Purpose of training and development for employees

In general, an organization’s training and development practices are its intentional efforts to improve current and future performance by helping employees acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required of a competitive workforce. “Training offers the hope of increased competitiveness for firms through raising skill levels, productivity and value added .For trade unions and professional associations, and training enhances members’ expertise facilitating negotiations for pay and status. For individuals, education and training can increase knowledge and opportunities give access to more highly rewarded work and reduce the prospect of unemployment. Within firms, training and development is a key element of human resource management. Work practices such as employee involvement, team working or merit-based pay can be enhanced as a result of employee development. Training also allows organisations to adapt to changes in the business environmental especially in the introduction of new technology. Training and development may also serve a social function, helping workers to form friendships and distracting them from alienating work.” (Tyson, S. 1995)

Putting employees in their specific job designation does not guarantee any success for them and for organization they work for. Newly recruited employees are mostly unaware about their role and responsibilities in their new job. Both training and development are needed for them, after an employee have been trained and got the knowledge about their jobs, then they need additional development to prepare for their further responsibilities. And with ongoing trend towards greater work force diversity, flatter organizations and increased global competition, training and development efforts are very important.

Different types of Training

“Health and safety

Induction

Communication skills

Problem-solving skills

Team working

Ability to improve personal learning and performance

Motivation, judgement and leadership skills” (Guest, D.E. 1997)

Four Steps of Training and Development:

Need Assessment.

Lay down objectives.

Program Contents.

Learning Principle.

Need Assessment

It identifies the ongoing problem and also upcoming challenges. In this it is checked that an employee need the training or not. This can be finding out through his supervisor, clients and employee himself inform us that he need training and development or not. There is another source through which we come to know that employee need it or not, that is ACR (annual confidential report).It’s all about employees performance.

Lay down objectives

These are the objectives of training that for what object training is conducted. These objectives are decided on the bases of need assessment, that which type of training or development is required.

Program Content

Program contents are also compulsory to come to know that in which sequence we have to run our plan of training and development, because sequence is compulsory in everything.

Learning principle.

Learning principle include five principles, as follow.

Repetition.

Participation.

Relevance.

Transfer.

Feed Back.

All the five principles are very important

Improving Performance

As the major purpose of training is to enhance the ability of employees to perform their jobs at peak levels. Training for immediate performance improvement is particularly important to organizations with stagnant or declining rates of productivity or customer satisfaction. Training for performance improvement is also important to organizations that are rapidly incorporating new technologies and, constantly, increasing the likelihood of employee obsolescence. Merger and acquisition is another event that may make training needs more salient, as is expansion into global markets.

New technology. New technologies account for much of the enhanced levels of productivity achieved in recent years but new technology seldom cannot be introduced without also providing training in how to use it. For example at Gillette, significant training was needed when the company introduced the new technology it used to produce the MACH3 razor, and similar scenarios are repeated in manufacturing firms every month.

Mergers and Acquisitions. Following mergers and acquisitions, training that focuses on socializing employees into a new culture is probably the most common. But promoting cultural harmony need not be the only objective of post merger training may serve.

The HR TRIAD in Training and Development

“In HR Triad the role and responsibilities in training and development shows some activities for the line managers, HR professionals and the employees.

Line Managers cooperate with HR professionals in identifying the implications of business plans for training and development. They participate in the delivery of training and development programs, works with employees to determine their individual training and development needs. They support employee’s participation in training and development opportunities. Line managers also participate in efforts to access the effectiveness of training and development activities.

HR professionals identify training and development needs in cooperation with line managers. They assist employees in identifying their individual training and development needs. Communicate with employees regarding training and development opportunities. Develop and administer training and development activities and also evaluate the effectiveness of training and development activities.

Employees identify their own training and development needs with HR professionals and line managers. They accept responsibility for learning about training and development opportunities. Consider employment opportunities from the perspective of the potential for personal learning and development and also participate in efforts to assess the effectiveness of training and development activities.” (A.J.Tower and R.L.Dipboye 2001)

Affective Outcomes

When the desired results of socialization, training or developmental experiences is a change in motivation, attitudes, or values or all three, the learning objectives of interest are effective outcomes. The objectives of building team spirit and socializing employees into the corporate culture aren’t the only effective outcomes of a training system. In fact, training activities often are designed in part to develop employee’s feeling of mastery and self confidence. Training programs designed to enhance employee’s emotional intelligence are another example of efforts that target effective outcomes. Emotional intelligence involves recognizing and regulating emotions in ourselves and in others. It includes self-awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management.

Formats of Training

There are three types of training and development formats.

On the job training

On site, but not on the job training

Off the job Training

On the job training

“On the job training occurs when employees learn their jobs under direct supervision. Trainees learn by observing experienced employees and by working with the actual materials, personnel or machinery. An experienced employee trainer is expected to provide a favorable role model and take time from regular job responsibilities to provide job related instruction and guidance. Assuming the trainer works in the same area, the trainee receives immediate feedback about performance. It can be done by four following ways” (Johnson, G. 1987)

Apprenticeship Training, internships and Assistantships

Job Experiences

Supervisory Assistance and mentoring

Coaching

On Site but not on the Job Training

“Training at the work site but not on the job is appropriate for required after hours programs and for programs in which contact needs to be maintained with work units but on the job training would be too distracting or harmful. It’s also appropriate for voluntary after hours programs and for programs that update employees competencies while allowing them to attend to their regular duties” (Cappelli, P. and Singh, H. 1992)

