Unit - 3
Training and Development
Training is viewed as a short term learning process by which employees acquire the technical knowledge and skills necessary to perform effectively their tasks and responsibilities. Wayne Cascio defines, "Training consists of planned programs undertaken to improve employee knowledge, skills, attitudes and social behaviour so that the performance of the organization improves considerably."
Development is viewed as a long term learning process by which managerial personnel acquire conceptual and theoretical knowledge and skills for enhancing general administrative abilities.
Definition
Kllatt, Murdick & Schuster
“Training is a systematic way of altering behavior to prepare an employee for a job or to improve the employee’s performance on the present job, and development is preparing an employee for improving the conceptual, decision-making, and interpersonal skills in complex, in structured situation”
Lussier
“Training is a process of acquiring the skills necessary to perform a job and development is the ability to perform both present and future jobs”. Skills,
McLagan
“Training and development focus on identifying, assuring and helping develop, through planned learning, the key competencies that enable individuals to perform current or future jobs”.
Importance of Training and Development
Training serves various purposes. Training is important to their employees as well as to the organization. The importance of training is explained as follows:
1. Innovation:
Training facilitates innovation in the organization. Due to training, the employees come up with innovative ideas in respect of:
- New Plans,
- New Products,
- New Schemes, etc.
Innovation gives competitive advantage to the organization in the market.
2. Corporate Image:
Training enhances corporate image of the organization. Due to training, the performance of the organization improves greatly. Therefore, the image of the firm improves in the minds of various stakeholders: Customers, Employees, Suppliers, shareholders, Dealers, etc.
3. Efficiency:
Efficiency is the ratio of returns to costs. Training enables the organization to improve efficiency of its employees. Training helps to improve the performance of the employees. Therefore, the company gets higher returns at lower costs. The returns are in the form of:
- Higher Sales,
- Higher Profits,
- Higher Market Share, etc.
4. Team Work:
Training helps to improve knowledge, skills as well as attitude. Therefore, training facilitates team work in the organization. Team work brings success to the organization.
5. Optimum Use of Resources:
Training ensures optimum use of resources such as:
- Physical Resources,
- Capital Resources and
- Manpower.
Optimum use of resources generates higher productivity to the organization.
6. Motivation:
Training facilitates motivation of the employees in the organization. Due to training, there is higher performance in terms of sales and profits. Therefore, employees are motivated by giving incentives: Monetary Incentives (salary, bonus, incentives) and Non-Monetary Incentives (working conditions welfare facilities).
7. Competitive Advantage:
Training generates competitive advantage to the organization Due to training there can be:
- Improvement in Quality and
- Reduction in Costs.
Therefore, the organization can gain competitive advantage in the market.
8. Customer Satisfaction:
Training may result in customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction takes place when product performance matches with customer expectation. Due to training, the overall performance of the employees improves in terms of product quality, delivery of product, service performance, etc.
9. Absenteeism Reduction:
Training helps to reduce absenteeism. It takes place when employees remain absent without prior performance. Absenteeism creates problems to organization as well as the co-workers. Training helps to develop positive attitude in workers and therefore, the absenteeism may get reduced.
10. Employee Turnover Reduction:
Training facilitates reduction in employee turnover. Employee turnover takes place when employees leave the organization Due to training, employees become loyal to the organization which in turn may reduce employee turnover.
11. Benefits to Employees:
Apart from benefits to the organization, the training programmes benefit the employees in several ways:
- Training helps to upgrade knowledge and skills. Training develops positive attitude.
- Training may result in higher rewards.
- Training may provide an opportunity for promotion.
- The refresher training programmes refreshes the employee.
Key takeaways
Training is viewed as a short term learning process by which employees acquire the technical knowledge and skills necessary to perform effectively their tasks and responsibilities
The following are the steps in identifying training needs of an organization:
1. Analyze Organizational Needs:
An organization must analyze the need for training its employees. The need for training the employees arises as new knowledge and skills may be required due to changes in:
- Products, equipment and technology.
- Economic, legal, and political factors.
