TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Employee training and development are integral parts of the HR function of management. Training implies a systematic procedure whereby employees are imparted technical knowledge and skill for specific jobs. It emphasises improvements of the abilities of employees to handle specific jobs and operations more effectively. Development, on the other hand, implies an educational process aimed at the growth and maturity of managerial personnel in terms of insight, attitudes, adaptability, leadership and human relations, on the basis of conceptual and theoretical knowledge.

Training and development programmes are generally designed in accordance with the nature of the job, personnel concerned (operatives, supervisors, managers) and the purpose in view. The programmes can be broadly divided into two categories: On-the-Job Programmes; and Off-the-Job Programmes. Training of operatives and skilled workers are mostly organised by way of:

  (i) Training on specific jobs;

(ii) Vestibule training with separate sets of tools and equipment in a special training centre;

(iii) Internship training with the cooperation of vocational training institutions;

 (iv) Apprenticeship training combining job experience with classroom instruction; and

 (v) Job rotation involving transfer from job to job on a systematic basis. Supervisory and managerial training programmes are mostly off-the-job programmes. One or more such programmes commonly used are the following:

 (i) Classroom lectures;

(ii) Conferences;

 (iii) Group discussions;

 (iv) Case studies;

 (v) Role-playing;

 (vi) T-group training; and

(vii) Programmed instruction.

 Management development programmes may consist of

 (i) In-basket programme for identifying executive potentials and developing decision-making abilities;

 (ii) Management games to develop capabilities of decision-making in a competitive situation of a realistic nature;

 (iii) Sensitivity training aimed at developing awareness of and sensitivity to behavioural patterns of oneself and others;

 (iv) Committee assignments or membership of junior boards;

(v) Simulation and role-playing, and

 (vi) Transactional analysis for improving communication abilities, human relations and managerial interaction with subordinates.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

Training is the process through which employees are made capable of doing the jobs prescribed to them. According to Flippo, “Training is the act of increasing the knowledge and skills of an employer for doing a particular job”.

According to Dale Yoder, “Training is the process by which man-power is filled for the particular jobs it is to perform”. Beach says, “Training is the organised procedure by which people learn knowledge and skills for a definite purpose”.

TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

Training: It is a process of training, a sequence of programmed behaviour. It is application of knowledge. It gives people an awareness of the rules and procedures to guide their behaviour. It attempts to improve their performance on the current job or prepare them for an intended job.

 Development: It is a related process. It covers not only those activities which improve job performance but also those that bring about growth of the personality, help individuals in the progress towards maturity and actualisation of their potential capacities so that they become not only good employees but better men or women.

Education: It is the understanding and interpretation of knowledge. It does not provide definite answers, but rather, it develops a logical and rational mind that can determine relationships among pertinent variables and thereby understand phenomena. Education must impart qualities of mind and character, understanding of basic principles, synthesis and objectivity. Usually, education involves a range of skills and expertise, which can be provided only by educational institutions. An organisation can and does make use of such institutions in order to support and supplement its internal training and development efforts.

ADVANTAGES OF TRAINING

According to Dale S. Beach “Training is vital and necessary to activity in all organisational and of plays a large part in determining the effectiveness and efficiency of the establishment”. Training is advantageous not only to the organisation but also the employees.

Advantages to the Organisation

The major advantages of training to organisation could be referred to as:

1) Follow up of selection procedure: Training is a follow up of selection procedure. It helps in choosing the most appropriate individuals for different jobs. Training can be used in spotting out promising persons and in removing defects in selection process;

2) Better Performance: Training is about improvement of the quality of output by increasing the skill of the employee. This makes the fresh and old employee acquire more skills and thus, be accurate in performance of their work;

3) Reduction in Cost Production: Training personnel is to make better and economical use of materials and equipments besides decreasing wastage. In addition, the rate of accidents and damage to machinery and equipment is at the minimum by the well trained employees amounting to lesser cost of production per unit,

4) Reduced Supervision: If the employees are given proper training, the need of supervision gets lessened. A well trained employee is self-reliant in his work as he comes to know what is to be and how. Under such situations, close supervision is not much required. Leaving the scope for the management focus its attention on other basic and important functions;

5) Increased morale: The morale of the employee gets boosted, if they are given proper training. As a common objective of the organisation, training programme moulds its employees’ attitude to achieve support for organisational activities and obtain better cooperation and greater loyalty. With the help of tiny dissatisfaction, complaints, absenteeism and turnover can also be reduced among the executives. Thus, training helps in building an efficient and cooperative work force; and

6) Organisational Stability and Flexibility: Training increases the stability and flexibility of the organisation. Creation of a reservoir of trained replacements increases the stability of the organisation that is; the organisation is able to sustain its effectiveness despite the loss of key personnel.

