Business expansion through training and development

Aldi is a leading retailer with over 8,000 stores worldwide. It continues to expand in Europe, North America and Australia. The Aldi brand is associated with value for money. Its stores provide customers with a wide range of products. There is an emphasis on high quality products and providing excellent value for customers.

Aldis rapid expansion means that its current workforce cannot meet its future staffing requirements. The company will need to recruit more than 4,000 new members of staff within the next 12 months to meet the requirements of current exceptional sales growth and new store openings. To attract the best candidates, it offers industry-leading salaries at all levels.

To ensure it gets people with the right set of skills, the company produces clear and detailed job descriptions for each post. These show the tasks and responsibilities for that position and in turn, the skills and competencies needed by an individual to succeed in that role.

Although Aldi expects new recruits to make an immediate contribution to the business, it also provides training so that they can develop their careers within the company. Aldi has entry levels for apprentices, store assistants, deputy managers, assistant store managers, trainee store managers and graduate trainee area managers. Aldi organizes high-level training for recruits to all levels. For example, in their first year, graduate recruits receive training in all areas of the business. This ranges from training in-store to understand how the retail operation works, to regional office tasks.

All new recruits go through a comprehensive structured training plan. New employees learn about the philosophy of Aldi and its expectations of them. This is important in making new employees quickly feel part of the Aldi family.

On-the-job training is training that takes place while employees are actually working. It means that skills can be gained while trainees are carrying out their jobs. This benefits both employees and the business. Employees learn in the real work environment and gain experience dealing with the tasks and challenges that they will meet during a normal working day. The business benefits by ensuring that the training is specific to the job.

Off-the-job training is provided away from the immediate workplace. This might be at a specialist training center or at a college or at a companys own premises. This type of training can be particularly useful for developing transferable skills that can be used in many different parts of the business. It may be used, for example, to train employees in the use of new equipment and new methods.

Questions: (total words count is 500-600 words)

1. Summarize the case study in your own words.

2. Explain why you think both on-the-job and off-the-job training approaches are used by Aldi.

3. Evaluate the different ways that Aldi attracts and trains new staff.