Step 1: Needs Assessment
| Competency | Role | Indicators |
| Integrity | Respect all clients, uphold regulations required in the profession and display high conduct standards. | Abides by agency rules and makes decisions in the best interests of the agency. |
| Professionalism | Mastery of the required skills. Achieve results and communicate and professionally make decisions. | Show commitment towards the organization’s objectives. The employee should be able to work under challenging situations, such as multiple calls. |
| Communication | Be clear, impartial, and concise when communicating orally or in writing. Take time to listen to clients and instructions. | Speaks and writes clearly by identifying key points in a subject matter, shares information effectively, and seeks guidance from supervisor whenever needed. |
| Planning and organizing | Attend to all clients’ requests in time. | Plans and organizes work. Take corrective measures. Propose solutions and plan time effectively. |
| Technical credibility | Applies necessary skills to work with the required software, such as office suite. Acquires additional skills to remain up to date. | Knowledgeable and skilled in legal tools and software. The employee should be able to prepare the required records and files in time. |
| Client orientation | The employee should establish effective relationships with clients to ensure satisfaction and have a good relationship with the office of general counsel. | Provide solutions to clients’ needs, organizes work to meet client needs, and seeks feedback on client satisfaction. |
Step 2: Behavior Shaping
Positive Reinforcement: The focus is to reward the employee whenever they achieve the indicators. Rewards that the agency can use include; monetary bonuses and rewards, excellent performance ratings, accolades, like medals, certificates, pins and increased authority on the job.
Plan for the reinforcement schedules:
| Schedule | Rationale | Example |
| Continuous reinforcement | This schedule uses the reward at the beginning of the training to form a strong association between response and behavior. | Excellent performance ratings every month for technical credibility and professionalism in the job. |
| Fixed interval schedule | Deliver rewards annually for exemplary performance. This schedule is good for learning new behaviors in the workplace. | Accolades and monetary bonuses every year if the employee retains high professionalism in communication and achieves the set objectives. |
| Variable interval schedule | This schedule is appropriate for reinforcing already established behavior. The employee is unaware of the following reinforcement. | Time-off rewards, more authority on the job, and monetary rewards for excellent ratings from clients/counsel, effective communication, and planning skills. |
Step 3: Training Design
Orientation/demonstrations
This training method is appropriate for the first one or two weeks of work. The employee is assigned a few duties to work collaboratively with another senior employee. The trainee should be aware of expectations as far as the job position is concerned.
Projects
Technical skills; ability to use the relevant software, organize the required reports and documents, prepare invoices and maintain case files. The employee will be required to show the above skills while under supervision.
Role-Playing
The employee may be required to respond to a few calls and letters. The supervisor may use this chance to highlight where they can improve. Once the employee shows the required professionalism and communication skills, they can work without supervision.
In-Basket exercises
The employee may be assigned a specific case or be required to prepare ledgers for a certain period. The aim is to assess whether the employee knows how to arrange the reports, get the relevant information and file the required legal reports.
Interactive videos
The employee may be required to watch a few demonstrative videos to detect whether the characters did professionally deliver the task, if not, where they could improve.
Step 4: Training Delivery
On-the-Job Training
| Training topic | Method | Hours needed |
| Planning and organizing | The trainee should identify which time management technique worked for them and complete all tasks in time. Assess the trainee’s ability to use abilities and skills to coordinate the duties on the job and organize the workplace. The trainee may highlight a few changes that can improve efficiency at work while reducing wastefulness. | |
| Communication | Evaluate the trainee’s ability to use proper communication skills both in writing and in conversation. The trainee must show the ability to listen and understand and attend to multiple calls simultaneously. | |
| Technical skills | Assess the ability to organize case files as required, gather records from the department, prepare payment invoices, and complete standard legal forms. |
Step 5: Training Assessment
Learning evaluations.
The needs assessment should focus on the operational level and individual level. The former involves task analysis to determine knowledge and skills required for administrative assistance, correlating these to the actual knowledge and skills of the hired employees. Assessment at the individual level to determine how well they perform the role. At this stage, some vital questions include; does the employee possess the necessary knowledge and skills? What is the gap between the expected and actual performance? What impediment is there towards performing efficiently?
Learning evaluation can indicate if the employee gained any knowledge or skills during the training. It is crucial to determine whether the employee’s attitudes towards the role changed during or after the training.
Depending on how long the training process was, it is essential to assess the contribution of the positive reinforcement at this stage. If positive reinforcement did not produce behavior change or the expected results, it would be necessary to adopt a negative reinforcement or punishment.
Personal Reflection
Creating the training process using the ADDIE learning model was insightful and resourceful to me. It eases the process of developing robust training content to benefit trainees. It can help in designing educational content for learners. While developing the training process, I noted that ADDIE’s model reveals the training objectives. It enables the development of structured training content, controls workloads, and clarifies the needs assessment methods for the learning outcomes. After designing the training method for the administrative assistant job position, the model’s significance is now apparent than ever, and it will remain a vital tool in my managerial career.
This knowledge will benefit me in the future. As a manager, meeting employees who might need training is ordinary. The ADDIE training model is a learning model that can assess whether an employee requires training and where to focus it. Without a proper training program, the outcome may not be as anticipated. However, with such experience in the ADDIE process, I can design effective training processes and determine if the training achieved the expected outcome. As an individual, this knowledge will be beneficial because I can improve my knowledge and skills by assessing where I need further training and how to go about it.
