‘Training’ is an educational process. People can learn new information, re-learn and reinforce existing knowledge and skills, and most importantly have time to think and consider what new options can help them improve their effectiveness at work. Effective trainings convey relevant and useful information that inform participants and develop skills and behaviors that can be transferred back to the workplace. The goal of training is to create an impact that lasts beyond the end time of the training itself. The focus is on creating specific action steps and commitments that focus people’s attention on incorporating their new skills and ideas back at work. Training can be offered as skill development for individuals and groups. In general, trainings involve presentation and learning of content as a means for enhancing skill development and improving workplace behaviors.
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‘Organizational Development’ is a process that “strives to build the capacity to achieve and sustain a new desired state that benefits the organization or community and the world around them.” (from the Organizational Development Network website) OD work implies creating and sustaining change. An OD perspective examines the current environment, the present state, and helps people on a team, in a department and as part of an institution identify effective strategies for improving performance. In some situations, there may not be anything “wrong” at the present time; the group or manager may simply be seeking ways to continue to develop and enhance existing relationships and performance. In other situations, there may be an identifiable issue or problem that needs to be addressed; the OD process aims to find ideas and solutions that can effectively return the group to a state of high performance.
These two processes, Training and Organizational Development, are often closely connected. Training can be used as a proactive means for developing skills and expertise to prevent problems from arising and can also be an effective tool in addressing any skills or performance gaps among staff. Organizational Development can be used to create solutions to workplace issues, before they become a concern or after they become identifiable problem.
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ROLE OF TRAINING
TRAINING SCENARIO IN INDIAN INDUSTRY
TRAINING PROGRAMS IN RETAIL/FMCG SECTOR
Some of the training programs that are given in the retail sector are:
Sales Training
On-the-Job Training
Seminars/Workshops
Customer Relationship Management
Online Course
Group Study
Computer-Based Training
TRAINING IN BANKING AND INSURANCE SECTOR
Favourable economic climate and number of other factors such as growing urbanization, increasing consumerism, increase in financial services for people living in rural areas etc, has increased demand for wide range of financial products that has led to mutually beneficial growth to the banking sector and economic growth process.
In the insurance sector also, rapid expansion has created about 5 lakh job opportunities approximately in the past five years. These openings are mainly in the field of insurance advisors or marketing agents. The eligibility criteria for this job is graduation with some experience in marketing or become insurance agents after completing school but this needs some relvant training.
Earlier there were no training programs as such for insurance agents but on-the-job training only that was given once the new agent was appointed. But now the scenario has been changed, with the coming up of big players like ICICI Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard, HDFC Life Insurance, Tata AIG General Insurance, etc in this sector, people who’ve had some formal training are preferred while recruitment because it can be helpful in the insurance field.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN IT/SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY
With the growing investment by IT companies in the development of their employees many companies have now started their own learning centers. As an example, Sun has its own training department. Accenture has Internet based tool by the name of “My Learning” that offers access to its vast learning resources to its employees. Companies are investing in both the technical training, which has always been an essential part in IT industry, as well as in managerial skills development. Companies now kept aside 3-5% of revenue for training programs. As an example, some of the major players like Tata Elexi and Accenture are allocating 7% and 3% respectively of the company’s overall revenue.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN HOSPITALITY SECTOR
Programs are available for the following areas:
Food Production
Food and Beverage Service
Front Office
Housekeeping
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN KPO SECTOR
With the expected increase in number of employees, training has become the core of KPO industry as well. No matter how much qualified the person is he needs to be trained on processes. As the name itself implies, “knowledge”, this sector requires high level of functional know-how as well as domain know-how. There is a constant need of well-planned training programs as the work profile requires understanding of market research objectives and methodologies. This sector requires behavioral training as well as training to handle stress because of odd working hours. If a person is committed to deliver quality, and is willing to learn with positive attitude then definitely KPO is the right place to work for him.
EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING FOR AN EMPLOYEE IN AN ORGANISATION
Companies invest quite a bit on the training and development of their employees. On the other hand, there are companies which refrain from investing in training. This is partly because they doubt whether such investments would pay back anything to the organization.
However, today, most managers in companies appreciate the importance of training and want to invest in their employees’ training and development.