Advantages to the Executive

The incumbents on executive position have advantages to their credit through training. It could be reflected as follows:

1) Increase in wage earning capacity: Training helps the executive in acquiring new knowledge and job skills. In this way, it increases their market value and wage earning power leading to increase in their pay and status.

2) Job Security: Training can help an executive to develop his ability to earn make the official adaptive to new work methods, besides learning to use new kinds of equipment and adjusting to major changes in job contents as well a work relationship; and

3) Chances of Promotion: Training also qualifies the executives for promotion to more responsible jobs.

LIMITATIONS OF TRAINING

Every coin has two sides. The other side of training, that is, its limitations are as such:

1. Training is a costly affair and expensive process making organisations to spend substantive amount, taken out of other organisational commitments.

2. Training may result in dislocation of work and loss of output because regular office work is likely to be interrupted or delayed because of the time of trainees spent in training;

3. Sometimes, it is difficult to obtain good training instructors and leaders; and 4. Self-reliance and capacity for new ideas might be stiffed.

Methods used to assess training needs

The following methods are used to assess the training needs:

1) Organisational requirements and weaknesses;

2) Departmental requirements/weaknesses;

3) Job specifications and employee specifications;

4) Identifying specific problems;

5) Anticipating future problems;

6) Management’s request;

7) Observation;

8) Interviews;

9) Group conferences;

10) Questionnaire Surveys;

11) Tests or examinations;

12) Check lists; and

13) Performance appraisal

PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

Training comprises of mainly learning and teaching. Training principles can be studied through the principles of learning and teaching. Some of the significant principles and assumptions of learning include:  

1) All human beings can learn

2) An individual must be motivated to learn

3) Learning is active and not passive

4) Learners may acquire knowledge more rapidly with guidance. Feedback ensures improvement in speed and accuracy of learning

5) Appropriate material (like case studies, tools, problems, readings, etc) should be provided

6) Time must be provided to practice learning

7) Learning methods should be varied. Variety of methods should be introduced to off-set fatigue and boredom

8) Learners need reinforcement of correct behaviour

9) Standards of performance should be set for the learner

10) Different levels of learning exists

11) Learning is an adjustment on the part of an individual

12) Individual differences play a large part in effectiveness of the learning process

13) Learning is a cumulative process

14) Ego factor is widely regarded as a major factor in learning

15) The rate of learning decreases when complex skills are involved.

16) Learning is closely related to attention and concentration

17) Learning involves long-run retention and immediate acquisition of knowledge

18) Accuracy deserves generally more emphasis than speed.

19) Learning should be relatively based

20) Learning should be a goal-oriented

LEARNING PATTERN

Trainees need some understanding of the patterns in which new skills are adopted. The executive is likely to find himself unusually clumsy during the early stages of learning. This can be called discouraging stage. After the executive adjusts himself to the environment, he learns at a faster rate.

A “fatigue” develops after the lapse of more training time due to loss of motivation and lack of break in training schedule. The trainee reaches the next stage when he is motivated by the trainer and the training process restarts after some break. The trainee at this stage learns at a fast rate. Special repetition of the course leads the trainee to reach the stage of over-learning.

Learning Curve

-Learners Job Proficiency

-Discouraging first stage

-Increasing Returns

-Fast fatigue

-Peak Proficiency

-Over-learning period

Characteristics of Learning Process

Learning Process has the following characteristics

1) Learning is a continuous process

2) People learn through their actual personal experience, simulated experience and from others’ experience

3) People learn step by step, from known to unknown and simple to complex

4) There is a need for repetition in teaching to inculcate skill and to learn perfectly

5) Practice makes man perfect. Hence, opportunity should be erected to use and transfer skills, knowledge and abilities acquired through learning. It gives satisfaction to the learner

 6) Conflict in learning arises when the trainer knows or has developed some habits which are incorrect in terms of the method being learned.

