Even after an orientation program, new employees are rarely able to perform satisfactorily. It is necessary to train them in the tasks for which they were hired. Orientation and training can increase an employee's fitness for a position.
Although training (synonymous with training) helps members of the organization carry out their current job, its benefits can extend throughout their working lives and can help in the development of that person to fulfill future responsibilities. Development activities, on the other hand, assist the individual in managing future responsibilities regardless of current ones. Many programs that are started only for training end up helping development and increasing potential as a managerial employee.
Training at all levels is one of the best investments in human resources and one of the main sources of well-being for the personnel of any organization.
We must also add the phenomenon called "knowledge explosion".
Benefits of employee training.
How training benefits organizations:
- It leads to higher profitability and more positive attitudes. It improves job knowledge at all levels. It increases the morale of the workforce. It helps staff to identify with the objectives of the organization. It creates a better image. It improves the boss relationship - subordinates.It is an aid to understanding and adopting policies.It streamlines decision-making and problem solving.It promotes development with a view to promotion.It contributes to the training of leaders and leaders.Increases productivity and quality of work.Help keep costs down. Eliminate the costs of using outside consultants.
Benefits for the individual that have a favorable impact on the organization:
- Helps the individual in problem solving and decision-making. Increases confidence, assertiveness and development. Forges leaders and improves communication skills. Raises the level of satisfaction with the position. Allows the achievement of individual goals. Eliminate fears of incompetence or individual ignorance.
Benefits in human relations, internal and external relations, and policy adoption:
- Improves communication between groups and between individuals. Helps guide new employees. Provides information on official regulations. Makes the organization's policies viable. Encourages group cohesion. Provides a good atmosphere for learning. Makes the company a a better quality environment to work.
Steps towards training and development.
Both personnel specialists and managers must assess learning needs, objectives, content, and principles that relate to training. The person in charge of this function (trainer) must assess the needs of the employee and the organization in order to reach the objectives of their work.
Needs assessment:
The cost of training and development is extremely high, when considered globally. For maximum return on this investment, efforts must be focused on the most attractive staff and fields.
The needs assessment allows a diagnosis to be made of current problems and environmental challenges that must be faced through long-term development.
Changes in the external environment, for example, can become sources of new challenges.
A change in the organization's strategy can create a need for training (new product launches). The training can also be used when problems of high level of waste are detected, high rates of accidents at work, low levels of motivation. Although training should not always be used as an automatic response to problems, undesirable trends in any sense can be an indication of a poorly trained workforce.
Regardless of these challenges, the needs assessment must take each person into account. Individual needs may be detected by the personnel department or by supervisors, or spontaneous requests for training may be raised.
Even in cases where employees show up spontaneously for available training courses, training managers do not have a guarantee that those courses are tailored to the needs of the workers. More precise assessment approaches are used to determine the courses to be taught and define their content:
- Identification of tasks: it consists of evaluating the description of a certain position, to identify its main tasks. Specific plans are then developed. Surveys among training candidates: to identify the areas in which they want to train. The advantage is that people who receive the program have a greater tendency to consider it relevant. Total participation technique of the trainer and the trainee: Consists of a method to obtain ideas from a group on a specific topic. A group of trainers, managers, or supervisors are asked to record on a sheet all the specific training needs that each has identified. Then each person is asked to express their ideas and each contribution is recorded. Participants then vote to select the top 5 training needs. Votes are tabulated to determine the most pressing needs.
Production numbers, quality control reports, complaints, safety reports, absenteeism, turnover, and exit interviews highlight issues that need to be resolved through training and development. Training needs may also arise from career planning interviews or performance appraisal checks.
Training and development objectives:
A good assessment of training needs leads to the determination of training and development objectives.
These objectives should clearly stipulate the desired achievements and the means that will be available. They should be used to compare individual performance against them.
If the objectives are not achieved, the personnel department acquires feedback on the program and the participants.
Program content:
The content of the program is constituted according to the needs assessment and the learning objectives.
The content can be aimed at teaching specific skills, supplying necessary knowledge or influencing attitudes.
Learning principles:
Learning itself is not observable, it is only its results that can be observed and measured. The best way to understand learning is by using a learning curve. Learning shows stages of progression and stages of stabilization. The trainer postulates two objectives regarding the learning curve:
- See that the curve reaches a satisfactory level of performance. See that the curve reaches that level in the shortest possible time.
Although the learning rate depends on individual factors, several learning principles are used to speed up the process:
- Participation: learning is usually faster and has more lasting effects when the learner can participate actively. Repetition: Repetition may leave more or less permanent strokes in memory. Relevance: learning becomes relevant when the material to be studied has meaning and importance for the person receiving the training. Transfer: the greater the agreement of the training program with the demands of the position, the greater the speed in the process of mastering the position and tasks. Feedback: Provides people learning information about their progress.
Training and development approaches.
No technique is always the best, the best method depends on:
- The cost effectiveness The desired content of the program The suitability of the facilities available The preferences and the capacity of the people The preferences and capacity of the trainer The learning principles to use.
Direct instruction on the post:
It is taught during working hours. It is basically used to teach workers and employees to hold a current position. Instruction is delivered by a trainer, supervisor, or coworker. In most cases the trainer's interest is focused on obtaining a certain product and not on a good training technique.
