Advice report Apollo

report
advice
On the learning and
development strategy of
Apollo Tyres
28/04/2017
Adhitya Fernando (s1759019) & Angeliki Tziala (s1771981) | Word Count: 4451

ADVICE REPORT ON LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
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Table of content
Table of content .............................................................................................................. 1
Management Summary................................................................................................... 2
Analysis of the Case........................................................................................................ 1
Interpretation of the Case................................................................................................ 5
Application of One Contrasting Theory............................................................................ 7
Advice for the Organization............................................................................................. 9
References.................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 13
a. Trancript of the interview ..................................................................................... 13
b. The codebook: ...................................................................................................... 31

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Management Summary
pollo Tyres is among the world’s
biggest companies on tyre
manufacturing and is expanding
rapidly. The company values
continuous learning and perceives employees’
development as the cornerstone of business
prosperity and growth. Precisely, two categories of
employees have been identified as the main focus
for development at the moment namely plant
workers and managers, with increased attention
on the later. In supporting employees’
development, the company offers a variety of
training and learning materials, opportunities for
interaction among employees, and access to IT
platforms. The vision of Apollo Tyres focuses on
the alignment of the business needs with the
development needs.
The analysis of the interview with the L&D
manager of Apollo Tyres revealed that the
company’s strategy on learning and development
is in line with Senge’s theory on workplace
learning “Systems Thinking and Building Learning
Organizations.” Apollo Tyres operates according
to Senge’s fifth principle, namely system thinking,
personal mastery, mental models, building shared
vision and team learning. To provide the company
with advice on improving its current learning
curriculum and realizing its vision, we contrasted
the first theory with Schon’s theory of “Reflective
Practitioner”.
Analysis the case, our main focus was
narrowed down to the managerial training.
Derived from Schӧn’s theory, reflection is the
central element of the provided advice. More
specifically, it is advised for Apollo to orient the
semi-annual performance meetings towards
reflection, to enable the employees’ awareness of
their strengths and weaknesses. In practice, this
could be done by integrating reflection-oriented
questions during the performance meetings,
guiding the employees to reflect on their learning
and development needs. Transforming employees
into “reflective practitioners” will assist the process
of aligning the business’ needs with the
development needs.
Based on the reasoning above, Apollo is
also advised to switch the current traditional
teacher-centered training into trainee-centered.
Coaching is preferable than teaching, for
employees to learn on the job and learn to think
while doing. Being trained like this, the employees
will acquire the necessary skills and become
reflective.
Finally, the last recommendation concerns
the fourth block of Senge’s fifth discipline, building
shared vision. Although Apollo’s strategy is in line
with Senge’s theory, it seems that the company’s
shared vision requires reinforcement. Therefore,
Apollo is advised to disseminate its vision across
the different regions and bring all of its employees
on the same wavelength. It could be done
informally by personal communication and formally
by organizing meetings and conferences for the
managers to connect. Moreover, a “sharing day”
could be arranged, giving the opportunity to the
employees to get in touch with the business
leaders to communicate the vision of the company
in a more meaningful way.
A

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Analysis of the Case
Apollo Tyres is one of the top 20 tyre manufacturing company in the world, 17th in the
year rank of 2015, and employs more than 16.500 global workforces, with a production
capacity of 77.000 tyres per day. For the last few years, the company is undergoing a
rapid global expansion, started with the acquisition of Dunlop’s Africa operation in 2006
and followed by the acquisition of Vredestein BV in Enschede in 2009. Currently, the
company has proudly celebrated the inauguration of its sixth plant, located in Hungary,
and acquired the title of the world’s most advanced tyre manufacturing facility.
The organizational structure in Apollo is classified into the regional and central
function. Global research and development (R&D), global manufacturing (GMF), and
global learning and development (L&D) are considered as central. The global L&D
department is responsible for learning and development in two different regions namely
Europe and America (EA) and Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA). The
conceptual and strategic planning is handled by the global R&D, while the regional L&D
performs the actual training.
Apollo Tyres perceives employees’ learning and development as a key driver for
business’ growth and the realization of its vision, which is “to promote business growth
through people development, enabling the organization to select and participate in the
right learning and development interventions.” In respect to that vision, two categories of
employees are in the central focus of the development plan. The first category includes
approximately 13.000 regional people, who are working in the plants either as managers
or shop floor workers and they have a fixed learning trajectory, which includes, for
example, the development of safety skills, technical treatments at the machines, 5S and
plant management. The second category refers to approximately 2000 employees in the
central function, being managers “who are working in sales, marketing, finance, HR and
IT.” So far, the main focus of Apollo Tyres was on manufacturing and especially on plant
workers' learning. Recently, increased attention is paid on managerial training, targeting
the employees of the second category.
Managerial learning includes three focal points, namely personal, technical and
leadership development. In essence, personal development can be considered as non-
job related training, as “something that you might need in your job but you can easily
survive without it,” for example, the development of presentation skills. To put into

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context, it is “somehow useful for you to do personal development into presentation
training but you do not need it because you are not the marketing guy who is talking to
the press every day.” Technical development refers to job-related training, for instance,
training on oral and written communication skills for PR manager and recruitment skills for
HR manager. The last focal point of managerial training is leadership development, which
encompasses strategic and leadership skills.
Apollo Tyres has broad learning activities and resources. On the agenda are, for
example, in-house training where the employees are trained inside the company (mainly
in the plant); external training where the employees are delegated for training in a partner
company such as Toyota; internal and external coaching; site visit as a part of the training
curriculum; training centre and external agency (experts). However, the majority of the
learning activities are based on a traditional approach, meaning that “95% of the learning
activities are classroom activities”. In typical classroom learning, videos and PowerPoint
presentations are the main tools used by the trainer. Also, the trainees are equipped with
a training manual. For instance, safety training which takes place mostly at the plants
includes a 20-minute video and a short PowerPoint presentation on safety instructions.
Another example of training in the classroom is the 5S training, which refers to five
principles of workplace organization, namely Sort, Set, Shine, Standardization, and
Sustains. Most of the 5S training takes place in the classroom, where the trainees go
through the training manual with the teacher. The difference here is that the 5S training
also includes an observation in the shop floor, which enhances trainees’ understanding
regarding the practical implication of the five disciplines. Also, the company has an IT
platform, through which employees can access training manuals and other learning
materials. However, only 500 employees have access to this platform, but according to
the L&D manager “the idea is to make it bigger for the whole community.” The company is
also considering e-learning, even though it does not seem to be suitable for every
employee of the company. For instance, plant workers in India are not a good target
group for e-learning, since not all of them own a mobile phone, and the company does not
provide them with personal computers. Thus, classroom learning is more practical in this
case. As part of the company’s vision, L&D department attempts to establish the 70-20-10
model in the learning activities which consists of 70 % on the job learning experience, 20

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% mentoring and coaching and 10% of classroom activities. However, the efforts of L&D
“have not succeeded yet because this is a mountain to climb.”
Besides the formal activities, the L&D department also encourages and supports
employees to engage in informal learning. Peer learning and mentoring are examples of
informal learning at Apollo. The open office setting in the company facilitates informal
learning by allowing quick informal meetings and discussions between the colleagues.
Peer learning is also supported electronically through IT platforms, such as Yammer (a
Facebook-like software), and also company’s internal WhatsApp groups. Through
company’s chat system, employees receive articles, exchange e-books and learn from
each other across boundaries. However, employees’ awareness of the informal learning
is relatively low. The L&D manager mentioned it as “something people do not recognize
as learning; they say this is part of the job even though they do say that they now know
something after the meeting that they didn’t know before, but for them and still in the head
of most people learning is you have classroom training”.
A major point of Apollo’s vision of learning is the alignment of the business needs
with the development needs. The company uses the online platform “Horizon” for this
purpose. More specifically, the employees are asked to put in the platform the skills they
need to develop and then, their manager is checking whether employees’ choices are in
line with the business needs. As stated by the L&D manager “we have a process which is
very new so there is for the first time implemented last year in September or October,
which is called the Horizon, this is our performance management system and in this
system everybody once a year is putting in his or her development areas for training”.
With “The Horizon,” employees are meant to self-regulate their learning needs. However,
this procedure varies between regions. For instance, in the manufacturing unit of India,
this process is top-down, and employees’ learning is co-regulated. The employees rarely
request training, since they expect their line managers to tell them what they need to be
trained on. In contrast, employees in Europe value their freedom on determining their
learning needs, perceiving training as something rewarding and are usually eager to get a
non-job related training. Moreover, there is a meeting session every six months, where
the employees have the chance to discuss their development needs and performance
with their line managers. The line managers also give advice to the employees, for
example, if an employee put “learning Spanish” as a development need, the line manager