TRAINING PRINCIPLES

A sound training programme should be based on the following principles

1) Designed to achieve pre-determined objectives

2) Less-expensive

3) Developed for all

4) Pre-planned and well organised

5) According to size, nature and financial position of the concern

6) Flexible

7) Conducted by an experienced supervisor

8) Coverage of theoretical as well as practical aspects

9) Interests of executives and employees

10) More than one method

11) Training followed by reward

12) Sufficient time for practice

TRAINING METHODS

 There are a number of methods through which the trainees are trained. The methods normally used for training of operative and supervisory personnel are classified into “on the job” and “off-the-job” training methods.

A. On the Job Training Methods The worker by these methods learns to master the operations involved, on the actual job situation, under the supervision of his immediate boss who undertakes the responsibility of conducting training. On-the-job training has the advantage of giving first hand knowledge and experience under the actual working conditions. The emphasis is placed on rendering services in the most effective manner rather than learning how to perform the job.

1) On Specific Job: The most common or formal on-the-job training programme is training for a specific job. Current practice in job training was first designed to improve the job performance through job instruction. On-the-job training is conducted through:

a) Experience: This is the oldest method of on-the-job training. But as an exclusive approach, it is wasteful, time consuming and inefficient. It has been observed that it should be followed by other training methods to make it more effective. Onthe-job problem-solving and colleague interactions were prompted as most important for professional growth.

b) Coaching: On-the-job coaching by a superior is an important and potentially effective approach, if superior is properly trained and oriented. The supervisor provides feed-back to the trainee on his performance and offers him some suggestions for improvement. Often the trainee shares his thoughts, views and apprehensions about the duties and responsibilities with the boss and thus gets relief and relieves him of his burden. A limitation of this method of training is that the trainee may not have the freedom of opportunity to express his own ideas because the trainer happens to be his immediate boss.

c) Understudy: The understudy method is considered a somewhat different approach from those described above, that a certain person is specifically designated as the heir-apparent. The understudy method makes the trainee an assistant to the current job holder. The trainee learns by experience, observation and imitation of the style of the person he asked to work with. The trainee is informed about the policies, methods, techniques etc. The advantage of this method is that training is conducted in a practical and realistic situation.

2) Position Rotation: The major objective of job rotation is the broadening of the background of trainee in the organisations. This type of training involves the movement of the trainee from one job to another. The trainee receives the job knowledge and gains experience from his supervisor or trainer in each of the different job assignments. This method gives an opportunity to the trainee to understand the operational dynamics of a variety of jobs. There are certain disadvantages of this method. The productive work can suffer because of the obvious disruption caused by such changes. Rotations become less useful as specialisation proceeds, for few people have the breadth of technical knowledge and skills to move from one functional area to another.

3) Special Projects: This is a very flexible training device. Such special project assignments grow ordinarily out of an individual analysis of weaknesses. The trainee may be asked to perform special assignment; thereby he learns the work procedure. Trainees not only acquire knowledge about the assignment activities, but also learn how to work with others.

4) Selective Readings: Individuals in the organisation can gather and advance their knowledge and background through selective reading. The readings may include professional journals and books. Various business organisations maintain libraries for their staff. Many executives become members of professional associations and they exchange their ideas with others. This is a good method of assimilating knowledge. However, some executives claim that it is very difficult to find time to do much reading other than absolutely required in the performance of their jobs.

 5) Apprenticeship: Apprentice training can be traced back to medieval times when those intended of learning trade skill bound themselves to a master craftsman to learn by doing the work under his guidance. In earlier periods, apprenticeship was not restricted to ascertains, but was used in training for the professions including medicine, law, dentistry, teaching, etc. Today’s industrial organisations require large number of skilled craftsmen who can be trained by this system. Such training is either provided by the organisation or it is imparted by governmental agencies. Most states now have apprenticeship laws with supervised plans. Such training arrangements usually provide a mixed programme of classroom and job experience.

6) Vestibule Schools: Large organisations are frequently provided with what is described as vestibule schools, a preliminary to actual shop experience. As far as possible, shop conditions are duplicated, under the close watch of the instructors. Vestibule schools are widely used in training for clerical and office jobs as well as for factory production jobs. Such training is through shorter and less complex but is relatively expensive. However, the costs are justified if the volume of training is large and high-standard results are achieved.