Several stages are distinguished:
- The person receiving the training is given an overview of the position, its purpose, and the expected results of the job. The trainer does the work to provide a model that can be copied. The individual is asked to imitate the example. Demonstrations and practices are repeated until the person has mastered the technique. The person is asked to perform the exercise unsupervised.
Job rotation:
Every move from one position to another is normally preceded by a direct instruction session. In addition to providing variety in daily work, it helps the organization during vacation periods, absences, resignations, etc.
Expert-apprentice relationship:
Very high levels of participation and transfer to work are observed, with advantages in immediate feedback.
Conferences, videos and films, audiovisuals and the like:
They tend to rely more on communication and less on imitation and active participation. Conferences save time as well as resources, the other methods may require longer preparation times and higher budgets.
The low levels of participation, feedback, transfer and repetition that these techniques show can be improved when round tables and discussion sessions are organized at the end of the exhibition.
There is a training method that, given its possibility of instant feedback and indefinite repetition, is different from the others: computer simulations, generally in the form of games. It is used to train managers in decision making.
Simulation of real conditions:
To prevent instruction from interfering with the organization's normal operations, some companies use facilities that simulate actual operating conditions (airlines, banks, and large hotel facilities). This technique allows for remarkable transfer, repetition, and participation, as well as meaningful organization of materials and feedback.
Acting or sociodrama:
It forces the trainee to perform various identities.
It is very common for each participant to tend to exaggerate the behavior of the other. One of the fruits that is usually obtained is that each participant manages to see himself in the way that his coworkers perceive him. This experience can create better bonds of friendship, as well as tolerance of individual differences. It is used for changing attitudes and developing better human relationships. All trainees actively participate and get very high quality feedback.
Study of cases:
By studying a specific or simulated situation, the trainee learns about the actions that it is desirable to undertake in analogous situations. For this, it has the suggestions of other people as well as their own. In addition to learning through the case study, the person can develop decision-making skills. When the cases are well selected, they have relevance and resemblance to daily circumstances, there is also a certain transfer. There is also the advantage of participation through case discussion. It is not frequent to find elements of feedback and repetition.
Reading, individual study, scheduled instruction:
Instructional materials for individual learning are very useful in circumstances of geographical dispersion or of great difficulty to gather a group of assistants to a training program.
They are used in cases where learning requires little integration (courses based on readings, recordings, scheduled instruction booklets, and certain computer programs).
The scheduled instruction booklets consist of brochures with a series of questions and answers.
Certain computer programs can replace the scheduled instruction booklets. Starting from very similar theoretical approaches, they allow progress on a certain topic at the pace desired.
The programmed materials provide elements of participation, repetition, relevance and feedback. Transfer tends to be low.
Laboratory training (awareness):
It is a form of group training. It is used to develop interpersonal skills. It can also be used for the development of knowledge, skills and behaviors suitable for future job responsibilities. Participants aim to improve their human relations skills by better understanding themselves and other people. This technique aims to share experiences and analyze feelings, behaviors, perceptions and reactions that these experiences provoke. Usually a psychology professional is used as the moderator for these sessions. It is based on participation, feedback and repetition.
Human resources development.
Through the development of current employees, dependence on the external labor market is reduced.
If employees develop properly, it is more likely that vacancies identified through the human resources plan can be filled internally. Promotions and transfers also demonstrate to employees that they are developing a career and do not have only a temporary position.
Human resource development is an effective method of dealing with several of the challenges that test the ability of modern organizations:
- Obsolescence of personnel knowledge: it is the process that the employee (or a group of them) undergoes when they cease to possess the knowledge or skills necessary to perform successfully (medicine, engineering). Obsolescence occurs especially among people who have spent the longest time serving the organization. It does not usually originate in the individual, but in his lack of responses and adaptation to new conditions. The dilemma of many organizations is particularly difficult when adopting a passive philosophy regarding obsolescence. Social and technical changes. Employee turnover rate.
Training and development evaluation.
In order to verify the success of a program, personnel managers must insist on the systematic evaluation of their activity.
First, it is necessary to establish the evaluation standards, before the training process begins. Participants are given a pre-training exam to determine their level of knowledge. A post-training examination and comparison between the two results allows verifying the scope of the program. The training program will have fully achieved its objectives if all evaluation standards are met and if there is a transfer to the job.
The criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training are based on the results of the process. Trainers are especially interested in outcomes that refer to:
- Trainees' reactions to program content and overall process Knowledge gained through the training process Behavioral changes resulting from the training course Measurable outcomes or improvements for each member of the organization, such as a lower turnover rate, accidents or absenteeism.
There is a big difference between the knowledge taught in a course and the degree of effective transfer. The success of a training and development program is measured by the effective levels it induces in performance.
Steps for training evaluation:
- Assessment standards. Pre-course exam or program. Trained employees. Post-course exam. Transfer to the post. Follow-up.
Training of international groups:
The growing tendency of organizations to have a remarkably diversified workforce in terms of nationalities will often lead to the need to deliver training courses to groups that may differ profoundly in terms of academic background, background, expectations, etc. Flexibility will always be an essential factor in these cases. Respect for national and cultural differences always tends to pay dividends.
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