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would question “whether this is truly necessary, working in a Dutch plant and speaking
Spanish.” The data from all employees are then collected by the HR Regional to assess
the relevance of the learning needs with the business objectives. There is a paradox in
this point since there is no clear career succession planning.
Therefore, the L&D department aims at establishing a clear career succession
planning for the employees. So far, the company has adopted a grading system for its
employees, ranging from 1 to 16. However, this grading system is not comparable with a
career path, as the manager of L&D mentioned: “for example in R&D you might be
starting in level 9 or the training is at the level 9 which is fixed but whether someone
reaches level 10 after half a year, after one year after two years and then in level 12,
there is no clear guideline behind it”. Moreover, the L&D manager mentioned that
“whatever learning and development we cannot match it in every level.” One of the
biggest challenges that the company faces is the fact that the current performance
management is considered insufficient and the regional HR managers are still not used to
tailor the learning needs based on the business forecast. The L&D manager mentioned
that the HR managers need to “understand what the business is about and based on that
to identify whatever the business is forecasting is a right thing to do for learning and
development or not.” To tackle the challenge, the HR managers are being trained for the
last six months and are still in the process.
L&D also attempts to establish a cross-functional and cross-cultural interaction and
collaboration among the employees, since there is a high cultural diversity because of the
global workforce of the company. For example, mentoring which is present between the
Enschede plant and Hungary plant, allows people to socially regulate their job task and
learning objectives since they share the same plant concept and system. Another
challenge regarding learning and development is the mere presence of training
evaluation. Occasionally, trainees are asked to evaluate training by filling in a
questionnaire, but this mostly depends on the trainer. Therefore, tracking the success and
the outcomes of the training is limited. Last but not least, the company is aiming at setting
up Apollo’s global training center and limiting its reliance on external agencies and
experts.

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Interpretation of the Case
The vision of Apollo Tyres on learning and development reflects the concept of a
business learning organization, which is termed by Peter Senge in his theory “System
thinking and building learning organization” to describe a business that promotes
continuous learning as the backbone of growth. According to Senge, learning that is
planned and directed towards the business’ needs and forecasts will enable the business
to grow faster, become innovative and stay competitive (Dochy, Gijbels, Segers & Van
den Bossche, 2012). Senge’s theory consists of five principles; system thinking, personal
mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning. Based on the analysis
of Apollo case, the view of learning and how it operates is directly related to Senge’s
theory.
System thinking refers to a systematic endeavor to understand the context of the
business and forecast its future climate. Senge highlighted sound forecasting as an
indispensable skill for both employers and employees to lead a successful business
(Senge, 1990; Dochy et al., 2012). In Apollo, system thinking is demonstrated by the act
of understanding the business and the alignment of the provided training with the
business needs. As the global L&D manager puts it, “there is always a beauty about
knowing, about thinking what the business needs and actually what the business truly
needs” and “what the business is about and based on that to identify whatever the
business is forecasting is a right thing to do for learning and development or not”. This
also indicates that Apollo recognizes interrelationships in the process. Moreover, the fact
that HR regional managers are being trained on business needs and forecasting shows
an effort to understand the dynamic complexity of the business. As stated by the L&D
manager, this training will help them to identify the right measurement and intervention to
a particular strategy which will result in beneficial decisions. Thus, Apollo not only focuses
on the high leverage areas but also avoids symptomatic solution, which is in line with
system thinking.
Personal mastery acknowledges that business’ growth depends on its employees’
growth. Senge stressed the importance of improving employees’ performance and job-
related knowledge (Dochy et al., 2012). The employees of Apollo are impelled to attain
personal mastery. This can be identified in the current training provision, which includes
technical, personal and leadership development. The training on business understanding

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and forecasting, which is mentioned above, is also considered as personal mastery.
Furthermore, the Horizon initiative represents the company’s commitment on employee's
personal mastery, since they have the chance to regulate their learning, and together with
the line managers to clarify and discuss not only development but also performance.
Mental models refer to personal representations that employees form through their
experiences and act accordingly. Senge stressed that mental models need to be explicit
(Dochy et al., 2012). This can be done through a co-construction process such as ideas
sharing and knowledge exchange, which leads to improved creativity and optimal
performance. Peer-learning, chat system, mentoring, and promotion of cross-cultural and
cross-functional collaboration are some activities of knowledge sharing that Apollo
facilitates. The open office setting, which facilitates “sitting together for quick informal
meetings,” is an obvious example of how mental models become explicit in Apollo.
Shared vision, according to Senge, is a collective picture of the company’s future
and when present, provokes employees to commit to the realization of the business
goals. Business leaders can exert their power and charisma to transfer the vision to the
employees (Senge, 1990). Subsequently, this generates employee's personal vision,
which is the seed of building a shared vision. However, there are limited examples from
the interview with the L&D manager showing a shared vision in the company. An
indication of a shared vision can be seen in the L&D manager’s saying: “I have in every
location of one L&D person that I am meeting every two weeks via PC.” It can be argued
that this process is in line with the principle above, in the sense that the vision of global
L&D, which deals with conceptual and strategic planning, is disseminated to the regional
HR. Another example is that “HR gets all the data from all the countries and then we do a
proper analysis about where the development needs look so far,” as stated by the L&D
manager. This shows that a shared vision is being developed by engaging in discussion
on the development needs of the company.
The last principle is team learning, which according to Senge, fosters the
development of a learning organization (Dochy et al., 2012). Operating as a team
facilitates sharing of ideas and vision among employees, which leads to faster
development of knowledge and creativity. In Apollo, team learning is identified in the
collaboration between the employees of Enschede and Hungary in which both individual
and team learning contribute to the outcome. Team learning can also be observed in the

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joint analysis of the data regarding employees’ development needs, by the HR team.
Together, they deliberatively discuss and decide on the best interventions for employees’
development.
Concluding, only some minor points do not seem to be present in Apollo’s strategy.
For instance, Senge’s theory suggests that companies need to be “willing to invest”
(Dochy et al., 2012, p. 92), whereas Apollo’s budget for learning and development is
“really really low, It is around 1%”, as the L&D manager stated. Moreover, the company’s
dependence on external agencies decreases its ability to face the posed challenges,
which according to Senge prevents the organization to learn. However, there is already
an initiative by Apollo to create its global training center.
Application of One Contrasting Theory
Among the various elements of Apollo strategy, the semi-annual performance meetings
with the line managers aim to realize the company’s objectives on establishing a clear
connection between development interventions and the business’ needs in particular and
a career path in general. However, an analysis of how is this organized, indicated that the
current process is inadequate and ineffective. This raises the challenge to improve the
current process to be more advantageous. Deliberating on the nature of professional
practice and how to educate professionals, Donald Schӧn in his theory of “Reflective
Practitioner” offers an insight into the challenge that Apollo poses.
According to Schӧn, reflection is a crucial element for professional development
(Dochy et al., 2012). Schӧn argues that professionals tend to use their specific skills
spontaneously in their practice without thinking of what they are doing (knowing-in-
action). Being confronted with similar activities in their daily routines, professionals
become inattentive to phenomena, which consequently hinder their learning and in the
long run could limit their vision on development. Schӧn puts it as “professionals do not
notice that they learn these things; they just find themselves doing them” (Dochy et al.,
2012, p. 85). Therefore, to achieve an excellent professional development, Schӧn
suggested including reflection on what has been done (reflection-on-action). However, in
the context of Apollo, the performance meetings are not directed towards reflection.
The performance meetings are more into evaluating or assessing employee’s
performance which basically categorizes employees into four different categories, “one is