Human Resources (HR) departments in companies could play an important role in capitalizing this opportunity and put in place systems and processes to make training more effective. Here are a few actions that HR could take:
LINK TRAINING TO OTHER SYSTEMS:
Training is part of the development process. However, development would mean understanding the capabilities of individual employees, identifying gaps and focusing on the right training for the right person. We can see that this leads to linkage of training with recruitment and performance appraisals. Recruitment, i.e., the entry point of an employee in the company, is the best starting point for tracking capabilities of employees. Capturing the profile of an employee’s capabilities at this stage helps the company build on his strengths and develop them further. Similarly, performance appraisals which are a periodic exercise, give adequate opportunity for organizations to take stock of the capabilities of employees and identify the gaps or the desired capabilities that need to be developed, and which emerge either from the career aspirations of the individual or business plans of the company.
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MAKE TRAINING A SYSTEMATIC ACTIVITY:
An employee receives a call from a Manager out of the blue one day, who asks her to attend a training program on communication to be held two days later. The employee is unprepared. There are other priorities lined up for the week. Suddenly, the employee is having to do her bit to either re-prioritize, or re-schedule activities, or, worse still, stretch herself for the next two days to complete some of the high priority assignments in a hurry so that she can attend the training program. All this only leads to the employee going to the training program in a totally unprepared frame of mind. A positive and receptive mood, that is necessary for learning, is absent. The time and the money spent on the program turns out to be a waste.
This is a common scenario in many companies – treating training programs as one off events to which employees need to be “sent.” HR can do a lot to take control and make training a lot more of a systematic activity. Planning for programs adequately beforehand, preparing the employee with reading material or exercises, sending alerts and other communication related to the training at different stages before the program-all these would help. In all, planning well in advance, preparing the employee, laying the foundation for an eagerness to optimise the benefit derived from the program-all these will help.
TRACKING OF TRAINING ACTIVITIES:
Many companies have metrices such as number of man days of training. Some track them periodically, but most do not. It is necessary to compare the tracking of training to that for compensation. Compensation is tracked meticulously, analysed in depth – across departments, levels, functions and so on. The same level of meticulousness, however, is missing in the case of training. Metrices, however, need to be carefully analysed and presented to the stakeholders periodically, to help them focus their efforts and plan for the training in a systematic manner.
FEEDBACK LOOP:
Measuring training effectiveness has always been a challenge, given the fact that the direct correlation between the training effort and results on the job cannot be clearly established. However, no one can deny that training contributes in a very significant manner to both improvement in the knowledge, skills and performance of a company’s employees, as well as the overall business performance of the company.. Such training- performance correlation has been well established, and thus, the best employers worldwide invest significantly and systematically in training their personnel. Notwithstanding the fact that the direct correlation between a training program and improvement in the performance of an employee who has undergone such a training program, is by now indisputable, collecting feedback on the impact will help in fine tuning the efforts made towards training.
In this context, there exist three stages of process for collecting feedback on training. Timing is very important here. The first stage is immediately after the completion of the program. The main objective of this feedback is to get to know how well the trainer delivered the program, the usefulness of the content and effectiveness of the methodology. The second stage would be the collection of feedback thirty days from the completion of the program. The objective here would be effectiveness in retention, and the question to be asked is this: are the learnings from the program still retained by the employee?
BLEND OF METHODOLOGIES:
Learning styles differ from one individual to another. To elaborate, the manner of teaching and learning different subjects can vary. What works for a training program on a technical subject may not necessarily work well for a behavioral area, and vice versa. With the leveraging of technology and proliferation of the net learning culture, learning is no longer confined to the traditional manner of training. Each of the methodologies have their respective advantages and disadvantages. A particular methodology may work well in a specific context and not so well in another. The cost would also vary from one methodology to another. It becomes the responsibility of the training personnel to choose the most appropriate methodology for the appropriate organizational context, for a particular subject and for the appropriate audience. Instead of trying to choose what works best, one may choose to provide two or three options with the same objectives, i.e., learning and improvement in the capabilities of the employees.
What would help in effective implementation of all the factors mentioned above:
A good and comprehensive training management system. Such a system covers all the areas mentioned above and involves all the stakeholders, employees, managers, HR/training function and the leadership.
Trained and dedicated personnel to manage the training. It is desirable to have a dedicated team to oversee the training process in a company. However, given the size of companies today, some small ones may not be able to dedicate full time personnel. In such cases, the responsibilities need to be clearly built into that of the HR system of these companies.
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