Employee Training
Employee Training
Employee Training
Introduction:
Every organization needs well-adjusted, trained and experienced people to perform its
activities. As jobs in today’s dynamic organizations have become more complex, the
importance of employee education has increased.
Employee training is a learning experience, it seeks a relatively permanent change in
employees that their improves job performance. Training involves changing skills,
knowledge, attitudes, or behavior. This may means changing what employee know, how they
work, or their attitudes toward their jobs, coworkers, managers, and the organization.
Managers, with HRM assistance, decide when employees need training and what form that
training should take.
Definitions
Employee training
• A learning experience designed to achieve a relatively permanent change in an
individual that will improve the ability to perform on the job.
• Training is more present-day oriented; it focuses on individuals’ current jobs,
enhancing those specific skills and abilities to immediately perform their jobs.
• Training helps the employee do their current job.
• The benefits of training may extend throughout a person’s career and help develop
that person for future responsibilities.
Employee development
• Future-oriented training, focusing on the personal growth of the employee.
• Development focuses on future jobs in the organization. As job and career progress,
employee need new skills and abilities.
• Help that person for future responsibilities, with little concern of current job duties.
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• Need assessment must consider each employee.
• The employee’s needs may be determined by HR department, by supervisors, or by
self-nominations.
• Specific training need should be based on:
Organization’s needs
Type of work to be done
Skills necessary to complete the work
• Indicators of declining job performance/ Indicators of need for more training:
Drops in productivity
Increased rejects
Lower quality
Inadequate job performance
Rise in the number of accidents
Customer Complaints
Unsatisfactory customer survey ratings
Missed objectives and targets
New facilities or technology
• The value added by training must be considered versus the cost.
• Having identified the problems and performance deficiencies, we must lay out the
difference between the costs of any proposed solutions against the cost of not
implementing the solution. Here's an economic "gap analysis":
What are the costs if no solution is applied?
What are the costs of conducting programs to change the situation?
a. Survey:
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• Survey the potential trainees to identify specific topics about which they want
to learn more.
• It suggests that trainees are more likely to be receptive to the resulting
programs when they are viewed as relevant.
b. Group recommendation:
• The group’s expertise may be tapped through a group discussion, a
questionnaire, the Delphi procedure, or a nominal group meeting.
i. Group discussion:
• Resembles face-to-face interview technique, e.g., structured or unstructured, formal
or informal, or somewhere in between.
• Can be focused on job (role) analysis, group problem analysis, group goal setting, or
any number of group tasks or themes (e.g., "leadership training needs of the board").
• Uses one or several of the familiar group facilitating techniques: brainstorming,
nominal group process, force fields, consensus ranking, organizational mirroring,
simulation, and sculpting.
• Advantages:
Permits on-the-spot synthesis of different viewpoints.
Builds support for the particular service response that is ultimately decided on.
Decreases client's "dependence response" toward the service provider since
data analysis is (or can be) a shared function.
Helps participants to become better problem analysts, better listeners, etc.
• Disadvantages:
Is time consuming (therefore, initially expensive) both for the consultant and
the agency.
Can produce data that are difficult to synthesize and quantify (more a problem
with the less structured techniques.
ii. Questionnaire:
• May be in the form of surveys or polls of a random or stratified sample of
respondents, or an enumeration of an entire "population" ranking.
• Can use a variety of question formats: open-ended, forced-choice, priority -ranking.
• May be self-administered (by mail) under controlled or uncontrolled conditions, or
may require the presence of an interpreter or assistant.
• Advantage:
Can reach a large number of people in a short time.
Are relatively inexpensive.
• Disadvantage:
Make little provision for free expression of unanticipated responses.
Require substantial time (and technical skills, especially in survey model) for
development of effective instruments.
Suffer low return rates (mailed), grudging responses, or unintended and/or
inappropriate respondents.
c. Task identification:
• Evaluating the job description to identify the salient tasks the job requires.
Once trainers have an understanding of those tasks, specific plans are
developed to provide the necessary training.
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d. HR weaknesses:
• HR may find the weaknesses among HR activities, includes inappropriate
placement, orientation, selection, or recruiting may lead to workers with
deficiencies.
