The Effectiveness of Learning and Training for Employees: 2020

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Introduction

Introduction

Organizations improved capabilities, knowledge, and skills of talented employees proved to be a major source of competitive advantage in the global market (McKinsey, 2006). Hence, training is delivered by an organization or external services. Training is a type of activity that is planned, systematic and it results in an enhanced level of skill, knowledge, and competency that is necessary to perform work effectively (Gordon, 1992). Training as the systematic application of formal processes to impart knowledge and help employees to acquire requisite skills for them to perform employee jobs satisfactorily (Armstrong, 2012).

Employee development activities are very important for employees, as the activities are performed, it indicates that an organization cares about employees and wants them to develop (Elena, 2000). Training and development is increased employee performance, that training and development are important activity to improve the performance of the organization (Ahmad and Siraj-ud-din, 2009). When an employee learning developed by the individual through experience. Employee development depends upon the individual employee whether the employee is willing to participate or not. Employee development also depends upon the organization's culture, the attitude of top management, and limited opportunities for promotion (Elena, 2000; Antonacopoulou, 1996). Training and development program is a responsibility of the organizations to provide opportunities to employees but the individual should take initiative to use those opportunities for the betterment of their future career (Garger, 1999).

As a Kolb's Learning Cycle there are four stages of effective learning in an employee individual progresses. (1) having a concrete experience followed by (2) observation of and reflection on that experience which leads to (3) the formation of abstract concepts (analysis) and generalizations (conclusions) which are then (4) used to test the hypothesis in future situations, resulting in new experiences.

Figure 01: Kolb's Learning Cycle

(Source: Saul, 2017)

Experience

Experience in a leading Software Company, they have given technical, new tools, new language and process training for their employees. The company is provided various training sessions for employees to develop their carrier and shaping their knowledge. After training sessions employees could be able to use their gained knowledge to develop an innovative software product and carter to future markets.

Reflective Observation

The Organization is started new product development can be used new technology for developments. Set up a team with having technology savvy and assign them to a development task. The employee who had the training can include innovative software developments. Some employees are naturally good at reflection. Some of them train themselves to be more deliberate about reviewing their experiences and recording them. Finally releasing a new product to an organization or market.

The formation of abstract concepts

After developing new products, employees lean by experience and they can teach others as well. All staff exchange their experience and knowledge with their teams and apply for an existing product.

Active experimentation

After learn from training employees apply those techniques into new products and use knowledge into future developments.

Reference

Ahmad I. and Siraj ud Din, (2009) ,Evaluating Training and Development, Gomal Medical College and Gomal University, D.I.Khan,Pakistan.

Antonacopoulou, E.P. and FitzGerald, L. (1996).Reframing competency in management development: a critique. Human Resource Management Journal, 6(1), pp. 27-48.

Armstrong, M. (2012). Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. United Kingdom: Ashford Colour Press.

Elena P. Antonacopoulou, (2000), Employee development through self -development in three retail banks, Journal of Personnel Review, 29(4), pp. 491-508.

Garger, E. M. (1999, November). Goodbye training, hello learning Workforce, 78 (11), 35-42.

Gordon, B. (1992) Are Canadian firms under in vesting in training? Canadian Business Economics 1(1), pp. 25–33.

McKinsey Quarterly (2006), An executive take on the top business trends, a McKinsey Global Survey.

Saul McLeod (2017), Kolb's Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle [online] Available at on https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html[Accessed on 13 September 2018]

The benefit of the Effective of Learning and Training for Employees

1. The benefit of the Effective of Learning and Training for Employees

Organizations and employees derive many benefits from training and development programs.

1.1 Individual employee benefits

1.1.1 Improve career abilities

Employees learn the soft and technical skills required by individuals’ jobs. In the last 30 years, unemployment is at the lowest rates which are not beneficial for the workers to start a new job if opportunities for growth are fewer (Dobbs, 2000). Fresh university graduates mostly considering for a steady which provides qualifier training programs to the employees, but this idea is risky for organizations to lose freshly trained employees with a couple of years (Feldman 2000). Furthermore, helping employees to improve their skills and knowledge to cope with future requirements, lead to job satisfaction.