- Industry competition and standards.
- Customers’ expectations.
- International Environment, etc.
An organization must conduct SWOT analysis to identify the organizational needs, so as to plan for its training needs.
2. Analysis of Strategies and Tasks:
Management must frame effective strategies in all functional areas (marketing, production, finance, HR, etc.). Clear goals and targets must be set for all strategies. Also, tasks or activities must be listed to achieve the goals.
At this stage, the tasks requirements must be compared with the existing employee knowledge and skills. This comparison enables to identify the potential gaps. The potential gaps will indicate that there is a need for training to improve the knowledge and skills so as to cope up with the task’s requirement. Management can conduct this analysis by setting up assessment centres, aptitude and ability tests, observation of employees undertaking key tasks, etc.
3. Analysis of Training Needs of Individual Employees:
Management needs to find out the training needs of individual employees. This is because; some employees may be fully equipped with the knowledge and skills to cope up with tasks requirements, whereas, others may lack the required knowledge and skills. This information can be obtained through l performance reviews and appraisal systems, Observation of employee performance by superiors, feedback from employees, etc.
4. Develop a Training Plan:
The HR manager needs to prepare a training plan. The training plan should indicate:
- The number of training programmes, which employees have to undergo.
- The objective of each training programme.
- The duration of each training programme.
- The place of training-in-house or otherwise.
- The number and quality of training faculty.
- The funds to be utilized for training, etc.
5. Decision on Training Method:
Training method is an important element of training plan. The HR manager must select the right training method depending upon the task’s requirement and the existing level of knowledge and skills of the employees. There are various methods of training which include:
- Seminars and workshops.
- Conferences.
- E-learning/webinars
- Mentoring programmes
- Coaching and Counselling
- Assessment Centres
- Job Shadowing
- Classroom methods such as case study, role playing, etc.
6. Communication with Employees:
The HR manager needs to inform the employees of the reasons for attending certain training programmes. The findings of training needs analysis must be communicated to the employees. Also training plans need to be informed to the employees. The FR manager may invite suggestions from the employees to make training programmes more effective.
7. Implementation of Training Programme:
There must be effective implementation of training programme. Implementation of training programme involves:
- Appointment of effective trainers.
- Arrangement of place and training material.
- Relevant instructions to the trainers.
- Instructions to the trainees.
- Provision of necessary facilities to the trainers to train effectively.
- Arrangement for food and refreshments
- Recording of training sessions, if necessary.
- Obtaining feedback from the trainers and trainees.
8. Review of Training Outcome:
The HIR manager needs to review the outcome of the training programme. The impact of the training programme must be evaluated in terms of knowledge and skills gained by the employees, productivity outcomes, customer/client satisfaction level, and so on. The HR manager may evaluate impact of the training on the employees by comparing their performance before and after the training. The HR manager needs to provide feedback to the top management regarding the effectiveness of the training programme. Based on the review, necessary changes can be incorporated in the future training programmes.
Training programs play a crucial role in enhancing employee’s capabilities, upgrading his existing knowledge and help him acquire new skills and learnings. Effective training programs help employees to cope up with changes, think out of the box, survive the cut throat competition with a smile and contribute effectively to the success of organization.
Training programs need to be designed, keeping in mind the needs and requirements of employees. Training modules ought to be precise, crisp and informative.
There seven main steps involved in designing a training programme for employees. The steps are discussed below-
Step 1. Responsibility for Training:
To be effective, a training programme must be properly organized. Training is quite a strenuous task which cannot be undertaken by a single department.
The responsibility for training may be shared among the following:
(a) The Top Management:
It should frame and authorize the basic training policy, review and approve the training plans and programmes and approve training budgets.
(b) The Personnel Department:
The Personnel Department should plan, establish and evaluate instructional programmes.
(c) The Line Supervisor:
The Line Supervisor should implement and apply various developmental plans.
(d) The Employees:
The Employees should provide feedback, revision and suggestions for improvements in the programme.