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too early to rate […], the second one is improving, the third one is performing, and the last
one is exceeding”, as stated by the L&D manager. This practice is not in line with Schӧn’s
theory. According to Schӧn, performance development is meant to facilitate both formal
and informal learning in an organization. Therefore, the subject of such meetings is
supposed to be related to employees’ learning experience and directed towards
stimulating reflection on the on-going learning and the learning that has been done
(reflection-on-action).
Reflection-on-action is useful to “discover how our knowing-in-action may have
contributed to an expected outcome” (Dochy et al., 2012, p. 83). Thus, including this
element in the meeting sessions could stimulate employees’ to think about and learn from
the experience. As a result, employees will gain insight on what they want to accomplish
(e.g. stay in the current job, career promotion, learning a specific skill), become aware of
their strengths and weaknesses, able to keep track their learning activities and most
importantly, know what was learned and how. In this way, the line managers could
discuss the experienced practice of the employees, instead of merely evaluating their
performance. As Dochy et al. (2012) stated, “the development is closely linked to what the
employees experience during their practice” (p. 85). Meanwhile, the performance meeting
at Apollo is limited to the development needs for the future, without considering the prior
learning and practice experience of the employees. Hence, it could be argued that the
element of reflection-on-action is missing in this case.
Providing an opportunity to discuss is rewarding as to build meaning. However,
Schӧn argued that such sessions should aim in mediating the employees’ development.
The statement of the L&D manager that in India employees depend on “the line manager
who is telling them (the employees) what they need” shows that the employees of India
are unaware of their development needs, their learning experience and practice. This
could consequently hinder the realization of Apollo’s goal to select the best development
intervention that will support company’s growth.
Furthermore, Schӧn emphasized the importance of reflecting during the action
(reflection-in-action). Reflection-in-action entails learning by doing, while it does not
separate thinking from doing (Dochy et al., 2012). This allows professionals to make
sense of uncertain experiences and adjust their action accordingly without interrupting the

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activities. In this way, professionals can become aware of their knowledge and enhance
their skills in decision-making and problem-solving (Dochy et al., 2012; Smith, 2003).
Therefore, in the context of Apollo, employing Schӧn’s theory to improve the
performance meetings could support Apollo’s vision, since reflection-on-action and
reflection-in-action could determine future actions. Schӧn’s theory would assist the line
managers in structuring their discussion during the performance review, and as for the
employee, it is expected that they will be more mindful of their learning needs and career
objectives.
Advice for the Organization
Apollo has been doing very well in defining its learning and growth strategy as well as in
executing it in practice. The theoretical interpretation reveals the surprising fact that the
Apollo’s strategy corresponds with a sound theory of Senge’s system thinking and
learning organization. On the other hand, using Schӧn’s theory “Reflective Practitioner” as
a contrasting interpretation, we identified a limitation that could hamper the realization of
Apollo’s vision. Therefore, we present some practical advice that could help Apollo in
improving the implementation of its learning strategy.
1. Initiating reflection-oriented performance meeting
For Apollo employees to be self-conscious towards their learning activities and
needs, it is advisable to include the element of reflection regarding their learning and
practice in the performance meeting. This can be done by including specific questions
related to the experienced practice, for example, the line managers could ask questions
such as: what did you learn or you accomplished? How did you learn/do that? What
resources did you use for learning/doing it? What did you gain from it? How do you think
about your experience of learning/doing it? What was your weakness and strength on
learning/doing it? Those questions will stimulate employees to think explicitly and create a
meaning-making of their experience (looking back). Thus, they will become aware of their
knowledge, able to define their learning needs and more self-regulated towards their
learning. This strategy, in particular, could be very beneficial in India, where employees
seem to be less conscious of their learning. Then, the line managers can move to
‘looking forward’ by asking, for example, what do you want to accomplish? What skills do

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you still need to improve? How do you want to learn it? This latter kind of questions would
help employees to structure their future learning and development needs. Essentially,
insight from this session can help Apollo in shaping its formal and informal learning
facilitation, such as training that matches the business needs or activities that support
learning from their colleagues. Also, we advise Apollo to invest in developing the practice
of the line managers through training.
2. Changing training practice into trainee-oriented
Educating employees to be more reflective can also be done through the current
training practice in the company. However, for this to be effective, the most suitable
approach is to provide training that facilitates employees to learn by doing. In that way,
employees will be accustomed to thinking while doing, which will help them to become
more reflective during their practice or work (reflection-in-action). Schӧn pointed that
“instructors need to function more as coaches than as teachers” (Dochy et al., p. 84), for
employees to acquire such skills. Therefore, Apollo is advised to change their training to
give more room for practical sessions. The employees will then have the opportunity to
practice, interact and engage in dialogue with the trainer. Dialogue mediates the
meaning-making process for the employees.
3. Reinforcing the shared vision
The shared vision is a primary requirement for establishing a powerful learning
organization (Dochy et.al, 2012). In Apollo, although some efforts have been taken to
transfer the vision, the employee’s behavior shows that they hold a different personal
vision which is contradictory to the desired shared vision, as can be seen from the
difference between India and Europe. Thus, Apollo is advised to reinforce the shared
vision. This can be done through a credible communication plan and various
communication channels. The idea is to make sure that the vision is communicated
clearly and internalized in every employee. For this purpose, apart from communicating in
personal and encouraging knowledge exchange, a formal channel such as managers’
meetings is a feasible option. Other formal examples are seminars and conferences.
Apollo could initiate a sharing day where the employees are encouraged to communicate
with the business leaders. Dialogue and interactions foster the building of a shared vision,

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which is the driver that brings companies like Apple and IBM achieve their remarkable
success (Dochy et al., 2012).
Concluding, by integrating reflection in the performance meetings, the employees
are expected to be more self-regulated on their learning needs, which is essential for their
performance improvement and the alignment of the development interventions with the
business’ needs. Meanwhile, by establishing a shared vision, Apollo will experience
leverage on its employee’s commitment to realizing the goals and the vision of the
company. Thus, in the end, Apollo will become a strong business learning organization
with remarkable growth and achieve beyond achievable.

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References
Dochy, F., Gijbels, D., Segers, M., & Van den Bossche, P. (2012). Theories of learning for
the workplace: Building blocks for training and professional development programs.
Routledge.
Senge, P. M. (1990b). ‘The leader’s new work: Building learning organisations’, Sloan
Management Review, Fall, 7–23.
Smith, P. J. (2003). Workplace learning and flexible delivery. Review of Educational
Research, 73(1), 53-88.

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Appendix
a. Trancript of the interview
Q. Can you tell us about your job? The department you are in and your
responsibilities in general?
A. Ok. So my name is Maik Neumann I am (the) responsible of the Global Learning and
Development HR Manager for Apollo Tyres, uhm so I am part of the Global HR
department. My boss is the Global Talent Manager of the company and the scope of my
work is actually within three regions, so we have Europe, we have APMEA which is Asia
and we have the central function which are like global R&D, global manufacturing and the
role that I have about L&D is really taking care of what are the training interventions
happening in all of the three regions.
Q. Uhm ok. So you are responsible for learning in the whole organization?
A. Learning and Development department, yes.
Q. And what kind of employees needs training?
A. Good, ok. So we have five plants, actually in the future six plants with Hungary ramp
up so we have two different, I don’t want to call it two different types of people, two
different uhm, how to say that, challenges. One is really people working in the plant, it can
be managers it can be shopfloor people in all the six plants and these are roughly all
thirteen thousands and the other two thousands are actually managers who are working
at sales, marketing, finance, HR, IT and they are all spread across the world. Uhm so the
learning is mostly in the past it has mostly been taken place in the plants, right, so when
you have technical treatments at the machines so there is strong technical development
focus and now over the last let’s say 2,3 years is uhm also an emphasis now really on
management training. On people on management training, on leadership training and, so
also for the people working on the plant but then more the plant management team plus
and the other two thousand people that are working in all the central functions or in the
regions as European sales guy or in Asian market and goes on.

