Safety and Ergonomics
at Marche Al-Baqr

A performance campaign to address safety compliance at Marche Al-Baqr (a grocery store).

Overview

As a follow-up on the Instructional Design course, I expanded on the safety compliance issue at Marche Al-Baqr (a grocery store) in my Human Performance Technology (ETEC 651) course. The course establishes the idea that performance issues in organizations need to be addressed in the context of the performers, the associated stakeholders, and the organizational values. It takes a structured approach to research, collect data, understand learners, establish performance objectives, identifying a cause, and proposing and developing, in-detail, interventions. Therefore, this project explores the performance problem through engineering models that address the problem at different levels, and expand, in-detail, on a few of the suggested solutions.

Design and Considerations

Following are a few design considerations that I took during the process:

  • The program follows the organization’s style guide (where applicable).

  • It leverages different media (e.g., text, images, videos) towards a meaningful learning experience.

  • Each intervention is designed for the right medium and format based on the learner profile, resources, and content.

  • To apply suitable best practices and theories of learning.

  • To provide learners with opportunities to reinforce and assess learning.

  • To get feedback from learners and create a bond with consumers to stay connected.

  • The needs assessment accounts for the diverse performers, the associated stakeholders, and the work environment.

  • It provides performers with the necessary incentives, motives, and resources to performers.

  • It provides them with the necessary support to successfully execute the performance objectives identified.

Performance Needs Assessment

The first step towards an effective performance campaign was to perform a detailed performance needs assessment. The assessment includes background, research strategy, business need, performance scenarios, performance objectives, description of performers, product and project constraints, cause analysis, and summative evaluation. The key aspects of an excellent needs assessment are rigor and breadth, relevance to performance objectives, depth, precision, and coherence. Considering all of these aspects, a thorough needs assessment was conducted and presented in clear language for the clients and sponsors.

The cause analysis was conducted through Chevalier’s Updated BEM (Behaviour Engineering Model) which identifies individual (knowledge/skill, capacity, and motive) and environmental (information, resources, and incentives) issues.

A visual representation of the performance campaign roadmap.

High Level Design

The second step in the campaign was to prepare a high-level design (HLD) that encapsulates a complete roadmap of the proposed interventions and details each intervention. While strongly holding on to the needs analysis, the high-level design is focused on the overall flow/sequence of the whole campaign and the specific timing of each intervention. HLD serves the purpose of proposing a campaign that addresses the problem at the individual, environmental, and organizational levels. It acts as a comprehensive, quick-to-review document for sponsors/clients to refer to and as a starting point for the detailed designs that go further into the development, implementation, and evaluation of the interventions.

Due to the scope of this project, only eight interventions are proposed. The HLD document includes background information, the performance objectives addressed, the rationale and suggests format, communication medium, and genre for each intervention.

Detailed Design

The final step in the process was to develop a detailed design. The detailed design focuses on the development of each intervention. It understands the dependencies within the workflow (performance) as well as across interventions and proposes a holistic set of materials that will act together to realize the benefit of the intervention. With the performance objectives at the core, it also provides the prototypes for each intervention that are empathetic with the performers. Due to the scope of the project, only two of the eight proposed interventions were addressed.

The detailed design also provides a formative evaluation for each intervention and a summative evaluation plan for the performance campaign. Formative evaluation plans address the effectiveness of the developed materials through a technical review, a developmental review, a copy-editing review, and a pilot test before they are implemented. Summative evaluation plans evaluate the effectiveness of the performance campaign by evaluating changes in performance behaviors and the realization of business objectives.

Reflection and Plan to Improve

Human Performance in essence is much more than trainings as real-life performance problems extend beyond a lack of knowledge and skills. This course provided me with the much-needed perspective that adds to my skillset and my vision as an instructional designer. As organizations and academic institutions find solutions to enhance the productivity and efficiency of the performers, business goals can only be realized through a holistic, empathetic performance campaign.

Being at the core of this course, the project provided me with a great opportunity to learn, develop, and practice problem-solving skills in a very structured and comprehensive way. However, given more time I would like the experience to develop diverse performance interventions. Moreover, I would love to practice my skills with different projects in corporate and academic work settings. It is convenient to assume unlimited budgets and approvals, to imagine learner personas, and anticipate challenges, it is usually a bit more complex and limiting (in most cases) when it comes to real life. Communicating with sponsors, clients, subject matter experts, and working with a team is the ‘people management’ aspect of Human Performance that I would like to further experience during my upcoming internship. I feel that it will provide me with the opportunity to take my skills further - test them and add more finesse.

Previous

TOMS: Creating a Better Tomorrow
Next

Research Poster: Academic Procrastination