• Errors in these activities may stem from weaknesses in HR planning, job
design, or the HR information system.
• Training and development may be needed to increase the workers’
performance and it may modify other activities to ensure a better fit between
people and performance.
e. Other sources of information:
• Reviewing other sources of information
• Includes different reports, e.g. production records, quality control reports,
grievances, safety reports, absenteeism and turnover statistics, and exit interviews
of departing employees
• May reveal problems that should be addressed through training and development
efforts.
• Advantages:
Readily available
Provide objective evidence of the results of problems within the agency or
group.
Can be collected with a minimum of effort and interruption of workflow since
it already exists at the work site.
• Disadvantage:
Carry perspective that generally reflects the past situation rather than the
current one (or recent changes).
Need a skilled data analyst if clear patterns and trends are to emerge from
such technical and diffuse raw data.
f. Supervisors:
• Observe employees on daily basis.
• Supervisors may recommend an employee for training and development as reward
good employees.
• Self-nominations:
• Employees are asked to nominate themselves for training and development
programs where they want the differences in between their expected skills,
knowledge and abilities and actual.
• Once it has been determined that training is necessary training goals must be
establishes.
• Management should explicitly state its desired results for each employee.
• It must state what change in employee knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors
and also clarify what is to change and by hoe much.
• It should state the desired behavior and the conditions under which it is to occur.
• Goals should be specific, tangible, verifiable, timely, and measurable.
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• Theses stated objectives then become standards against which individual
performance and the program can be measured.
• They should be clear to both the supervisor and the employee because they can be
used to evaluate their success.
• If the objectives are not met, failure gives the HR feedback on the program and
the participants.
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o The close match between the simulator and the actual job allows the
trainee to quickly transfer the learning in the simulator to actual
conditions.
v. Feedback:
o Feedback gives learners information on their progress.
o With feedback, motivated learners can adjust their behavior to achieve the
quickest possible learning curve.
o Without feedback trainee cannot gauge their progress and may become
discourage.
2. Job rotation:
• Job rotation involves moving employees to various positions in the
organization to expand their skills, knowledge and abilities.
• It can be either horizontal or vertical.
i. Vertical job rotation is promoting a worker into a new position.
ii. Horizontal job rotation is short-term lateral transfer.
• Benefits:
It is excellent method for broadening an individual’s exposure to
company operations and for turning a specialist into a generalist.
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Increase the individual’s experience
Allows an employee to absorb new information
Reduce boredom
Stimulate the development of new ideas.
Provide opportunities for a more comprehensive and reliable
evaluation of the employee by supervisors.
3. Assistant-To Position:
• Assistant-to positions allow employees with potential to work under and be
coached by successful managers.
• Working as staff assistants, perform many duties under watchful eye of a
supportive coach.
• Benefits:
Employee experience a wide variety of management activities
Groomed for the duties of next higher level position
4. Committee assignments
• Committee assignments provide opportunities to an employee for:
Decision-making
Learning by watching others
Becoming more familiar with organizational members and problems
Temporary committee:
• Act as a taskforce to delve into a particular problem, ascertain alternative
solutions, and recommend a solution.
• Temporary assignments can be interesting and rewarding to the employee’s
growth.
Permanent committee:
• Increases the employee’s exposure to other members of the organization
• Broadens his/her understanding
• Provide an opportunity to grow and
• Make recommendations under the scrutiny of other committee members
2. Vestibules:
• Learning tasks on the same equipment that one actually will use on the job but
in simulated work environment.
• Separate areas or vestibules are setup with equipment similar to that used on
the job.
• This arrangement allows transference, repetition, and participation.
• Benefits:
Not disrupting normal operations
4. Simulation:
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• Simulation refers to any artificial environment that attempts to closely mirror
an actual condition.
• Learning a job by actually performing the work
• May include case studies/case analysis, experimental exercises/decision
games and role-plays and group interactions and are intended to improve
decision-making.
• It is similar to vestibules, except that the simulator more often provides
instantaneous feedback on performance.