Step 2. Selection and Motivation of the Trainees:
Proper selection of trainees is of great importance to obtain permanent and gainful results. It is necessary to decide who is to be a trained-new or old employee, unskilled or semi-skilled workers, supervisors or executives. Selection of candidates for training should be made only after careful screening of the prospective employees for the effectiveness of the programme. It is also necessary to create a desire for learning. The employees will be interested in training if they believe that it will benefit them personally. A trainee should be given proper background information before he starts learning new job skills and gets knowledge. The trainer should explain to the trainee the importance of the job, its relationship with the work flow and the importance of learning. The trainer should not forget the newness of the trainee to the training programme.
Step 3. Preparation of Trainer:
The success of the training programme depends upon the trainer or the instructor. Trainer must be well qualified and may be obtained from within or outside the organization. It should be decided before hand what is to be taught and how. He should be able to divide the job into logical parts so that he may teach one part at a time without losing his perspective of the whole. As training is based upon the needs of the organization, the trainer must have a clear-cut picture of the objectives of training in mind. Trainer needs professional expertise in order to fulfill his responsibility. If he is ill informed about the training process or knows little about possible connection between training and management, he deserves the casual treatment. The trainer should explain and wherever necessary, demonstrate the operations step by step and should allow the trainees to repeat these operations. He should also encourage questions from the trainees.
Step 4. Training Material:
Training material may include study notes, case studies, pamphlets, charts, brochures, manuals, movie slides etc. The material may be prepared in the training section with the help of the supervisors. The written material should be distributed among the trainees so that they may come prepared in the lecture class and may be able to understand the operation quickly and remove their doubts, if any.
Step 5. Training Period:
The length of the training period depends upon the skill of the trainees, purpose of the training, trainees’ learning capacity and the training media used. The time of training, whether before or after or during working hours, should be decided by Personnel Manager taking in view the loss of production and benefits to be achieved by training.
Step 6. Performance Tryout:
The trainee is asked to do the job several times slowly. His mistakes are corrected and if necessary the complicated steps are explained again. As soon as the trainee demonstrates that he can do the job rightly he is put on his own and training is over.
Step 7. Follow Up:
In this step, the effectiveness of the training programme is assessed. The feedback generated through follow up will help to reveal weaknesses or errors, if any. The supervisor should have a constant vigil on the person and his performance. If he is still facing any difficulty on the job, he must be given full guidance by the immediate supervisor and should be initiated to ask questions to remove the doubts. If necessary, instruction may be repeated until the trainee learns whatever has been taught to him. Follow up action reinforces the learning process. It also helps in designing future training programmes.
Key takeaways
Training programs need to be designed, keeping in mind the needs and requirements of employees. Training modules ought to be precise, crisp and informative.
Apprenticeship
In this method, the trainees work as apprentices under the direct supervision of experts for a long period and some stipend is paid to them during the training period. Trainees are imparted knowledge and skill in doing a particular craft or a series of related jobs. In India, employers in specified industries are required under the Apprenticeship Act, 1962 to train the certain number of apprentices in designated trades.
Advantages:
(i) Trainees receive stipend in this type of training.
(ii) They also acquire valuable skills which require high price in the labour market.
(iii) It combines practical experience with theoretical knowledge.
Disadvantages:
(i) It is an expensive and time-consuming method.
(ii) There is no guarantee that the trainee will continue the work in the same enterprise after completing the training.
(iii) It involves continuous supervision over the trainee for a long period, sometimes it becomes difficult.
Suitability:
(i) Jobs which require detailed and in-depth practice.
(ii) Jobs which require technical knowledge.
Understudy
The superior gives training to his subordinate as his understudy or assistant. The subordinate learns through experience and observation. This technique prepares the subordinates to assume the responsibilities of the superior’s job in case the superior is absent or if he leaves the organization.
Job rotation
In this method, the trainee moves from one job to another, so that he can know how to work on all the seats. This type of training is common for the employees of general management positions. Under this method, trainee understands the problems of the other seats while working on that seat. Such movement may be for the period ranging from 6 months to 2 years before a person is established in a particular job or department.