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Q. Uhm Can you tell us more about the manager's’ training?
A. OK. So uhm this is what we have, so we split training into leadership development,
personal development and technical development so, uhm and also for the managers all
three categories are valid meaning if you for example are an HR manager and you get a
training on recruitment that would be seen as a technical training because it’s part of your
job, right? Personal development would be something like uhm can be people
management if it’s more on the same level, on the peer group, this a little bit has to do
with the hierarchy I would say personal development is much more, let’s say, power point
skills, right? Something that you might need in your job but not, you can easily survive
without.
Q. More technical?
A. No, not necessarily more technical. It doesn’t have to be a t-related. Can be
presentation training, so typical personal development. Uhm so if it’s somehow useful for
you to do personal development into presentation training but you don’t need it because
you are not a marketing guy who is talking to the press every day, then it is Personal
Development. If you say, you are the PR manager and you need to have a well-written
communication and oral communication skills then it is Technical Development. And if it is
about uhm, either evaluating or finding out a strategy or leading people then it is
Leadership Development. So for the managers all three areas are relevant, but which
training exact really depends on the job.
Q. Ok. And who decides what kind of competences they need to acquire?
A. Right. The business. So we have a process which is very new so there is for the first
time implemented last year in September/October, which is called Horizon, this is our
Performance Management system and in this system everybody once a year is putting in
his or her, uhm, priority areas for training, development areas, we called them
development areas, uhm, and these areas, so just imagine this is an online platform
Horizon where you put in your needs then your line manager needs to approve them and
once approved then it goes uploaded and then HR gets all the data from all the countries
and then we do a proper analysis about where the development needs look so far and
once we did that we go back to the business and we ask business to challenge is it truly

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that you need, so there is always a beauty about knowing, about thinking what the
business needs and actually what the business truly needs.
Q. Yes. We have covered the type of employees and what kind of skills they need to
learn.
A. Right
Q. So we are now interested in the learning activities how do they (the employees)
learn the skills they need.
A. Alright. So how do they learn?
Q. Yes.
A. Ok. So, so far 95% of all activities are classroom activities, really old-school, and it
has to do within the plants, this is so far one of the key ways to go, well it had to, we are
about to change it so we introduce last year again. So this is, when I am talking about that
much of that it has been done is to theory because the company, many of the company,
people have not received that experience yet because only a small percentage of people
actually had the chance to discover that. So what we did, we did implement the 70-20-10,
you are familiar with the topic, so we realized in the 10 mostly 95% of the activities are
happening in the 10, there is sometimes we do a little bit of 20 which is fast coaching and
mentoring and learning from the peers and what we are working on but have not
succeeded yet because this is a “mountain to climb” is the 70 part, so learning on the job,
uhm having now working together from the L&D department together with Talent
Management in terms of interpretation, in terms of career paths and career levels where
would the succession planning and so on, uhm, this is something we are working on since
probably a year but we are just taking a lot of time. So right now still 90% is in the 10 even
though everybody is crazy about the 20 and especially 70.

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Q. Thank you for your extensive answer but could you elaborate on this? Maybe
give as a specific kind of employees that go for a training? We want to see the
trajectory of this kind of employees, like plant operator, what kind of training do
they do.
A. Alright, yeah. We have focus on a plant, let’s say here in Enschede, we have, uhm,
they get a safety training the guys, meaning they see a video let’s say for 20 minutes, so
there are 20 people in the classroom, there is one standing in the front just like going to
school, they see a video of 20 minutes on safety, they get another 10 or 20 minutes on
clear safety instructions mostly on power point, right? and that’s it. Yeah, this is the safety
training. Uhm the specific safety training. Uhm it can be for example if another training
would be let’s say 5S, you are familiar with the 5S concept, ok so it is about the shop floor
really how to, Jesus I should know that actually, how to sort, shine and standardize, so it’s
coming actually from Toyota, this is just a way how to make sure that your workplace is in
order. And there are five different levels of it and so this training is happening let’s say to
80% again in the classroom where they have a training manual on this one which is
standardized across the organization and then they go through the training manual
together with the teacher standing in front of the class, and point at 20-25 people in the
class and then they also go to the shop floor they see actually how does it look like is it a
good or a bad example and after one hour that’s off.
Q. Thank you for your answer. We just covered the learning activities and now we
are more interested about the regulation of the learning, which refers to how is the
learning planned how is the monitor of learning and how is the evaluation and who
is responsible for it and who directs it. So we are interested to know do the
employees have the freedom to learn what they want?
A. Well, with Horizon the idea is yes, because these are the ones that can tell their line
manager “ok this is what I would like to have” and then the line manager needs to
approve it. And then again we go back to the business and say “ok, is it really necessary
that they are going to need this training?”. So we give them at the beginning a little bit of a
freedom, uhm but it’s not that everybody can do whatever he or she likes. However, then
it’s a bit different regarding in which region you are. For example, in India it’s really top-
down so people tell you are in that and that level so you have to do that and that training

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end of story, and the chance that someone based on the culture is requesting something
that is different than what usually the “big guy” says is really low.
Q. So if I can summarize, in some areas, like in India, people have no freedom,
which means that the learning goals and the learning needs are designed from the
“external” people.
A. At a lower level absolutely. Because it’s, well for them it seems, I, from a western point
of view I would say they don’t have freedom, from a cultural point of view they are ok with
that because they expect the manager to tell them what they need to be trained on. So, if
you, as a manager say “what is it that you’d like to be trained on” people get confused. It’s
not that they are not valuing the freedom but they feel a little bit uncertain because they
feel like “Oh my God, if my line manager doesn’t know what I should learn, is a bad line
manager”.
Q. So this strategy works in India. You don’t have problems with it.
A. Yeah, it works fine however, it depends on, it’s a bit hard for us to track if it’s necessary
the training that people sustain in India. The point here is since people expect their line
manager to know what they need it’s really hard to track whether the person think that the
training has been effective, because the answer is usually always “yes”. Because nobody
would like to upset his line manager. (Inaudible). Whereas in The Netherlands and in
Hungary that’s completely different. So people are used, especially in The Netherlands,
again there is a strong culture point here, to choose and to have the liberty and the
freedom to choose what of the training they would like to go on. And it might be that they
are going on a training course for Spanish because they think this is making their life
much easier and then there is a discussion with the line manager whether this is truly
necessary working in a Dutch plant and speaking Spanish. But you see this is probably
one of the bigger culture differences that you can imagine when it comes to training. And
the approach from our side is, with Horizon to make sure that the Dutch culture is ok
because they have the chance to at least tell their managers what they would like to have
and then the Indians even though they might struggle with know what they need to put in,
they would have the chance to put it in and in many cases it’s actually the line manager

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who is telling them what they need to put in because they feel like “ok I am not feeling
comfortable”.
Q. And how do you evaluate learning here in The Netherlands?
A. So, so far we don’t evaluate it at all. So I took over this job in six months back so I am
still doing a lot of analysis to be honest. Uhm, so in many cases we don’t do it at all and if
we do it then we do it everywhere a little bit differently and the only thing that people
usually do is the best practice so far is that we just ask people we send them a
questionnaire afterwards, not in the classroom but afterwards, and ask them ok “how
would you rate the training?”. But whether this is done it’s mostly, it’s not a standard, this
has to do with whether the trainer thinks this is nice or not uhm but there is nothing so far,
so actually we the only thing for us to trigger is to hope that people say it’s nice and they
like it uhm but this is definitely like in a case (inaudible)
Q. And also do you give feedback to your employees about their performance?
A. Yes, so with Horizon actually, Horizon is our performance management system, we
have a half, so every six months the employees sit together with their line manager and
they discuss not only development needs as just an outcome but they really discuss their
performance. So we have (inaudible) we have again a lot of performance management
meetings with the line manager with the together with the employee and at the end of the
day there would be uhm we have a calibration session afterwards so we again put
everything together and then people have a chance to get into four different categories
one is “too early to rate” so if you are new at the job, the second one is “improving” the
third one is “performing” and the last one is “exceeding”. And ideally there is a bell curve
behind it, so let’s say 10% or 20% “exceeding”, 70% “performing” and the rest is either
“improving” or “too early to rate”. However, this is a system that is newly being
implemented so now there is the very first time that we do it like this. There has been
something similar in India before, but the truth is in theory that all goes fine and the reality
is that the majority of people are either “exceeding” or “performing” especially many are
“exceeding” because the understanding of “when do I perform” is completely, uhm how to
say that, immature in this organization. So most people think when they deliver 90% this
is “exceeding” because they know that the target is anyways unrealistic, whereas in many

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other companies 100% is “performing” and 105% is “exceeding”, right? just do the math.
So if you have 80% of your goals achieved then usually you are either max performing
but usually you are improving and that system does not work in India, because people
know that usually they are so tired to motivate people that you are never able to achieve
them, so again this is kinda tricky uhm but this is the first time that we did it so uhm in
theory it’s nice but then in real it’s a challenge.
Q. Thanks for the answer. We have the idea how you regulate the learning in terms
of who is responsible for what is to be learned how is it learned but we are also
interested to know what kind of evidence that you want to see from your learning,
what kind of learning products result from learning.
A. Ok. So maybe one thing about the structure I didn’t mention. So I have in every
location of one L&D person that I am meeting every two weeks via PC, and they are
actually kinda reporting to me they are reporting to the line managers but I am in contact
because these are the guys in charge of the location. Uhm, so your question was about
evidence.
Q.Yes what are the evidence? Do you give like recognition or do you have a kind of
certificate, do they have the chance to apply the skills they learned in the training?
A. Yes, so ideally what has not necessarily happened, ok in India everybody gets a
certificate once you have completed your training which is just a paper but it is highly
regarded, that’s working quite well there, and usually in The Netherlands people
appreciate the fact that they can get the training they want. This is a little bit rewarding
itself. So far in the past usually people have either been sent on a training it’s been
mandatory for the job, like legal trainings, safety trainings and so on, uhm or because it’s
been seen as a reward for example when you get an (inaudible) class or you are joining
another company for some programs without the company’s running, when you go for you
a year and this is seen as highly rewarding for them. So, what we are lacking of in terms
of evidence is establishing a clear relationship between business’ needs and training
provided.