B. Off-the-job Training Methods In these methods, trainees have to leave their work-place and devote their entire time to the development objective. In these methods development of trainees is primarily and any usable work produced during training is secondary. Since the trainee is not instructed by job requirements, he can place his entire concentration on learning the job rather than spending his time in performing it. There is an opportunity for freedom of expression for the trainees. Off-the-job training methods are as follows:

1) Special Course and Lectures: Lecturing is the most traditional form of formal training method. Special courses and lecturers can be organised by organisations in numerous ways as part of their development programmes. First, there are courses which the organisations themselves establish to be taught by members of the organisations. Some organisations have regular instructors assigned to their training and development departments. A second approach to special courses and lecturers is for organisations to work with universities or institutes in establishing a course or series of courses to be taught by instructors of these institutions. A third approach is for the organisations to send personnel to programmes organised by the universities, institutes and other bodies. Such courses are organised for a short period ranging from 2-3 days to a few weeks.

2) Conferences: This is an old but still a favourite training method. In order to escape the limitations of straight lecturing many organisations have adopted guided-discussion type of conferences in their training programmes. In this method, the participants pool their ideas and experiences in attempting to arrive at improved methods of dealing with the problems, which are common subject of discussion. Conferences may include buzz sessions that divide conferences into small groups of four or five for intensive discussion. These small groups then report back to the whole conference with their conclusions or questions.

3) Case Studies: This technique, which has been developed and popularised by the Harvard Business School, USA is one of the most common forms of training. A case is written account of trained reporter or analyst seeking to describe an actual situation. Cases are widely used in a variety of programmes. This method increases the trainee’s power of observation, helping him to ask better questions and to look for a broader range of problems. A well chosen case may promote objective discussion, but the lack of emotional involvement may make it difficult to effect any basic change in the behaviour and attitude of trainees.

4) Brainstorming: This is the method of stimulating trainees to creative thinking: this approach developed by Alex Osborn seeks to reduce inhibiting forces by providing for a maximum of group participation and a minimum of criticism. A problem is posed and ideas are sought. Quantity rather than quality is the primary objective. Ideas are encouraged and criticism of any idea is discouraged. Chain reaction from idea to idea is often developed. Later, these ideas are critically examined. There is no trainer in brainstorming. Brainstorming frankly favours divergence, and this fact may be sufficient to explain why brainstorming is so little used yet in developing countries where new solutions ought to carry the highest premium. It is virtually untried even though its immediate use is limited to new ideas only, not change in behaviour.

5) Laboratory Training: Laboratory training adds to conventional training by providing situations, which the trainees themselves experience through their own interaction. In this way, they more or less experiment the conditions on themselves. Laboratory training is more concerned about changing individual behaviour and attitude. It is generally more successful in changing job performance than conventional training methods. There are two methods of laboratory training namely simulation and sensitivity training as explained under:

a) Simulation: An increasingly popular technique of management development is simulation of performance. In this method, instead of taking participants into the field there can be simulated in the training session itself. Simulation is the presentation of real situation of organisations in the training session. It covers situations of varying complexities and roles for the participants. It creates a whole field organisation, relates participants through key roles in it, and asks them deal with specific situations of a kind they encounter in real life. There are two common simulation methods of training: role-playing is one and business game is the other.

 i) Role-playing: Role-playing is a laboratory method, which can be used rather easily as a supplement to conventional training methods. Its purpose is to increase the trainees’ skill in dealing with other people. One of its greatest uses is in connection with human relations training but it is also used in sales training as well. It is spontaneous acting of realistic situation involving two or more persons under classroom situations. Dialogue spontaneously grows out of the situation, as it is developed by the trainees as singed to it. Other trainees in the group serve as observers or critics. Since people take role everyday, they are somewhat experienced in the art, and with a certain amount of imagination, they can project themselves into roles other than their own. By this method, a trainee can broaden his experience by trying different approaches. Role-playing also has weaknesses which partly offset its values. It is time consuming and expensive. It requires experienced trainers because it can easily turn sour without effective direction. Nevertheless, these weaknesses do not undermine the strengths of this method.