Advantages:
(i) It develops a more cooperative approach to different functions in the organization.
(ii) Managers are able to develop broader horizon and perspective.
(iii) It allows managers to understand problems of different jobs.
Disadvantages:
(i) It can create confusion in the minds of the trainee and he cannot understand the rationale behind job rotation.
(ii) Employee cannot become efficient in any of the jobs.
(iii) It is a costly method.
Suitability:
(i) For less number of trainees.
(ii) For the fresh or new recruits.
Vestibule training
This term is used to designate training in classrooms for skilled production and clerical jobs. Under this method, employees are trained in a special training centre (vestibule) within the plant. In the vestibule an attempt is made to duplicate, nearly as possible, the actual working conditions of the work-place. Qualified instructors provide the training under carefully planned and controlled learning conditions.
Expert trainers are employed to provide training with the help of equipment and machines which are identical with those which are used at workplace. This method of training is mainly used when large number of employees are required to be trained quickly, as a result of expansion of business activities by firms or industries. It is also helpful as a preliminary to be on-the-job training.
This method has the fundamental advantage of training number of people in a short period of time without causing any interruption or disturbance on the normal flow of work. The trainee can concentrate on learning without disturbance from the workplace noise. This method is essential where OJT might result in serious injury or a costly event. It permits the trainee to practice without the fear of being observed and as described by the supervisor.
Advantages:
(i) Trainees are free from the confusion and the pressure of the work situation and they can fully concentrate on the learning.
(ii) It is a less time-consuming process.
(iii) It removes the initial nervousness of the trainees.
Disadvantages:
(i) It is costly as it involves duplication of materials and equipment.
(ii) It creates adjustment problems among the trainees when they are placed on the job.
(iii) It is difficult to duplicate everything in the vestibule.
Suitability:
(i) When large number of employees are to be trained.
(ii) When large number of employees require training at the same time.
(iii) When large number of employees require training in the same kind of work.
Training evaluation refers to an attempt to obtain relevant information on the effects of a training program. It is considered an essential aspect of a training event to be able to reflect, analyze, and improve its effectiveness and efficiency. The primary objective of evaluating any training program is to develop an understanding of whether it has achieved its stated objectives. There are several types of training evaluation methods and tools available that enterprises can use to evaluate and significantly improve the outcome of future training as well. Some of the noteworthy benefits of training evaluation are –
1. Accountability
Training evaluation brings in greater accountability by ensuring that training programs comply with all the competency gaps, and there is no compromise on deliverables.
2. Transparency in Feedback
Evaluation of training programs also acts as a proper feedback mechanism for the trainer and the overall training process. Since evaluation mostly assesses individuals at the level of their work, it makes it simpler to understand the loopholes of the training so that required changes in the methodology can be implemented.
3. Cost-Efficiency
Evaluation of training and development ensures that the training programs bring in cost-efficiency in the system by effectively improving the work quality and development of new employee skills within a certain budget.
Models for evaluating training effectiveness
There are several types of training evaluation methods to measure the effectiveness of enterprise training, such as surveys, post-training quizzes, participant case studies, and official certification exams. The top 5 proven methods that enterprises can use to measure training effectiveness are discussed below
1. The Kirkpatrick Taxonomy Model
Kirkpatrick Taxonomy is one of the most widely used methods for evaluating the effectiveness of corporate training programs. Developed and designed by Don Kirkpatrick, the framework offers a comprehensive four-level strategy to evaluate the effectiveness of any training course or program. The four levels used in this are –
- Level 1: Reaction
This is the level where you gauge how the participants responded to the training given to them. To be able to identify if the conditions for learning were present, you can ask the participants to complete a short survey or feedback forms and gauge their reactions to training.
- Level 2: Learning
In the second stage, the idea is to understand what the participants learned from the training. In most cases, practical tests or short quizzes before and after the training are used to assess this.
- Level 3: Behavior
This is the stage that takes place a while after the training. In this stage, you try to assess whether the participants actually put what they learned into practice in their job roles. This can be done either by asking participants to complete self-assessments or by asking their supervisor to formally assess them.