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Q. Can you be more specific on this?
A. So uhm, for example let’s say sales in Europe, so people say immediately “ok I am
working on sales, I need to get a negotiation training, how to be better in conversations
with the costumers, with my clients and how to assemble tyres of course at the end of the
day”. Uhm, that actually is a good example, because it will result. Usually, I’ll put it the
other way around, that’s good, so usually people say “I need to be better in
communication skills” yeah?, and then you feel like “ok this is a little bit vague”, so what
does it mean, do you need to be better at presenting do you need to make a master
power point, do you need to know how to play with your voice, what is it? And in the past
this has been accepted so they started asking the external agency to come up with a
communication training, however the business need probably big, we need a negotiation
training which is part of maybe communication but very specific because we forget out
that specifically, in negotiations we perform poorly or below expectations. And building up
the case of you know exactly that the training is helping directly the business is something
that we are working on, uhm, but has not fully been established in the company, because
again training has been seen as either reward or as mandatory but understanding the
training is clearly helping the business at the end of the day ideally for the whole company
to perform better, is not present. So even the understanding from the top management
team that actually has a big impact if you train your people and not because people are
happier and you know this is increasing employee engagement and so on yes this is all
nice but it actually also has a clear impact of the performance of the person which ideally
also cause it is in direct connection with the overall business result, this is something that
has not been, uhm how do you say that, done and recognized and experienced in the
company. Unless it is something that it is machine related in the plants, because that you
immediately see (you can see it from the production).
Q. So do you have fixed activities for the managers?
A. No, only for the plant people. Because everything else needs to be, is questioned uhm
because of a lack of good experience and I am not saying it has been bad experience but
if you provide training with all the clear business link and you don’t evaluate the training
how high are the chance that you have any case to say that worked out well? You don’t.

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Q. So I think we covered all about regulation, we are now trying to focus on the
facilitation which means how do you facilitate the learning and how learning
happens in this company. We have discussed about it before but we are going to
focus more on this. So you have mentioned some of the training that you offer right
now. And the next question is how do you support the current development of your
employees? What I am referring to is do you have a set of trajectory that one
particular group of employees need to follow? Or how do you support them? Do
you set target achievements, goals and what they want to achieve the next 5 or 10
years?
A. No, this is something we call a “work-life plan”. This is something we in our mind that
we match all the L&D interventions with the current level of the person, but for that we will
need to know what would be the most probable next steps of the person of the company.
We don’t have any strategic succession planning. So, for example if you ask me what is
my job in two years, I have no idea.
Q. So is that you are saying that there is no clear path of learning right now?
A. No, absolutely not. Because there is no succession plan, there is no strategic
succession planning and because of that there is also no, so whatever Learning and
development we cannot matching in every level we also have uhm, we have a grading
system both in India and in The Netherlands but let’s say for example in The Netherlands,
it’s not a secret, in The Netherlands we have let’s say from 1 to 16 and let’s say 9 is
management level and above and the unit has 6,7 8 whatsoever the point here is there is
not a specific timeline and a clear action path when are you jumping from one level to the
next. So for example in in R&D you might be starting in level 9 or the training is at the
level 9 which is fixed but whether someone reaches 10 after half a year, after one year
after two years and then in level 12, there is no clear guideline behind it. And I think this is
all abstract it really depends on your manager. In India it’s even less structured. You have
even more levels in India but they are certainly, I would say that greatly depends on how
much the manager likes you, how much you’re pushing for that uhm, yeah.
Q. Would you like to create a plan for learning? You think it’s necessary to do it?
A. Yeah absolutely.

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Q. What about unmotivated employees? Do you have employees who don’t want to
learn, who don’t want to participate in these activities?
A. Well, that’s actually kind of easy to answer because we don’t know, because again in
India people do it because the line managers tell them to do it. That’s emphasized, I don’t
know, usually people like learning when they realize there is some benefit additionally to
that, so if they know “I have to complete 10 trainings because that increases the chance
to climb up a ladder” they do it whether they do it because they like the idea of learning
itself I don’t know honestly. I think some people do, others don’t. In The Netherlands they
are much more into a little bit self-development so in principle my feeling is that they are
more open to training that might not be 100% related to the job because they realize “ok, I
like a little more developing myself, challenging myself”, uhm but also I cannot say that
everybody is immediate jumping in the air when they hear about training. It’s ok but it’s
really about individual differences.
Q. So, do you trigger learning somehow or it just depends on the mindset of the
employees here in The Netherlands?
A. Right, the second one. So I think triggering learning uhm is no, because we first need
to, me I am talking about the HR department we first need to get approval from the
business about whether they like it which is a much more rational decision and usually the
communication is that flat here. But before we had the chance to trigger, now people they
know that there are above us already decided that they need to do it. So triggering
something that is already been decided is a little bit, especially in The Netherlands people
would feel sensitive because they would say “it’s nice that you triggered it but you know
already that I have to do it”.
Q. So you might already be aware that the facilitation of learning could be formal,
through training or some kinds of formal initiatives but could also be informal.
A. Right. Absolutely.

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Q. And I see you mentioned some kinds of formal trainings that you implement
now and if you could elaborate more on the informal training that you have right
now? What are the learning tools that you use?
A. Very simple. So really videos, power point presentation, uhm classroom training uhm
ok it might be learning on the machine so you have specific trainings but you have
machines in there and you are working on the machines in the classroom again, uhm, we
do not work that much with literature so well that’s not true so like quite many, no, I’ll put it
differently there are a lot of articles that have been sent throughout the company that are
worth reading but I wouldn’t call it learning because there is no follow up there, nobody is
asking so “nice article, how is it help us in our current situation?”. It’s about reading and
how the business has to go, everybody likes it but if you say ok what are the three key
points you can take from that, there is not happening so that’s why I feel like it’s nice to
read it but to me the learning first starts from when I really think about “ok how can I use
the information in this article for my work?”. And this is transition is absolutely not
happening.
Q. So you say that there are some kinds of resources and materials that the
employees can access. And How about the learning inside and outside the office?
Do the employees learn also outside the office or outside the job?
A. The have “what’s app” groups, so I know that people are sending each other like this,
this, e-books and etc. They are sending it, I think they read the stuff, they like doing that. I
don’t think any of them really do it outside the work. Of course there are some external
trainings, right, that definitely that’s the case uhm but you mean outside of the office
whether people really like doing maybe a substudy outside of the job?
Q. A substudy maybe, do you have something like e-learning material or access to
a website? Do you offer e-learning, for example? Or maybe do you send out
employees to get trained from an external provider?
A. Definitely. That a lot. That a lot, so absolutely.

