Abstract
M.Ed.
Telkom SA Ltd. has a newly constituted national in-house training
organisation known as the Center for Learning, which needs to provide
performance improvement solutions and initiatives to the company in order to
meet the challenges of a more competitive market. The exclusivity period in
providing telecommunication solutions in South Africa is drawing to an end
with major international competitors waiting to enter the presently exclusive
market.
The voices of the operational business units are heard in their frustration as to
the inaccessibility of much needed performance improvement solutions. In
particular one educational process, this being the performance consulting
process, has been identified to be lacking in its functionality of application.
This performance consulting process entails inter alia relationship building,
competency profiling, needs analysis and personal development planning and
programming. In addition the speculation of the media on the resignation of
the chief operating officer of Telkom includes the slow pace of training to be a
contributing factor.
The research problem emanates from the expectation of the performance
consulting process, which is supposed to be dynamic in identifying
performance needs and translating it into interventions customed to real time
needs of operational business units.
The research approach followed to investigate the application difficulties of
performance consulting, entailed the qualitative methodology of full
participative observation, observation and interviewing of purposively selected
subjects. Examining people's words and actions in a descriptive way
represented the situation as experienced by the participants. The constant
comparative method of data analysis provided six categories of information,
reflecting the perceptions of the function and process to be followed by the performance consultant, which contributed to the conceptualisation of a theory
behind the problem.
The perceptions, views and concerns expressed by the research subjects
were found to represent the mere symptoms of a more fundamental problem
within the Center for Learning as an organisation. The difficulties experienced
in the application of the performance consulting process are therefore
considered to be a result of this deeper problem.
The recommendation in answer to this deeper problem includes the
suggestion that an independent task team should assess the nature and
extent of the internal problems to this performance improvement organisation,
intentionally aligning it to support the company in its business mission.