Human Resource Management Chapter 5

Human Resource Management

Training

Introduction

Training can help employees develop skills needed to perform their jobs, which directly affects the business. Training
can:
o Increase employees’ knowledge of foreign competitors and cultures
o Help ensure that employees have the basic skills to work with new technology
o Help employees understand how to work effectively in teams to contribute to product and service quality.
o Ensure that the company’s culture emphasizes innovation, creativity and learning
o Ensure employment security by providing new ways for employees to contribute to the company when
their jobs change, their interest change, or their skills become obsolete

High-Leverage Training Strategy : A Systematic Approach

In general, training refers to a planned effort by a company to facilitate employees’ learning of job-related
competencies. These competencies include knowledge, skills, or behaviours that are critical for successful job
performance.

High-leverage training is linked to strategic business goals and objectives, uses an instructional design process to
ensure that training is effective and compares or benchmarks the company’s training programs against training
programs in other companies.

High-leverage training encourages continuous learning which requires employees to understand the entire work
system including the relationships among their jobs, their work units, and the company, and expects them to acquire
new skills, apply them on the job and share what they have learned with other employees.

Training is used to improve employee performance, which leads to improved business results. Today there is a
greater emphasis on:
o Providing educational opportunities for all employees.
o An ongoing process of performance improvement that is directly measurable rather than organizing one-
time training events.
o The need to demonstrate executives, managers, and trainees the benefits of training.
o Learning as a lifelong event in which senior management, trainer managers and employees have
ownership.
o Training being used to help attain strategic business objectives, which helps companies gain a competitive
advantage.

The Strategic Training & Development Process

Business Strategy
↓
Strategic Training and Development Initiatives
↓
Training and Development Activities
↓
Metrics that Show Value of Training

Designing Effective Training Activities

Training design process refers to a systematic approach for developing training programs. There are 6 steps of this
process:
1) Need assessment
2) Ensuring employees’ readiness for training
3) Creating a learning environment
4) Ensuring transfer of training

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5) Selecting training methods

6) Evaluating training programs

Step 1: Need Assessment

Need assessment refers to the process used to determine if the training is necessary. Pressure points such as
performance problems, new technology, internal or external customer requests for training, job redesign, new
legislation, changes in customer preferences, new product, or employees’ lack of skills calls for training.

Needs assessment typically involves:

o Organizational analysis
A process for determining the business appropriateness of training.
o Person analysis
A process for determining whether employees need training, who needs training, and whether employees
are ready for training.
o Task analysis
The process of identifying the tasks, knowledge, skills, and behaviours that needs to be emphasized in
training.

Step 2: Ensuring Employees’ Readiness for Training

Readiness for training refers to whether:
o Employees have thee personal characteristics (ability, attitudes, beliefs and motivation) necessary to learn
program content and apply it on the job.
o The work environment will facilitate learning and not interfere with performance.

Motivation to learn is the desire of the trainee to learn the content of the training program. Self-efficacy is the
employees’ belief that they can successfully learn the content of the training program.

To be motivated in training programs, employees must be aware of their skill strengths and weaknesses and of the
link between the training program and improvement of their weaknesses. Employees’ motivation to learn can also
be influence by the degree to which they have basic skills (reading, writing and cognitive ability needed to
understand the content of a training program).

Step 3: Creating a Learning Environment

Some of the conditions for learning to occur in the training program are:
o Employees need to know why they should learn
o Meaningful training content
o Opportunities for practice
o Feedback
o Observe experience, and interact with others
o Good program coordination and administration
o Commit training content to memory

Communities of practice are groups of employees who work together, learn from each other, and develop a
common understanding of how to get work accomplished.

Step 4: Ensuring Transfer of Training

Transfer of training refers to on-the-job use of knowledge, skills, and behaviours learned in training. It is influenced by:
o Climate for transfer
Refers to trainees’ perception about a wide variety of characteristics of the work environment that
facilitate or inhibit use of trained skills or behavior.
o Manager support
Refers to the degree to which trainees’ manager emphasize the importance of attending training
programs and stress the application of training content to the job.
o Peer support
A support network is a group of trainees who meet to discuss their progress in using learned capabilities on
the job.
o Opportunity to use learned capabilities
Opportunity to perform refers to the extent to which trainee is provided with or actively seeks experience
using newly learned knowledge, skills, or behavior.

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o Technology support
Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) are computer applications that can provide skills training,
information access and expert advice. Knowledge management refers to the process of enhancing
company performance by designing and implementing tools, processes, systems, structures, and cultures
to improve the creation, sharing and use of knowledge.
o Self-management skills
Training programs should prepare employees to self-manage their use of new skills and behaviours on the
job.

Step 5: Selecting Training Methods

Some of the training methods are:
o Presentation methods
Refers to the methods in which trainees are passive recipients of information and includes traditional
classroom instruction, distance learning, audiovisual techniques, and mobile technology.
o Hands-on methods
They are methods that require the trainee to be actively involved in learning. Hands-on methods include:
 On-the-job training refers to new or inexperienced employees learning through observing peers or
managers performing the job and trying to imitate their behavior.
 A simulation is a training method that represents a real-life situation, allowing trainees to see the
outcomes of their decisions in an artificial environment.
 Business games and case studies are used in which trainees must gather information, analyze it
and make decision. This method is primarily used for management skills development.
 Behavior modeling focuses on one interpersonal skill on each training session.
 Interactive video combines the advantages of video and computer-based instruction.
 E-learning refers to online instruction and delivery of training by computers through the Internet or
company intranets.
 Blended learning combines e-learning, face-to-face instruction and other methods for distributing
learning content and instruction.
 A learning management system (LMS) refers to a technology platform that can be used to
automate the administration, development, and delivery of a company’s training program.
 Group- or team-building methods are training methods designed to improve team or group
effectiveness
 Adventure learning develops teamwork and leadership skills using structured outdoor activities.
 Team training coordinates performance of individuals who work together to achieve a common
goal.
 In action learning, team or work groups get an actual business problem, work on solving it and
commit to an action plan, and are accountable for carrying out the plan.

Step 6: Evaluating Training Programs

Training outcomes can be categorized as cognitive outcomes, skill-based outcomes, affective outcomes, results,
and return on investment. Reasons for evaluating training are:
o To identify the program’s strengths and weaknesses.
o To assess whether the content, organization, and administration of the program contribute to learning and
the use of training content on the job.
o To identify which trainees benefited most or least from the program.
o To gather marketing data by asking participants whether they would recommend the programs to others,
why they attend the program, and their level of satisfaction with the program.
o To determine the financial benefits and costs of the program.
o To compare the costs and benefits of training to non-training investments.
o To compare the costs and benefits of different training programs to choose the best programs.

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