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Q. Can you tell us more about this?
A. Ok so I am telling about the external providers and before that, yes we have only as
far as I am aware of, only at manufacturing we have an IT platform, uhm put people have
access to a lot of training manuals etc, learning about the organization and this is
accessible to only 500 people, to the managers and the plants, but the idea is to make it
bigger for the whole community. However, uhm shop floor in The Netherlands is not shop
floor in India so the chance that you have someone who is owning a mobile phone in
India, working at the shop floor is lower, so don’t expect that people even if they have a
phone probably they have limited data and the last thing to do is go online to follow up the
work. They go there, they work there, they leave and that’s it. Uhm, so let’s say out of the
13thousands people in the plant in India poorly 10 thousands are certainly not a good
target group for e-learning. And about the external providers, yes. So we have a lot,
especially in India, we have a lot of external agency, external experts coming to the
organization it’s a good mix I would say, uhm either they are coming to us or I said we
have some corporation from Toyota plant where we send 2-3 people per year to the
Toyota plant to get trained there, we have, uhm, a lot of consultants coming also in our
company but people usually learn from them, so I would say the point here is, not in
Europe but in India, a consultant is someone who is highly regarded as an expert, and
unless you are from the top guys from the hierarchy which means you are an expert
because you are up highly in hierarchy. Uhm the chance that someone who is junior can
give a training, even though it would be fit, yeah, it’s really low. So this is why we either
have the chance to take one of the senior guys to give the training and then they might be
experts but not good trainers, uhm, or we ask an external guy to do that.
Q. I can see many differences between India and the Netherlands, so uhm where
would you say you face the most challenges ? In India or here in The Netherlands?
A. That depends on, more challenges are, I cannot say that it’s completely different. The
big difference is.
Q. Where do you think it’s easier to make employees learn?
A. Oh yeah in Europe. Because training is more accepted because you don’t have to
argue that much whether it makes sense to train someone, the concept of training is in

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India nothing that it seem to be eligible for everybody in the company unless you really
work on the machine, whereas in Europe it’s just the normal path that everyone gets
training. That’s why it’s easier. But to change things it’s not necessarily easier in The
Netherlands than it is in India. It’s a completely different approach. So, India it’s much
about inspiration and seniority and The Netherlands is much about alignment, yeah I
would say that, it’s highly democratic, so usually what happens here is discussing things
until they are dead. Every good idea is dead if you discuss it too much.
Q. Thanks. I would like to revisit the informal learning and how do you see the
learning climate between the employees and what I mean is do you observe any
kind of knowledge seeking, asking knowledge from the colleagues or some kind of
evaluation which is outside of formal learning? And what is the attitude of these
employees towards seeking knowledge?
A. Yes, definitely, yes that’s interesting. So we have two groups of people now in the
company, one that has always been with the company and has a little understanding
about training and the other that are people that come from other companies, usually
well-trained people who have a big idea about how training should look like.
Q. About which level of employees do you talk now?
A. Management. Uhm, and that’s interesting because there is always a clash of culture,
so only those people who know what a training is are asking for it, because the others are
not just used to it. But the informal training is happening a lot. And we are trying to tell
people “hey do you realize how much you’re learning from your peers?” because we have
so many “whatsapp” groups here private but also really company “whatsapp” groups, we
have an internal chat system, we have this IT platform also there are forums a little bit like
facebook, it’s Yammer, uhm so there are a lot of possibilities to ask people and the
chance how many times (inaudible). This is also a reason why we have this open office
and sitting together for quick informal meetings and have some questions also cross
functional is happening a lot, but people do not recognize that this is learning. They think
this is a daily job and when we started to tell them “hey do you recognize this is more like
learning from the peers, how much you actually learn from your peers and maybe there
are ways fast to help you even learning more from you peers which is for me you know

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working systematically, work in structure.” This is something people do not recognize as
learning, they say this is part of the job. Even though they do say that they now know
something after the meeting that they didn’t know before, but for them still in the head of
most people is learning is you have a classroom training, you have a trainer, which is
interesting.
Q. You are absolutely right about the perspective of informal learning. I want to dig
more in it. Do you have some kind of supervision, formal supervision or mentoring
or coaching? Do you give formal supervision to particular employees?
A. Yes and no. So we have an external coach, a senior guy or someone from the heads
uhm let’s say for 5 people here, this is an external guy for the top managers but I don’t
know how often they see him or he sees them, and I am the only guy in Europe who is
giving coaching but only to the trainees. So I am a coach myself and every two weeks I
give coaching sessions to our trainees actually but only the first year, uhm which is funny
because we started that 2 years back, because we thought that if everybody hears that
they have training, getting coaching for free and none of the managers of the top
managers aren’t getting any coaching for free isn’t it a little bit weird so we hope to create,
triggering to create a little bit of pool here, uhm people are curious about what the trainers
are doing because I am not of course allowed to talk about it, uhm but people have the
feeling that coaching is something that is more eligible actually for the top management
team and it’s again more seen as either a reward or as a punishment. So you only coach
someone who is not performing or you coach someone because you think he is a star you
can make him better. But to recognize coaching as something that could be actually
suitable for everybody, which I believe, no. However I’m not sure how many other
coaches are in the company, here the certified coaches are probably 2 or 3 worldwide.
And coaching is expensive. And mentoring we might now discussing ideas about the
mentoring program within Europe only, we think it might be a big challenge to set up
something across the three regions, but within Europe we’re thinking about how this
could look like, but I just had a kick-off last week so this is really like first steps on

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Q. Do you have any idea about how this could be implemented, how could it look?
A. Uhm, to be honest, not yet. So we think especially about people in Enschede, the plant
in Enschede and people in Hungary plant uhm there is a system plant concept because
they really need to work together because of one cannot produce a specific tyre and of
course the other guys need to jump in and vice versa, but also learning from each other a
lot. Uhm but in the kick-off meeting it was much more focused not on technical parts but
on cultural aspects. So really because Hungary is now completely new for us and we
would like to work on there is (inaudible) culture now, so we have the Indian culture we
have the Dutch culture, I am German, my boss is British and suddenly there is Hungary
popping up which is making it more complicated. So the idea is here to increase more
the cultural understanding, uhm and then again I would say it’s nice to know that you are
two different, because you are from another origin, from another culture but I am now
questioning, ok how can we make sure that this has a business case again. It’s nice to
know that you are different because of different culture but what does it mean for me in
daily work when I need to be aware of when I am working with you.
Q. I understood that you have already said about this a little bit at the beginning,
but we just want to make sure that we cover everything, maybe we want to talk a
little more about the vision on learning. Actually we understood what have you
already said at the beginning and the question is how do you see learning in this
company and what are these specific L&D challenges that you are dealing with
right now and how do you perceive learning can solve the company’s problem?
A. Alright so, we have people working for the last half year at the Global Training Center
which is also capturing the vision, uhm I can send you this one actually that’s much
better, uhm the idea is here the global learning and development concept behind.
Q. That’s your vision?
A. No that’s part of this Global Training Center, uhm the big challenge is here that India
and The Netherlands are completely different at their views of learning and development.
Our vision is here, which is much more related not to learning directly but also to the
organization who is doing what when it comes to learning and development. So I am here
sitting in the center of the function as a global guy uhm and I am much more into the

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conceptual work and the strategic work, whereas in the regions are the guys who are
actually adding value and need to take care of the execution of the training. So, it would
be more the type of persons who are setting the standards and who is setting the process
of how to evaluate the training, whereas again in the regions they will make sure that they
follow the standards and uhm they deliver the standards and uhm they deliver the
trainings uhm, so this is in a short way how we plan to run this uhm yeah. Uhm the point
is it stands and falls a little bit with, in the past L&D has never been like a big, so the key
challenge is here L&D has no level big in this company. In Enschede, in The Netherlands
it has, but also not related to the business needs. So the big challenge is here now, I am
coming back to the structure, so I’m here at the global level, I have the regions where the
local L&D guy is sitting and I’m depending on them how well do they understand the
business needs. Now they’ve never been trained on to understand what the business
does. Because they are HR managers are between 30 and 55 so they’ve been doing the
work for minimum 5 years maybe to 20 years and they are not used to the fact that they
need to understand what the business is about and based on that to identify whatever the
business is forecasting is a right thing to do for learning and development or not. Uhm
now we all start first by training these guys, to understand how to do that. Now when I
have the guys trained, which we currently have been doing for the last six months, we
also need to let the business understand that there are some questioning of them in a
very friendly way “is it really what you need” because this is really tough because the
business isn’t used to ask, not used to have any interventions from our side, questioning
whatever we doing is, right, uhm with the whole dilemma is a little bit that HR is usually
seen as administrative rather than business partner. And this is everywhere, this is not
only in India this is also in The Netherlands and also in Hungary, this something where we
need to reposition HR and it’s a huge challenge. That’s the biggest challenge.
Q. How many managers do you have, that need to be trained?
A. Uhm 10 about.
Q. In total, in every region?
A. Yeah, globally.

