employees from the lot to enhance their first aid skills. 2. Providing them with proper SOS (Save Our Souls, an acronym for emergency training) training. 3. Capability modules were formulated and utilized in all centers.
4. Training was meant specifically for existing employees; new employees were kept out of the process. 5. New first aid training materials being utilized in all centers 6.
New learning techniques being applied in all training centers 7. In-house capacity to consult set up in and 10 consultants coached. 8. Consultancy projects executed in the departments 9. Organizational and managerial enhancements in Riyad Capital 10.
Office use of first aid to be implemented The objectives of the evaluation process were as follows: • To evaluate the impact of the overall project and the level to which the objectives were met. • To review whether the advantages of the project were far greater than its expenses • To learn any lessons from the project that was important to Riyad Capital and the employees. Needs AssessmentFirst step in needs assessment is to find out employees who are really interested in the training program. There are number of workers in the organization who could be selected for this particular training program. However, in order to finalize the participants in the training program, first step will be to conduct a survey assessing current level of knowledge of employees in respect of first aid training.
For the purpose of this question, survey was carried out on 50 employees out of which, 20 employees were selected for final training purpose. Following questions were asked in this survey:1) Do you have any idea about first aid training: Around 96% of the employees out of 50 employees surveyed had only basic idea about the concept of first aid training. Next question included survey of 48 employees relating to their experience in first aid training. 2) Have you ever experienced medical situation at your job, home or school? Response received from the employees was as follows:Out of the surveyed employees, 37% had experienced any medical emergency in the past. However, this was not the criteria to shortlist participants for the training program. The last question resulted in finalizing participation for training program.
3) Do you see your moral responsibility to first aid in any emergency situation and are willing to go out of the way to learn first aid techniques?Out of the total population, only twenty employees had shown their willingness to spend extra bit of time for learing first aid. One of the biggest issues in terms of employees training and development is the fact that organizations does not want to compromise on the quality and output of the employees and still want to impart training. This requires special effort from the part of employees as well as the company.Literature Review In this portion, we shall take account of some of previously published text on this particular topic and critically analyze the relevance of them in this particular thesis.
Essential principles, such as knowing to use dress bandages or controlling excessive bleeding by applying direct pressure, are often obtained reflexively through life experiences. Nonetheless, to offer useful, essential first aid interventions requires training and practical guidance. This is principally true where it is concerned with potentially terminal illnesses and accidents such as those requiring cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). These actions may be invasive, and bear the risk of further injuring the patient and the first aid provider. Common to most types of training, the effectiveness is best felt before the actual disaster occurs, and in many states, emergency service providers may offer first aid instructions using telephone while the actual staff travels to the site.
Therefore, most researchers such as Anderson, 2012, purposed to investigate any alterations to the safety within construction sites, particularly from the viewpoint of the workers themselves (Anderson, 2012). The major results illustrated that the size of the company was directly related to the safety conduct on construction sites. There is no doubt in the fact that the size of the company affects safety conduct. Larger organizations often display better safety precautions as compared to small and medium organizations. However, with course of time, small and medium sized organizations have also come forward to implement safety precautions in their respective organizations.As per another study, it is known that people's awareness of risk is more imperative than neutral evaluations of probability in affecting risk response actions (Zimolong ; Elke, 2012).
Attitudes towards taking risks are also significant. Apparent control over the condition has been linked to taking risks to the degree that high intensities of perceived control is related to acknowledgement of higher risk levels (Zimolong ; Elke, 2012). The attribution theory also proposes behavioral influences on safety actions and conduct. For instance, the propensity to allocate negative incidences involving other people to internal factors and pessimistic events involving someone to situational or environmental causes has been discovered in earlier risk studies.
Zimolong and Elke (2012) propose that the ‘self bias’ could restrain proper safety behavior.Statistically, accidents are extraordinary occurrences and constant exposure to risk over time creates a perception that it cannot happen to someone. This is completely true and has been displayed at number of occasions. The study done by the authors have displayed as to how a small change in attitude could avoid accidents and prevent loss of life and well being within the organization. The perception and the tendency to be complacent at times hurt the people working in the organization and the management as well.
There must be change in the attitude of the employees in order to bring about a change in the organizational context.Similar to this outlook has been echoed by Health ; Safety Laboratory (2005) who had also proposed that numerous employees may merely acknowledge risk-taking as part of their daily life in the office. Such a defeatist resignation has been observed in earlier studies within the Australian construction sector (Health ; Safety Laboratory, 2005). Thus real cause of problem is in the attitude and outlook of the employees.
If the organizations really want to bring about a change in the organization, they must pay heed to transform the attitude of the employees so that any kind of training imparted to them could actually be fruitful. Health ; Safety Laboratory (2005) observed that the administration of training was not only essential to fulfilling employees' basic rights to be safeguarded from office risks but was also a legal requirement in different jurisdictions.There are large number of experts working in the field of providing training to employees and other interested members of society. First Aid and CPR Training is really important aspect of training the employees which the organizations often take help of.