On site but not the job training can be done by following three ways:-

Corporate universities and executive education programs

Programmed Instructions

Interactive Video Training

Off the Job

When the consequences of error are high, it’s usually more appropriate to conduct training off the job. For example most airline passengers would readily agree that its preferable to train pilots in flight simulators rather than have them apprentice in the cockpit of a plane. However the costs of off the job training are high. One cause for concern is that knowledge learned off the job may not transfer to workplace. There several different ways to conduct off the job training for employees such as:-

Formal Courses

Simulation

Assessment Centers

Business Board games

Role playing and Sensitivity Training

Wilderness trips and Outdoor Training

Basic benefits employees get from Training and Development programs

The core benefits which both employee and organization gets from different training and development programs are that it increased the level of job satisfaction and spirits among employees of the organization. It increases the employee motivation which results in an increase in efficiencies in processes which then results in financial gain for the organization. Training and development increased the captivity to adopt new technologies and methods introduced by time to time, which results in increasing the innovation in strategies from the management of the organization. After Training and Development when all these above mentioned points comes into practicality it increase the overall image of the company because after all organization is what its employees are.

Benefits for the organization from Training and Development programs

Benefits which organization gets from Training and development program involves that it helps in more understanding in carrying out organizational policies which thus helps in organization growth. Training and development programs lead to increase profitability and more optimistic attitude towards profit orientation. It increases the productivity and quality of work carried out in organization. Training and development programs increase the relationship between top management, middle management and subordinates which fosters authenticity and trust among them. By the help of these programs organization gets more effective decision making and problem solving in all situations good or bad. It helps in continuing and developing positive leadership skills, loyalty, motivation and better attitude towards employees which results in developing the sense of responsibility for the enterprise for being knowledgeable and competent. Training and Development in production business units increase the relations between labor and management which helps in minimizing the risk of strikes, cost efficiency and maximum utilization of resources by labor which also eliminates suboptimal behavior. Where finance is the oxygen for the business, training and development is like the back bone of the business because development is needed with the passage of time, if you make no training and development programs and unable to train your employees, you become bored for your stake holders, and you will loss the race.

Therefore the more organization introduce training and development programs the more its helps in creating an appropriate climate for good communication among staff and management and for continuous growth for the organization which then results in creating a better corporate image of the company in the industry.

Examples from banking sector and other industries

In banking single person performing different kind of duties in different days, that’s why he can easily handle the stress of work and Varity of work, basically bank giving him on-job training during his duty by assigning him different seats to perform different work and due to this, it give benefits of bank, and also employee become polished.

Similarly if we see in other industries or in defense forces (air force, military, navy) company / organizations send abroad his employees or send to other training and development institutions for future benefits for both organization and employee.

And in the end employees pay back for this to organization in shape of benefits and profits. Other than defense forces the biggest example of sending employees abroad is Samsung.

Now if we see the training and development of McDonald’s, a normal person can say that there is no need of training and development for its employees, because they are already well trained, but they continuously doing the process of training and development for their staff. The reason behind this is that they want to get maximum profit day by day and that want to stay in market, and the other important reason is this that they want to up-to-date their knowledge about innovations, coming circumstances, new dishes and etc.

That’s why they are able to stay stand with its competitors.

Gillette invests $125 million annually in employee training. Construction and real estate firm Beck group reimburses workers $4500 a year outside courses. Siemens uses outdoor programs to increase knowledge sharing

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Case study on Santander UK Graduate Training and Development Program

“The Santander UK Graduate Program is a three year program designed to build leaders of the future in banking industry.

From day one employees are part of the Santander UK team and will have a real job, adding value from the outset.

As a Graduate Trainee in one of the Santander UK businesses, trainee will receive a structured induction into the organization and on gaining training and development as detailed in the Induction, Training & Development Section.

In addition to this trainee will be invited to various activities throughout the program to include:

Induction to UK business.

Induction to Division.

Induction to the Santander Group.

Allocation of Mentor and Buddy.

Meetings with members of the Executive Committee.

Involvement in cross divisional project work.

Graduate specific events.

Publication of Graduate Magazine.

All of their graduate trainees are assessed on their individual performance and behaviors. Providing the trainee to demonstrate the required level of skills and behaviors and trainee have the passion and enthusiasm to succeed then Santander UK could be them. Santander appreciate that trainee will have individual career aspirations and therefore need trainee to indicate their two preferences of the business area they wish to work in, on their own initial application form.

When they have submitted their online application, Santander will assess their application against the criteria for their preferred business areas and direct them along a career path that Santander will enable them to meet and exceed their career aspirations.” (www.santanderukgraduates.com/programmes.asp)

Conclusion

Rapidly increasing foreign completion, changing technology and changes in organizational strategy and strategic business objectives are putting pressure on organizations to train and develop employees for competitive advantage. Training and development programs must be designed and then implemented in the organization. Setting up this means deciding who will be trained, who will train, what sort of training is needed, is it a on job, off job training, and what training formats and methods to be used to train employees.

Once the method and format for training and development has been chosen, the content of training and development activities designed to maximize learning. It is also important to examine the work environment to ensure that new behaviors will be reinforced rather than punished.

Once all these strategies been implemented then it finally results in favor of employees but at the broader picture is that it will result in keeping organization in a course of growth, prosperity and keeping and maintaining the competitive edge.