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Q. Can I go back a bit and ask you how do employees track their progress when
they learn? Do they track their progress somehow?
A. No. Not that I am aware of. Unless this is part of the training itself, well if you have a
training which is happening 4 times a year, for weekend, under the week, it doesn’t
matter, and they are forced to do it then yes but there is a new standard about tracking it.
Again because there is no real succession career path where you say “ok what did you
learn, etc”. We are trying to do it now with Horizon with the half yearly performance
management reviews but it’s not happening now, no.
Q. And when do you offer courses? On a weekly basis, on a monthly basis?
A. It depends. In the plant there is constantly some training going on just because we
have so many trainings there, here for the manager level definitely not. This is once in a
while. Yeah, definitely not, not all the time. But again the question here is what do you
consider as a training. So if I ask whether you have learned something, even informal
training that you learn every day or something, but when was the last time that we had a
training in term of formal training, yeah I would say probably often, not that I received it,
but it has been often, how to say it, it really depends on the function in manufacturing yes,
in all the other functions not really quarterly maybe., yeah. But there are quite many
people also that not had training for half year for a year and then they might also be ok
with that, the only exceptions here might be the trainees because they really get a lot of
training.
Q. One last thing maybe from me, you implemented a training of course and you
spend a budget for training, if we can get an overview, what is the percentage of
the current budget for L&D that you use? What is the percentage of training, the
percentage of other programs under the L&D department right now. What is the
budget that the company invests on learning?
A. I don’t know if I can say that
Q. Ok. Or you could say that most of the budget is spent on training?
A. No I can say that it is really really low. It’s around 1%. It’s really low.

STRATEGY
30
Q. So you spend more on the other things.
A. Yeah, absolutely yeah. For the budget focus L&D is like this. And again because
everybody is saying, yeah there are a lot of ideas yeah but in terms of what have we
seen in the past nothing because, well you know all the points right? So this is what
hopefully what we are going to change
Q. Ok, is there anything else that you would like to add about this?
A. Sorry, I was just looking at the watch because I have at 11 an appointment.
Q. Ok. And as last point is uhm if you have any additional material that we can have
access at?
I think about the Global Training Center that would be good for you to have a look.
Q. Ok this is the end of our interview we would like to thank you for your time.
A. Thank you very much.

b. The codebook:
An overview of the hierarchy of codes used in the analysis including definitions and examples from the interview

1. Context analysis
Scope Clear analysis Speech fragment
Context Apollo Tyres is a
tyres manufacturing
company. The central
function of the
company includes:
 Global
manufacturing
 Global R&D
 Global L&D
Apollo has six plants
which located in:
● Kalamassery
● Perambra
● Chennai
● Keralla
● Enschede
● Hungary
● “…so my name is Maik Neumann I am (the)
responsible of the Global Learning and Development
HR Manager for Apollo Tyres, uhm, so I am part of
the Global HR department. My boss is the Global
Talent Manager of the company and the scope of my
work is actually within three regions, so we have
Europe, we have APMEA which is Asia and we have
the central function which are like global R&D, global
manufacturing and the role that I have about L&D is
really taking care of what are the training
interventions happening in all of the three regions…”
● “…we have five plants, actually in the future six
plants with Hungary ramp up…”
2. Learning and Development (L&D)
L&D Global L&D
functions as
 Conceptual
work
 Strategic work
● “….so I am here sitting in the centre of the function as
a global guy uhm and I am much more into the
conceptual work and the strategic work…”
Region L&D
functions as:
 Training
execution
 Setting
learning
process and
evaluation
 Reporting to
global L&D
● “….whereas in the regions are the guys who are
actually adding value and need to take care of the
execution of the training…”
● “….so, it would be more the type of persons who are
setting the standards and who is setting the process of
how to evaluate the training…”
● “…whereas again in the regions they will make sure
that they follow the standards and uhm they deliver the
standards and uhm they deliver the trainings uhm, so
this is in…”
● “….so I have in every location of one L&D person that I

STRATEGY
1
am meeting every two weeks via PC, and they are
actually kinda reporting to me they are reporting to the
line managers but I am in contact because these are
the guys in charge of the location…”
3. Vision
● 70-20-10
system
● “…so what we did, we did implement the 70-20-10, you
are familiar with the topic, so we realized in the 10
mostly 95% of the activities are happening in the 10,
there is sometimes we do a little bit of 20 which is fast
coaching and mentoring and learning from the peers
and what we are working on but have not succeeded
yet because this is a “mountain to climb” is the 70
part…”
● Establishing
business related
training needs
● “…and building up the case of you know exactly that
the training is helping directly the business is something
that we are working on, uhm, but has not fully been
established in the company […] understanding the
training is clearly helping the business at the end of the
day ideally for the whole company to perform better, is
not present.
● “…so, what we are lacking of in terms of evidence is
establishing a clear relationship between businesses
needs and training provided…”
● “…we also need to let the business understand that
there are some questioning of them in a very friendly
way is it really what you need…”
● “…so even the understanding from the top
management team that actually has a big impact if you
train your people […] person which ideally also cause it
is in direct connection with the overall business result,
this is something that has not been, uhm how do you
say that, done and recognized and experienced in the
company.
● Establishing
career path,
career level, and
career
succession
● “…uhm having now working together from the L&D
department together with Talent Management in terms
of interpretation, in terms of career paths and career
levels where would the succession planning and so on,
uhm, this is something we are working on since

STRATEGY
2
planning probably a year but we are just taking a lot of time…”
● “…again because there is no real succession career
path where you say “ok what did you learn, etc.” We are
trying to do it now with Horizon with the half yearly
performance management reviews but it’s not
happening now, no…”
● “…there is not a specific timeline and a clear action
path when are you jumping from one level to the next.
You have even more levels in India but they are
certainly, I would say that greatly depends on how
much the manager likes you, how much you’re pushing
for that uhm, yeah…”
● “So for example in in R&D you might be starting in level
9 or the training is at the level 9 which is fixed but
whether someone reaches 10 after half a year, after
one year after two years and then in level 12, there is
no clear guideline behind it. And I think this is all
abstract it really depends on your manager. In India it’s
even less structured. You have even more levels in
India but they are certainly, I would say that greatly
depends on how much the manager likes you, how
much you’re pushing for that uhm, yeah…”
● “…because there is no succession plan, there is no
strategic succession planning…”
● Improve cultural
understanding
● “…so the idea is here to increase more the cultural
understanding, uhm and then again I would say it’s nice
to know that you are two different, because you are
from another origin, from another culture but I am now
questioning, ok how we can make sure that this has a
business case again…”
● Establishing IT
platform for the
whole
community
● “…as far as I am aware of, only at manufacturing we
have an IT platform, uhm put people have access to a
lot of training manuals etc., learning about the
organization and this is accessible to only 500 people,
to the managers and the plants, but the idea is to make
it bigger for the whole community…”
● Establishing
work-life plan
● “…work-life plan, this is something we’ve in our mind
that we match all the L&D interventions with the current
level of the person, but for that we will need to know
what would be the most probable next steps of the
person of the company…”

STRATEGY
3
4. Who has to learned
Who
has to
learn
1. Plant workers:
plant manager
and shop floor
workers
● “…one is really people working in the plant, it can be
managers it can be shop floor people in all the six
plants and these are roughly all thirteen thousands…”
2. Central
workers:
managers
working at
sales,
marketing,
finance, HR,
and IT
● “…other two thousands are actually managers who are
working at sales, marketing, finance, HR, IT and they
are all spread across the world…”
5. What has to be learned
What
has to
be
learned
Plant workers
 Safety skills
 Skills about
machine
 Plant management
 5S
● “…so when you have technical treatments at the
machines so there is strong technical development
focus”
● “…we have focus on a plant, let’s say here in
Enschede, we have, uhm, they get a safety training
the guys…”
● “…so also for the people working on the plant but
then more the plant management team…”
Managers
 Technical
development
E.g. Recruitment
skill for HR,
communication
skill for PR
manager, business
need analysis skill
for HR in the
region
 Leadership
development
E.g. skills about
● “…so uhm this is what we have, so we split training
into leadership development, personal development
and technical development so, uhm and also for the
managers all three categories are valid meaning…”
● “…if you for example are an HR manager and you
get training on recruitment that would be seen as a
technical training because it’s part of your job…”
● “…personal development would be something like
uhm can be people management if it’s more on the
same level…”
● “…I would say personal development is much more,
let’s say, power point skills…”
● “…can be presentation training, so typical personal
development…”