ii) Gaming: Gaming has been devised to simulate the problems of running a company or even a particular department. It has been used for a variety of training objectives, from investment strategy, collective bargaining techniques, to the morale of clerical personnel. It has been used at all levels from the top executives to the production supervisors. Gaming is a laboratory method in which role-playing exists but its difference is that it forces attention on administrative problems, while role-playing tends to emphasise mostly on interaction. Gaming involves several teams each of which is given a firm to operate for a specified period. Usually, the period is a short one, say one year or so. In each period, each team makes decisions on various matters such as fixation of price, level of production, inventory level, and so forth. Since each team is competing with others, each firm’s decisions will affect the results of all others. All the firm decisions are fed into a computer, which is programmed to behave somewhat like a real market. The computer provides the results and the winner is the team which has accumulated largest profit. In the light of such results, strengths and weaknesses of decisions are analysed.

 b) Sensitivity Training: It is the most controversial laboratory training method. Many of its advocates have an almost religious zeal in their enhancement with the training group experience. Some of its critics match this fervour in their attacks on the technique. As a result of criticism and experience, a somewhat revised approach, often described as “team development” training, has appeared. It was first used by National Training Laboratories at Bethal, USA. The training groups are called TGroup. Sensitivity training is a small-group interaction under stress in an unstructured encounter group which requires people to become sensitive to one another’s feeling in order to develop reasonable group activity. T-Group has several characteristic features:

 (i) T-group is generally, small, from ten to twenty members;

(ii) the group begins its activity with no formal agenda;

 (iii) the role of trainer is primarily to call attention from time to time to the on-going process within the group; and

(iv) the procedure tends to develop introspection and self-examination, with emotional levels of involvement. The objectives of such training are concern for others, increased tolerance for individual differences, less ethnic prejudice, understanding of a group process, enhanced listening skills, increased trust and support.

Benefits of Training

 The investments made in training benefit an organization in many ways more than one:

 (i) Training helps to improve the quantity and quality of workforce. It increases the knowledge and skills of employees and improves their performance.

(ii) It helps to reduce the time and cost required to reach the acceptable level of performance. It prevents employees’ obsolescence. Accidents are also reduced.

(iii) It enables the organization to fill manpower needs. Promising employees can be spotted and trained for higher level jobs.

(iv) Trained employees make better and economic use of materials and equipment. Maintenance cost is reduced and the life of machines and equipment is increased.

(v) It helps to reduce the need for constant and close supervision of workers. It facilitates “management by exception”.

(vi) It helps to give more job satisfaction and boosts the morale of the employees which results in the enhancement of their earnings, provides job security and better career prospects.

 (vii) It facilitates delegation and decentralisation of authority. Trained employees are willing to accept new and challenging assignments.

Benefits of Development Similarly, the investment made in management development benefits the organization in the following ways:

(i) It prevents managerial obsolescence by exposing executives to latest concepts and techniques in their respective fields of specialisation.

 (ii) It ensures that the company is staffed with a sufficient number of managers who have requisite knowledge and skills.

(iii) It ensures long-term survival and growth of the organization.

 (iv) It replaces old executives with younger ones, i.e., it develops a second line of competent officers for future replacement.

(v) It creates group cohesiveness and encourages teamwork.

(vi) It ensures that managerial resources of the organization are properly and fully used.

EVALUATION OF TRAINING

A desirable characteristic of all training programmes is built-in-provision for its evaluation to find out whether the objectives of training activity or programmes are achieved or not.

1) Evaluation of Contextual factors: Training effectiveness depends on not only what happens during the training, but also on what happens before the actual training and what happens after the training has formally ended. Thus, there is need for both pretraining and post-training evaluation of contextual factors.

2) Evaluation of training inputs: This involves the evaluation of training curriculum, its sequencing, trainers abilities, facilities, aids and resources used.

3) Evaluation of training process: The climate of training organisation, the relationship and interaction between participants and trainees, attitudes and approaches of the trainers, training methods used, and involvement of the trainers in learning are some of the important elements of the training process, which need to be evaluated.

4) Evolution of training outcomes:

It involves measuring the results of the training in terms of what has been achieved on account of training programme. Pay-offs from training is intangible, slow and not clearly identifiable with the specific activity. In evaluation of outcomes, four categories of outcomes can be measured:

i) Reaction: Evaluation of trainee’s reaction to the programme

ii) Learning: Evaluation of what trainees have learnt

iii) Behaviour: Evaluation of change in the behaviour of trainee due to training

 iv) Results: Evaluation of results achieved due to training in various areas such as production, human resource utilisation, performance tests, general job and organisation environment and cost-value relationship