• Benefits:
Opportunities to attempt to create an environment similar to real situations
manager face, without high costs for poor outcomes.
• Disadvantage:
Difficult to duplicate the pressures and realities of actual decision-making
on the job,
Individuals often act differently in real-life situations than do in simulated
exercise.
i. Case-study:
• Take actual experiences of organizations, these cases represent attempts to
describe, as accurately as possible, real problems. Trainees study these cases
to determine problems, analyze causes, develop alternative solutions, select
what they believe to be the best solution, and implement it.
• If cases are meaningful and similar to work-related situations, it means
transference is there.
• Participation can also increased by discussing these cases.
• Benefits:
Provide stimulating discussions among participants
Excellent opportunities for individuals to defend their analytical and
judgmental abilities.
Improving decision-making abilities within the constraints of limited
information
ii. Decision Games/ role-playing:
• Played on computer program,
• Player makes decision, and computer determines the outcome in the context of
the conditions under which it was programmed.
• Provide opportunities for individuals to make decisions and to witness the
implications of their decisions for other segments of the organization.
• Role-playing allows participants to act out problems and to deal with real
people.
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• After reading and answering a question, the reader gets immediate feedback. If right,
the learner proceeds; if wrong, the reader is directed to review the accompanying
materials.
• Programmed materials provide learner participation, repetition, relevance, and
feedback.
• It ranges from manuals to prerecorded cassettes or videotapes.
• Benefits:
It is useful when employees are dispersed geographically or when requires
little interaction.
6. Outdoor Training:
• Outdoor training typically involves challenges, which teach trainees the importance
of teamwork/working together.
• It typically involves some major emotional and physical challenge.
• Purpose is to see how employees react to the difficulties that nature presents to them.
Do they “freak”? Or are they controlled and successful in achieving their goal?
• Benefits:
It reinforced the importance of working closely with one another, building
trusting relationships, and succeeding as a member of a group.
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training program achieved its desired results (reduced turnover, increased customer
service, etc)
• Training Outcomes:
Effective criteria used to evaluate training focus on outcomes. Trainers are particularly
concerned about:
1. The reactions by trainees to the training content and process.
2. The knowledge or learning acquired through the training experience.
3. Changes in behavior that result from the training.
4. Measurable results or improvements in the individuals or the organization, such as
lower turnover, fewer accidents, or less absenteeism.
Learning Did trainees learn what was based Learning can be measured by pre- and post
on the course objectives? tests, either through written test or through
performance tests.
Results Ties training to the company's Generally applies to training that seeks to
bottom line. overcome a business problem caused by
lack of knowledge or skill. Examples
include reductions in costs, turnover,
absenteeism and grievances.
May be difficult to tie directly to training.
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Evaluation criteria closely match the training and development
objectives.
ii. Pretest:
Participants should be given a pretest; that is , they should be tested to
establish their level of knowledge before program begins.
iii. Training and development program
Implementing the training and development program.
iv. Posttest:
After training and development has been completed, a posttest or post
training evaluation should reveal the improvement that resulted from
the program. It is useful way to determine whether the information was
communicated.
v. Transfer to job:
After post test trainees are placed to their job for what they have
trained and developed.
vi. Follow-up:
It may be conducted months later to see how ell learning was retained.
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• Human resource development is also an effective way to meet several
challenges, includes:
i. Employee obsolescence
• Obsolescence results when an employee no longer possesses the knowledge or
abilities needed to perform successfully.
• Or
• It may results from a person’s failure to adapt to new technology, new procedures,
and other changes. The more rapidly the environment changes, the more likely it is
that employees will become obsolete.
• Employers are reluctant to take strong action and fire obsolete employee, particularly
employees who have been with the company a long time.
• Proactively assessing the needs of employees and giving them programs to develop
new skills can avoid employee obsolescence.
• If these programs are designed reactively, after obsolescence occurs, they are less
effective and more costly.
• When an employee reaches a career plateau, obsolescence may be more likely.
• A career plateau occurs when an employee does well enough no to be demoted or
fired but not so well that s/he is likely to be promoted.