1.1.2 Employee Satisfaction

Happy employees are extremely important because they represent the company to the public. Satisfaction, however, is not linked solely to compensation. Sure, a raise or benefits will probably improve employee contentment, at least temporarily, but small, inexpensive changes can have a long-term impact. Organizations that are willing to spend money on their employees, give value to work with those organizations, even though that investment eventually benefits the organization (Inc.com, 2018). Organizations that are providing the training and development programs for their employees are achieving a high level of employee satisfaction and low attrition (Wagner, 2000). Training and development increase the organization’s reliability for the reason that employees recognize their organization is valuing an employee's future career (Rosenwald, 2000).

1.1.3 Employee Performance.

Employee Performance is employee productivity and output as a result of employee improvement. It goes without saying that the success of your company largely depends on how well employees perform their tasks. We would not be the first company to struggle with defining what that looks like. Employee performance will finally affect organizational effectiveness. Training effects on the behavior of employees and their working skills which effected by enhanced employee performance and further creative changes (Satterfield and Hughes, 2007) that serve as increase worker performance (Kraiger, 2002). During an analysis concerning performance in India, Barber (2004) originates that on-the-job training headed to superior novelty and inherent skills. Professional and technical skills are very essential for the employees to perform a job in an effective way. Providing training opportunities for employees can better the performance of the employees.

1.2 Organizational benefits

1.2.1 Market Growth

Employee learning and training programs are important for any organization to stay competitive in the market. Though it is costly for the organization to spend the money on its employees this investment is positive for the organizations to hold the place in the market. American Society for Training and Development mentioned two motives that are significant for employee’s knowledge, first employees identify the worth of training and marketable by the organization and second CEOs of the companies understand that how fast information is transferring in the current business environment (Fenn, 1999). Organizations are required to develop and maintain such a learning and development environment for employees that expand the knowledge of the organization and competitive ability. (Greengard, 2000)

1.2.2. Organizational Performance

Training has been defined as a primary contributing factor to organizational effectiveness (Schuler and MacMillan, 1984). Consideration of this topic recommends that investment in learning and training development program can be justified by the impact it creates to developed individual and organizational effectiveness (Bartel, 2000)

1.2.3. Employee Retention

Employee retention is a challenging notion and there is no particular method to retain employees with the organization. Right away, we've faced a number of challenges to tackle on top of our daily responsibilities. Not only do we have to find a replacement for such a talented team member, but skilled professionals are also in high demand, as they are today. But you also have to consider the impact this departure will have on the rest of the staff in an organization.

Whenever someone walks out the door, people notice. Some will even start wondering if they should start looking for a new job, too. That's why employee retention and employee job satisfaction should be high on every organization's list of priorities, and why creating effective retention strategies to decrease turnover should be one of management's most important jobs. Read on for our tips on building strategies that are right for your company. Several organizations have revealed that one of the characters that help to retain employee is to offer them opportunities for improving their learning (Logan, 2000). Thus, it has confirmed that there is a strong relationship between employee training and development, and employee retention (Rosenwald, 2000).

Reference

Barber J. (2004). Skill upgrading within informal training: lessons from the Indian auto mechanic. International Journal of Training and Development, 8,pp.28–39.

Bartel, A.P. (2000). Measuring the Employer’s Return on Investment in Training. Evidence from the Literature. Industrial Relations, 39(3), PP.502–524.

Dobbs, K. (2000). Tires Plus takes the training high road. Training, 37 (4), 56-63.

Feldman, D. (2000). The Dilbert syndrome: How employee cynicism about ineffective management is changing the nature of careers in organizations. American Behavioral Scientist, 43, pp.1286-1301.

Fenn, D. (1999). Corporate universities for small companies. Inc, 21 (2), 95-96.

Greengard, S. (2000). Going the distance. Workforce, 79 (6), 22-23.

Inc.com. (2018). 7 Ways to Improve Employee Satisfaction. [online] Available at: https://www.inc.com/guides/201105/7-ways-to-improve-employee-satisfaction.html [Accessed 8 Oct. 2018].

Kraiger K. (2002). Decision-based Evaluation. In Creating, Implementing, and Maintaining Effective Training and Development, State-of-the-Art Lessons for Practice, 1st ed. K Kraiger, pp. 331–75. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Logan, J. K. (2000). Retention tangibles and intangibles: More meaning in work is essential, but good chair massages won’t hurt. Training and Development, 54 (4), pp.48-50.