- Level 4: Results
In the last stage, you need to evaluate whether the training met the stakeholders’ expectations by determining the return on the expectations, also known as ROE.
2. The Phillips ROI Model
Very similar to the Kirkpatrick model in approach, the Phillips ROI model has an extra step, which is to evaluate the program’s return on investment (ROI) by measuring the difference between training cost and training results.
Here is the step-by-step procedure to calculate ROI as per this method –
- Collect the pre-training data
The first step here is to collect pre-program data as a baseline measure that allows you to compare metrics before and after training.
- Collect the post-training data
The next step is to collect post-training data through varied sources such as participants, organizational performance records, team/peer group, participants’ supervisors, and other internal/external groups.
- Isolate the effects of a training program
At this stage, determine whether results discovered are actually due to the training program. Identify all the key factors that might have contributed to the performance improvement
- Convert the data to monetary gains
Once you’ve isolated the effect of the program, you need to convert the data to monetary values and compare it to the overall program costs
- Calculate the return
Use the formula below to calculate the return.
ROI (%) = Net programme benefits x100/ Programme cost
In case the training results exceed the cost, it is an indication of a positive training ROI. Whereas if the cost of training is more than the results, enterprises need to change their approach.
3. Summative and Formative Evaluation
A thorough evaluation can give you the best insight into the drawbacks of your training. So, it is also important to know how to assess a training program both while it’s being developed (formative evaluation), and after it has been delivered. (Summative evaluation).
How to Conduct a Formative Evaluation?
The steps to conduct a formative evaluation are –
- Reviewing the training materials with one or a group of trainees
- Using the material in a situation similar to that of an actual training program to see the impact of the material
- Holding group discussions with the trainees to gain feedback
- Assessing the material with managers and supervisors who oversee trainees
How to Conduct a Summative Evaluation?
Some of the steps to conduct a summative evaluation are –
- Testing trainees on how well they grasped the information provided
- Asking trainees for their opinion about the training program after it has been delivered
- Measuring changes in production and quality of work that has been accomplished post-training
- Conducting surveys or interviews with each trainer to gain a better understanding of what they learned
4. Kaufman's Five Levels of Evaluation
Kaufman’s Levels of Learning Evaluation is one of the other popular types of training evaluation methods that build on or reacts to Kirkpatrick’s model. The levels and considerations of this method are as below –
- Input – Kind of resources and learning materials that training teams have at their disposal that they can use to support the learning experience.
- Process– Focuses on the delivery of the learning experience in terms of its acceptance and how people are responding to it.
- Micro-level results– Takes into account if the learner or the learning group acquired the knowledge and applied it to their respective jobs.
- Macro-level results– Takes into account if the performance improvements due to the learning and application of new skills in the workplace and what kind of benefits participants get from the learning on an organizational level.
- Mega level impact– Considers the kind of impact that the learning has on society or larger external stakeholder groups.
5. Anderson's Model of Learning Evaluation
Yet another favourite type of training evaluation method, the Anderson model, helps businesses to keep their business strategy a priority. There are three stages to the Anderson Model –
- Stage 1: Evaluating your current training programs against the business’ strategic priorities.
- Stage 2: The stage of measuring the contribution of training to strategic business results.
- Stage 3: At this stage, you find the most relevant approaches for your company and decide whether the ROI is worthwhile.
Key takeaways
Training evaluation refers to an attempt to obtain relevant information on the effects of a training program. It is considered an essential aspect of a training event to be able to reflect, analyze, and improve its effectiveness and efficiency. The primary objective of evaluating any training program is to develop an understanding of whether it has achieved its stated objectives.
References:
- Gary Dessler. A Framework for Human Resource Management. Pearson
- DeCenzo, D.A. And S.P. Robbins, “Personnel/Human Resource Management”, Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi.
- Bohlendar and Snell, Principals of Human Resource Management, Cengage Learning.
- Chhabra, T.N. Essentials of Human Resource Management. Sun India Publication, New Delhi.