STRATEGY
4
strategy and
leading people
 Personal
development
E.g. presentation
skill, people
management for
peer group
● “…if you say, you are the PR manager and you need
to have a well-written communication and oral
communication skills then it is Technical
Development…”
● “…either evaluating or finding out a strategy or
leading people then it is Leadership Development…”
6. How is it learned (learning activities)
How is
it
learned
 95% learning is
in form of
classroom
activities
● “…so far 95% of all activities are classroom activities,
really old-school, and it has to do within the plants…”
● “…so there are 20 people in the classroom, there is one
standing in the front just like going to school…”
7. Coding for facilitation of learning
Formal facilitation: Learning is managed and controlled by Learning and Development
(L&D) department
Scope Definition
Activities activities provided by the company that enhance employees learning
Tools tools and materials used by the company to assist the learning process
Resources resources provided to employees to enhance learning
Facilities where trainings are taking place
Evaluation and
monitoring
how does the company evaluate and monitor employees’ learning
Scope
Specific
intervention
Speech fragment
Activities In-house
training
really old-school, and it has to do within the plants…”
● “….we have focus on a plant, let’s say here in Enschede,
we have, uhm, they get a safety training the guys”
● “…in the plant there is constantly some training going on
just because we have so many trainings there…”
External ● “…I said we have some corporation from Toyota plant

STRATEGY
5
training where we send 2-3 people per year to the Toyota plant to
get trained there…”
● “…for example when you get an (inaudible) class or you
are joining another company for some programs without
the company’s running, when you go for you a year and
this is seen as highly rewarding for them”
Coaching ● “…every two weeks I give coaching sessions to our
trainees actually but only the first year…”
Site visit ● “…and then they also go to the shop floor they see actually
how does it looks like is it a good or a bad example and
after one hour that’s off…”
Tools Horizon
(performance
management
system
● “...have a process which is very new so there is for the first
time implemented last year in September/October, which is
called Horizon, this is our Performance Management
system…”
● “…so just imagine this is an online platform Horizon where
you put in your needs…”
Video ● “…meaning they see a video let’s say for 20 minutes…”
PowerPoint ● “…they get another 10 or 20 minutes on clear safety
instructions mostly on power point…”
Training
manual
● “…and then they go through the training manual
together…”
Resources Internal
trainer
● So this is why we either have the chance to take one of the
senior guys to give the training
External
trainer
● “…give training, […] we ask an external guy to do that.
Internal
coach
● “…so I am a coach myself…”
● “…here the certified coaches are probably 2 or 3
worldwide…”
External
coach
● “…so we have an external coach […] this is an external
guy for the top managers but I don’t know how often they
see him or he sees them...”
Budget ● “…I can say that it is really low. It’s around 1%. It’s really
low…”
● “…for the budget focus L&D is like this…”
IT platform ● “…only at manufacturing we have an IT platform, uhm put
people have access to a lot of training manuals etc.,
learning about the organization and this is accessible…”
Global
training
center
● “…that’s part of this Global Training Centre…”

STRATEGY
6
External
agency and
experts
(consultants)
● “…and about the external providers, yes. So we have a lot,
especially in India, we have a lot of external agency,
external experts coming to the organization it’s a good mix
I would say, uhm either they are coming to us…”
● “…a lot of consultants coming also in our company but
people usually learn from them”
Facilities Classroom in
the plants
really old-school, and it has to do within the plants”
Time ● “It depends. In the plant there is constantly some training
going on just because we have so many trainings there,
here for the manager level definitely not. This is once in
awhile.”
● “...there are quite many people also that not had training
for half year for a year...”
Evaluation
and
monitoring
Training
evaluation
● Questionnaire after the class and ask them ok “how would
you rate the training?
Performance
management
review
● “…so with Horizon actually, Horizon is our performance
management system, we have a half, so every six months
the employees sit together with their line manager and they
discuss not only development needs as just an outcome
but they really discuss their performance..”
● “…we have again a lot of performance management
meetings with the line manager with the together with the
employee…”
Calibration
session
● “…calibration session afterwards so we again
put everything together and then people have a chance to
get into four different categories one is “too early to rate”
[…] “improving” […] “performing” and the last one is
“exceeding”…”
Informal facilitation: Learning is managed and controlled by the employees. In this type
of facilitation, L&D functions as supportive and encouragement system.
Scope Definition
Activities activities out of the formal training environment that employees engage in
and learning occurs
Learning
climate
social or job-related interactions among employees that foster learning
Office setting physical setting of the offices that affects employees’ interactions and
learning

STRATEGY
7
Organizational
climate
Access to
opportunity
employees’ ability to ask for and participate in learning activities
Scope
Specific
intervention
Speech fragment
Activities Reading articles ● “…there are a lot of articles that have been sent
throughout the company that are worth reading”
● “…they are sending it; I think they read the stuff, they
like doing that…”
Peers learning ● “….and we are trying to tell people “hey do you realize
how much you’re learning from your peers?”
● “…we started to tell them “hey do you recognize this is
more like learning from the peers, how much you
actually learn from your peers…”
Chat system ● “…because we have so many “WhatsApp” groups here
private but also really company “WhatsApp” groups, we
have an internal chat system, we have this IT platform
also there are forums a little bit like Facebook, it’s
Yammer, uhm so there are a lot of possibilities to ask
people…”
Mentoring ● “…mentoring we might now discussing ideas about the
mentoring program within Europe only, we think it might
be a big challenge to set up something across the three
regions, but within Europe we’re thinking about how this
could look like, but I just had a kick-off last week so this
is really like first steps on…”
Learning
climate
Cross functional
collaboration
● “…so we think especially about people in Enschede, the
plant in Enschede and people in Hungary plant uhm
there is a system plant concept because they really
need to work together because of one cannot produce a
specific tyre and of course the other guys need to jump
in and vice versa, but also learning from each other a
lot…”
● “…sitting together for quick informal meetings and have
some questions also cross functional is happening a
lot…”
● “…but I wouldn’t call it learning because there is no
follow up there, nobody is asking so “nice article, how is
it help us in our current situation?...”
Office
settings
Open office ● “…this is also a reason why we have this open office
and sitting together for quick informal meetings…”
Organizatio
nal climate
Cultural
differences
● “…it’s nice to know that you are different because of
different culture but what does it mean for me in daily

STRATEGY
8
work when I need to be aware of when I am working
with you…”
● Uhm but in the kick-off meeting it was much more
focused not on technical parts but on cultural aspects.
Access to
opportunity
Open request
for training
● “…for example let’s say sales in Europe, so people say
immediately “ok I am working on sales, I need to get
negotiation training, how to be better in conversations
with the custοmers…”
● “…well, with Horizon the idea is yes, because these are
the ones that can tell their line manager “ok this is what I
would like to have…”
Offering training ● “…so in principle my feeling is that they are more open
to training that might not be 100% related to the job
because they realize…”
● “…but also I cannot say that everybody is immediate
jumping in the air when they hear about training…”
8. Coding for regulation of learning
Scope Specific case Speech fragment
Self-
regulation
 Employees
plan their
learning needs
through
Horizon
● “…this is our Performance Management system and in
this system everybody once a year is putting in his or
her, uhm, priority areas for training, development areas,
we called them development areas…”
● “…especially in The Netherlands, again there is a strong
culture point here, to choose and to have the liberty and
the freedom to choose what of the training they would
like to go on…”
Co-
regulation
 Employees
discuss their
learning needs
with line
manager
 Employees
discuss their
performance
with the line
manager
● “…every six months the employees sit together with
their line manager and they discuss not only
development needs as just an outcome…”
● “…and it might be that they are going on a training
course for Spanish because they think this is making
their life much easier and then there is a discussion with
the line manager whether this is truly necessary working
in a Dutch plant and speaking Spanish…”
Socially
shared
regulation
 Employees in
Enschede and
Hungary work
collaboratively
● So we think especially about people in Enschede, the
plant in Enschede and people in Hungary plant uhm
there is a system plant concept because they really
need to work together because of one cannot produce a
specific tyre and of course the other guys need to jump
in and vice versa, but also learning from each other a
lot.
●

STRATEGY
9
External
regulation
 Top-down
approach in
India
● “…for example, in India it’s really top-down so people
tell you are in that and that level so you have to do that
and that training end of story, and the chance that
someone based on the culture is requesting something
that is different than what usually the “big guy” says is
really low…”
● “…from a cultural point of view they are ok with that
because they expect the manager to tell them what they
need to be trained on…”
● “…It’s not that they are not valuing the freedom but they
feel a little bit uncertain because they feel like “Oh my
God, if my line manager doesn’t know what I should
learn, is a bad line manager”…”
● “…the Indians […] in many cases it’s actually the line
manager who is telling them what they need to put in
because they feel like “ok I am not feeling comfortable”.
 Fixed learning
trajectory for
plant workers
● “…No, only for the plant people, because everything
else needs to be…”

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