Rosenwald, M. (2000, October 15) Working class: More companies are creating corporate universities to help employees sharpen skills and learn new ones. Boston Globe, H1.

Satterfield J. M, Hughes E. (2007). Emotion skills training for medical students: a systematic review. Medical Education, 41:935–41.

Schuler, R.S., and MacMillan, I.C. (1984). Gaining Competitive Advantage through Human Resource Management Practices. Human Resource Management, 23, 3, 241–255.

Wagner, S. (2000, August). Retention: Finders, keepers. Training and Development, 54 (8), 64.

Research in Effective of Learning and Training for Employees

2. Research in Effective of Learning and Training for Employees

Reviewing various studies following are areas of interest

• To investigate the importance of training.

• To identify the importance of employee performance.

• To investigate the relationship between Training and employee performance.

In the fast-changing world of business and environmental uncertainty, organizations realize its disadvantage of dealing with new challenges (Tai, 2006). However further states that the organization should invest in training programs to make their employees competent enough to face uncertainties and take effective decisions in time, in order to remain competitive in the market. Effective training is beneficial for the organization in a variety of ways, such as it plays a vital role in building and maintaining capabilities, both on an individual and organizational level, and thus participates in the process of organizational change (Valle, 2000). Furthermore, it indicates the organization's long-term commitment towards its employees and increases the employee’s motivational level (Pfeffer, 1994). All these contributions lead to an achieving competitive benefit (Youndt et al., 1996) and to an improvement in employee performance and organizational productivity (Bartel, 2000; Delery and Doty, 1996).

Training

Effective learning and training programs targeted employees' performance. Training refers to improve the gap between the current performance and the desired performance.

Employee performances

Other research work on productivity of worker highlighted the fact that employees who are satisfied with their job will have higher job performance, and job retention, than those who are not happy with their jobs (Landy, 1985) Furthermore, it is stated that employees are more likely to leave if they are not satisfied and hence demotivated. Employee performance is higher in happy and satisfied employees and the management finds it easy to motivate high performers to achieve organizational targets. (Kinicki and Kreitner, 2007). The employee could be only satisfied when they feel qualified to perform their jobs, which is achieved through effective training programs.

The relationship between training and employee performance.

Most of the previous studies provide evidence that there is a strong positive relationship between human resource management practices and organizational performance. (Purcell et al., 2003). According to Guest (1997) mentioned in his study that training and development programs, as one of the essential human resource management practice, positively affects the quality of the workers' knowledge, skills, and capability and thus results in higher employee performance on the job. This relation ultimately contributes to better organizational performance. Training has a distinct role in the achievement of an organizational goal by incorporating the interests of the organization and the workforce (Stone, 2002). Training is the most significant factor in the business world because training increases the efficiency and the effectiveness of both employees and the organization. Employee performance depends on various factors. But the most important factor in employee performance is training (Ghafoor et al., 2011).

Reference

Bartel, A.P. (2000). Measuring the Employer’s Return on Investment in Training. Evidence from the Literature. Industrial Relations, 39(3), PP.502–524.

Delery, J.E. and Doty, D.H. (1996), Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management: tests of universalistic, contingency and configurational performance predictions, Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), pp. 802-35

Ghafoor, R.A., Khan, F.A. & Khan, D.M.A., 2011. Impact of Training and Development on Organizational Performance. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 11(7).

Guest, D. (1997), Human resource management and performance: a review and research agenda, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(3), pp. 263-76.

Kinicki, A. and Kreitner, R. (2007),Organizational Behavior, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Landy, F. W. (1985).The psychology of work behavior, 3rd ed. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

Pfeffer, J. (1994),Competitive Advantage through People, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA

Purcell, J., Kinnie, N., Hutchinson, S., Rayton, B. and Swart, J. (2003),Understanding the People and Performance Link: Unlocking the Black-Box. Research Report, CIPD, London.

Stone R J. (2002), Human Resource Management 2nd Edition, Jhon Wiley & Sons.

Tai, W. T., (2006). Effects of Training Framing, General Self-efficacy and Training Motivation on Trainees’ Training Effectiveness, Emerald Group Publishers, 35(1), pp. 51-65.