• Motivation to stay current may be reduced when an employee realizes that s/he is at
career plateau.
v. Employee Turnover:
• Turnover – the willingness on employees to leave one organization for another.
• Departures are largely unpredictable, development activities must prepare employees
to succeed those who leave.
• Some employer with excellent development programs finds that training programs
contribute to employee turnover. Therefore, they are reluctant to invest money in
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workers who may then take their new skills to a new job at a higher-paying
competitor.
• After evaluate the importance of training and development programs, the
organizations realize that it is better to have some trained employee who may leave
than to have an untrained workforce that says.
Organization Development
Introduction:
Organizations change from time to time. Changes with respect to continuous improvements,
diversity, and work process engineering require the organization to move forward through a
process called organizational development.
• Organization Development:
o Definition: Organization development is a process that addresses system wide
change in the organization.
• Change agent:
o Change agents are individuals responsible for fostering the change effort and
assisting employees in adapting to changes
o They are may be internal employees, or external consultants.
• What is change?
OD efforts support changes that are usually made in four areas:
i. The organization’s systems
ii. Technology
iii. Processes
iv. People
• Two metaphors clarify the change process.
1. The calm waters metaphor
• It describes unfreezing the status quo, change to a new state, and refreezing to
ensure that the change is permanent.
• Kurt Lewin describes the status quo can be considered an equilibrium state.
Unfreezing, necessary to move from this equilibrium, is achieved in one of three
ways:
a. The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo, can be
increased.
b. The restraining forces, which hinder movement from the existing
equilibrium, can be decreased.
c. The two approaches can be combined.
• Lewin’s three steps process treats change as a break in the organization’s
equilibrium state. The status quo has been disturbed, and change is necessary to
establish a new equilibrium.
• OD Methods:
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• Organizational development facilitates long-term organization-wide changes.
• Its focus is to constructively change attitudes and values among organizational
members so that they can more readily adapt to and be more effective in achieving the
new directions of the organization.
• One fundamental issue of OD is its reliance on employee participation to foster an
environment of open communication and trust.
• Persons involved in OD efforts acknowledge that change can create stress for
employees.
• OD attempts to involve organizational members in changes that will affect their jobs
and seeks their input about how the innovation is affecting them.
• OD techniques:
• Any organizational activity that assists with implementing planned change can be
viewed as an OD technique.
• OD techniques include:
i. Survey feedback
ii. Process consultation
iii. Team building
iv. Intergroup development
i. Survey Feedback:
• Survey feedback assesses organizational members’ perceptions and attitudes
about their jobs (satisfaction with their job, coworkers, supervisors, and
management etc) and organization (decision making, communication
effectiveness, and leaderships etc).
• The summarized data are used to identify problems and clarify issues so that
commitments to action can be made.
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iv. Intergroup development:
• Intergroup development attempts to change attitudes, stereotypes, and
perceptions that one group may have towards another group.
• It attempts to achieve cohesion among different work groups or helping
members of various groups become a cohesive team.
• It builds better coordination among the various groups.
•
Values continued learning and believes a competitive advantage can be gained from it.
Characterized by:
–Capacity to continuously adapt
–Employees continually acquire and share new knowledge
–Open communication
–Collaboration across functional specialties
–Teams are an important feature
–Empowered employees to make decision about their work or resolving issues.
–Strong and committed leadership, shared vision
–Organizational culture – shared vision, inherent interrelationships among
organization’s processed, activities, functions, and external environment.
–Strong sense of community, trust
–Employees feel free to openly communicates, share, experiment, and learn without
fear of criticism or punishment.
Cross-Cultural Training
• Necessary for expatriate managers and their families:
o Before assignments (to learn language and culture)
o During, and after foreign assignments (to adjust to changes back home).
• Cross-cultural training is more than language training
• Involves learning about the culture’s:
o History
o Politics
o Economy
o Religion
o Social climate
o Business practices
• May involve role-playing, simulations and immersion in the culture.
Development
• Often, organizations do not do a good job of planning for the return of overseas
managers.
• Leads to the managers’ being frustrated
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• Returning expatriates can:
o Be assigned a domestic position
o Prepare for a new overseas assignment
o Retire or be terminated
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