American Red Cross Society has also initiated various programs in respect of training employees. The only reason why Red Cross Society has shown its interest in training employees due to the long term benefits derived from the training programs. The society has taken up number of initiatives in order to train various volunteers for giving them CPR and first aid training. (“American Red Cross Society--nd”)However, there are contradictory views as expressed above. There are number of researchers and authors who have differed from the views expressed as above. However, current European studies have revealed that first aid and OHS training within many professions has proved to be inadequate (Linard, 2002).
Moreover, there was prevalent criticism of the failure to assess the training being provided to ascertain that it had the desired effect (Lingard, 2012). Studies conducted in the 1970's and early 1980's investigated the impact of first aid training on the prevention of work-related injuries. This study pointed out a relationship between conventional first aid training and a lower occurrence of workplace injuries.An article titled The Importance Of Piratical First Aid Training in Saudi Arabia written by Al Faris contained an experiment done by Miller and Agnew in 1973 where over 5,000 people were chosen for training in basic first aid after which they were allowed to resume their normal working environments where reduced accident and injury report were noted.
Results of the Miller and Agnew study revealed that interviewed over 5, 000 participants revealed that the disaster rate within Orillia had dropped by over 21% due to the introduction of first aid training and that there was a genuine enhancement in safety awareness within the workplace and even off the premises (Hatzakis et al, 2005).Data from the interview revealed that while the trainees held the perception that they were more capable of dealing with disasters and that they affirmed they were more cautious within the workplace settings and had a heightened sense of safety, these thoughts were not automatically accompanied by transformation in conduct such as adorning safety equipment or strapping in seat belts. This implied an ease in eliciting verbal affirmation about maintaining high safety levels than changing workplace behavior.Studies done in industrial environments discovered that there existed a strong link between first aid training and lower industrial accident instances. Al-Faris et al (2012) realized that approaches to risk and perils were not altered compared to those of injuries.
This behavior pointed toward a feature of first aid training as being able to motivate workers to stay away from being injured rather than increasing their awareness of danger. Department of Labor, Government of USA also puts special emphasis on providing first aid training to employees (“United States Department of Labor--nd”).Community resilience to first aid training can be applied to the employee first aid training situation in that both reflect the same difficulties, features and stakeholders. The concept of community resilience was developed by the British Red Cross to facilitate the development of resilience in communities to assist them to get ready for and survive disasters. A fundamental supposition by the British Red Cross is that training the community in first aid helps in building community resilience, through societies increasing their ability to “depend on their own skillfulness to save lives”.
The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) provided the working definition of community resilience as “communities and individuals harnessing local resources and expertise to help themselves in an emergency, in a way that complements the response of the emergency services” (Nzegwu, 2010).In the study, the purpose was to examine whether there was any evidence of community resilience that was created by the introduction of first aid training. The focus of the study by Nzegwu was on community resilience in terms of an emergency where first aid assistance was necessary. The main elements of community resilience included social connectedness, Community efficacy for a first aid emergency, learning and economic wellbeing among others. While in the context of a company, the community resilience can be interpreted to mean employee awareness and preparedness to accidents and disasters.
The main results of passing employees through the community resilience based training programs are that they increase their competence and willingness in delivering first aid, increased employee self-esteem, boosting qualifications and reduced death rates due to avoidable accidents. Apart from the course built specifically for companies like Riyad Capital, there are various tailor made courses for organizations made by nonprofit organizations like St John Ambulance (“St John Ambulance--First aid courses overview--nd”). Preparation for the trainingOne of the biggest aspects which the organization had to pay heed was to divide and fix priorities of the employees. When the organization knows that 20 of its employees shall not be available for at least 2-5 hours a week, then they must find their backups to replace them so that daily work does not get affected. As a financial corporation, satisfaction of clients needs is of utmost importance and the company must be ready with all backup plans.
Preparation started with the development of a draft project that was later reviewed alongside other important documents. Prior to the actual training, the evaluation team visited all the major departments in Riyad Capital. The visits were important as they provided first hand information of the status on the ground.The field visits covered all the major branches of Riyad Capital where they held official and informal meetings with the employees. Precise questionnaires were drafted and used to interview employees who had undergone earlier training in Riyad Capital.
The reconnaissance produced a wealth of information and useful material that include statistics on the number of office accidents that occurred annually, the working conditions of the employees and the level of first aid knowledge that the employees had. It is imperative to note that the methodology depended heavily on the experience and judgment of the evaluation team and several investigation tools. Therefore, if any flaws were realized later on during the training or evaluation stage, they could be attributed to professional error. Time for Training ProgramIn order to ensure that the training program avoids interfering with the goals and objectives of the organization, it is imperative that the training program observes adequate and punctual time in order to circumvent conflict with the operations within the organization. The time for the training program will delve on accommodating time to employees within the organization. This is based on the learning difficulties that the employees are most likely to exhibit in the course of the training.
Thus, the reason behind the incorporation of the different training materials serves the purpose of lessening the time incurred in training the employees. However, the Riyad Capital management was initially opposed to allocating the whole week for training purposes. However, after reviewing the value and benefits that accompanied the first aid training, they duly agreed to accept the timetable.