Valle, R., Martı´n, F., Romero, P.M. and Dolan, S. (2000), “Business strategy, work processes and human resource training: are they congruent?”,Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 21, pp. 283-97

Youndt, M.A., Snell, S.A., Dean, J.W. and Lepak, D.P. (1996), “Human resource management, manufacturing strategy and firm performance”,Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 836-66.

Drawbacks of ineffective training programs

3. Drawbacks of ineffective training programs

Learning and training for an employee are essential for any business, employers should consider potential drawbacks that training employees can have on the company, existing staff, and bottom line. Companies can use several ways to train employees, such as on-the-job training or classroom training. Selecting a training method, employers facing the advantages and disadvantages of training and development.

3.1 Advantages of training employee

3.1.1 Employee turnover rate.

The training has the potential to change the turnover thoughts and is an important factor that helps in originating the intentions of turnover (Kyndt et al., 2009). Those employees that are highly committed to the organization have lower turnover thoughts. Training basically brings an association between commitment and retention (Abdulkadir et al, 2012) has considered training as an investment, the organization bears the whole expenditures of training employees which eventually act as an investor and expect a return in the form of commitment and retention from employees. Training elevate commitment and retention rate when employees consider it as an investment and force them to offer a return to the organization. According to Sahinidis and Bouris (2007), training is a long term investment in the skills of employees. Training is not a tool to polish the current skills of employees but to prepare employees for future impacts from competitive forces. This kind of training boosts the commitment and employees think that organization is opening doors to our success. This sense eliminates the thoughts or intentions to quit from employees' mind and force them to retain. Fheili (2007) has stated that employee turnover is a major human capital risk for an organization, which needs to be catered. Organizations that provide training that is specific in nature applied only to the specific work within the organization that makes the employee's specialists, not generalists. By doing this Organization limits the employment opportunities and leads to the development of committed employees and will eventually affect the retention rate.

3.1.2 Reduce long-term staffing cost

When employees having better training, then the company can improve productivity and the bottom line. Training new employees, the company has to pay for more initial training costs. Effective learning and training allow the employer to lower companies' long-term staffing cost because the satisfied employees are less to looking for new employments (Gaille, 2016 ; Lionbridge, 2014).

3.1.3 Increasing product knowledge

If employees have better product and technology awareness, productivity could be increased and further to do constructive changes (Satterfield and Hughes, 2007). Employees share their product knowledge and experience with others, then performed employees could be in a better position in the company (Kraiger, 2002). And they would have good job satisfaction.

3.1.4 Working with the team

When employees training together it creates a common goal and vision. All employees work to a common goal have created relationships that are necessary for a team to co-exist in a meaningful way. Effective training programs train an employee to properly do their job, this builds relationship among the team (Gaille, 2016 ; Lionbridge, 2014).

3.2 Disadvantages of training an employee

3.2.1 Training Cost

Today most of the organizations have built up different programs for the training and development of their employees. Generally, companies offered education reimbursement package to their employees so that they can improve their knowledge and education. It has been found by the Corporate University that almost 10 percent of employees are entitled to this benefit (Rosenwald, 2000). It is the most expensive method of developing an employee’s skills and knowledge in the present situation. As a result, many organizations conduct in-house training programs for their employees that are more beneficial and cheap. The training section of the organization attempts to concentrate on particular job proficiency whereas the corporate department is positive with an additional strategic approach. Training and development program is a planned education component and with an exceptional method for sharing the culture of the organization, which moves from one job skill to understand the workplace skill, developing leadership, innovative thinking and problem resolving (Meister, 1998). Employee development programs include a variety of teaching techniques, schedule, and helping a learning environment that ensures employees to improve their skills and later apply to their jobs (Gerbamn, 2000).

3.2.2 Compositors take skills

If the organization spends money to train a new employee and new member resigns to join a competitor, then the organization has spent money on a competitor. The employee can join any other company with new skills and techniques. Employees' career development should be established on a bright career path which employees can easily accept and gave it worth (Nunn, 2000).

3.2.3 Increased Stress

Many organizations offer continuous training to their employees. Generally, continuous training is a good idea as it keeps employees up to date on new trends and also keeps them knowledgeable in their particular area of work. However, companies go overboard by requiring their employees to complete an unrealistic number of hours of ongoing training. This level of over-training can become very stressful for employee overtime. And when employees are stressed, job performance goes down.

Reference

Abdulkadir, D. et al., (2012). Effects of Strategic Performance Appraisal, Career Planning and Employee Participation on Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Study. International Business Research, 5(4), 124-133.

Fheili, M., (2007) Employee turnover: an HR risk with firm-specific context. Journal of Operational Risk, 2(3), 69-84.

Gaille (2016), 10 Pros and Cons of Training Employees[online] Available at https://brandongaille.com/10-pros-and-cons-of-training-employees/, [Accessed on 20 September 2018]

Gerbman, R. V. (2000). Corporate Universities 101. HR Magazine, 45 (2), 101-106.

Kyndt, E. et al., (2009). Employee Retention: Organizational and Personal Perspectives. Vocations and Learning, 2, 195-215.

Lionbridge (2014), Top 5 Training and Development Challenges [online] Available at http://content.lionbridge.com/top-td-challenges-address/, [Accessed on 20 September 2018]

Meister, J. C. (1998). Ten steps to creating a corporate university. Training and Development, 52(11), 38-43.

Nunn, J. (2000). Career planning key to employee retention. Journal of Property Management, 65 (5), 20-21.

Rosenwald, M. (2000) Working class: More companies are creating corporate universities to help employees sharpen skills and learn new ones. Boston Globe, H1.

Sahinidis, A. & Bouris, J., (2008) Employee perceived training effectiveness relationship to employee attitudes. Journal of European Industrial Training, 32(1), 63-76.

Satterfield JM, Hughes E. (2007). Emotion skills training for medical students: a systematic review. Medical Education, 41:935–41.

Organizational learning and training

4. Organizational learning and training

Organizational learning has been defined as a process of ‘coordinated systems change, with mechanisms built-in for individuals and groups to access, build and use organizational memory, structure and culture to develop long term organizational capacity’ (Marsick,1994)

Furthermore, Reynolds (2004) has described a learning culture as a ‘growth medium’ which will ‘encourage employees to commit to a range of positive discretionary behaviors, including learning’, and which has the following characteristics: empowerment, not supervision, self-managed learning not instruction, long-term capacity building, not short-term fixes. As Reynolds (2004) suggested that to create a learning culture it is necessary to develop organizational practices that raise commitment amongst employees and ‘give employees a sense of purpose in the workplace, grant employees opportunities to act upon their commitment, and offer practical support to learning’. The idea of a learning culture is associated with that of the learning organization (Reynolds, 2004).

5. Conclusion and recommendation

· Employee training is one of the suitable methods to improve and manage employee skills according to the organization’s objectives and to improve the overall organizations’ performance.

· Organizations’ performance always depends upon the performance of their employees, so effective training also plays an important role in increasing employees’ job motivation, satisfaction, and commitment.

· Training is a kind of investment that needs more time, effort and money but this investment gives long term benefits to both organizations and employees.

· The effectiveness of training totally depends upon the effectiveness and correct implementation of its model.

· Training programs save time and effort and set a direction to follow for conducting training.

· The training process can only be successful when participants are motivated to learn and excel in their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

6. Recommendation

· Training programs should be planned carefully by aligning the objectives of training with organizational objectives.

· The training program must be developed to fulfill specific needs.

· The model should be developed by the involvement of a group of expert persons, HR professionals, specific department heads that need training, trainers (if they hire earlier or select from within the organization) and trainees also to avoid any future conflict.

· A supportive environment should be built within the organization so that employees can freely communicate with their managers about their needs towards training.

· To avoid any problem in implementation and evaluation stages, it is necessary to design and develop all training activities, materials and methods timely and accurately.

· The disciplined environment must be given for the implementation of training.

· Evaluation of training should be conducted at the spot right after closing the training program by taking feedback from both trainers and trainees along with the evaluation conducted at workplaces.

· Our proposed conceptual model is practical in usage because it facilitates the process of learning by making the content easy to understand, which provides the participants more alternatives to enhance their skills for the betterment of their careers.

Reference

Marsick, V J (1994) Trends in managerial invention: creating a learning map, Management Learning, 21(1), pp 11–33 .

Reynolds, J (2004) Helping People Learn, CIPD, London