Training and Developing a
Competitive Workforce
17/04/2013
Today’s sub-topics
• 1. Strategic Importance of Training and
Development
• 2. Training and Development within an
Integrated HR System
• 3. The HR Triad
• 4. Determining Training and Development
Needs
• 5. Conditions for Effective Training and
Development
Today’s sub-topics
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6. Stating the Learning Objectives
7. Choosing the Program Format
8. Maximizing Learning
9. Team Training and Development
10. Current Issues
11. Videos
1. Strategic Importance of Training and
Development
• The use of training and development practices
to improve the ability of the workforce to
implement the organization’s business
strategy
• Development of organizational cohesiveness
• Development of employee commitment
• Address the employees’ needs in terms of
their own competitive advantage and longterm employability
2. Training and Development within an
Integrated HR System
• Training, Development and Socialization
- Training
Its main objective is to improve performance
in the near term and in a specific job by
increasing the competencies of the employees
- Development
The activities intended to improve
competencies over a longer period of time in
anticipation of the organization’s future needs
Training and Development within an
Integrated HR System
- Socialization
Teaching the employees about the organization’s
history, culture and management practices
• Disney
- Recruitment and selection
It begins its socialization process during
recruitment as a way to discourage applicants
who may not fit the corporate culture … the
‘plastic smile’
3. The HR Triad
• Managers
Acting as coaches, trainers, mentors
• Employees
By participating in training and development
programs, they can facilitate their own socialization
into the organization, potentially reaping longer-term
benefits such as greater income, job satisfaction, better
sense of personal identity
• HR Professionals
Identify the objectives to be achieved through training
and development and then choose and design
appropriate activities (given the objectives)
4. Determining Training and
Development Needs
• Organizational Needs Analysis
It begins with an assessment of the short and
long term strategy and strategic business
objectives of the company
• Job Needs Analysis
(Or task) .. It identifies the specific skills,
knowledge and behaviour needs to perform
the tasks required by present or future jobs
Determining Training and
Development Needs
• Person Needs Analysis
It identifies gaps between a person’s current
competencies and those identified as
necessary or desirable
• Demographic Needs Analysis
It determines the training needs of specific
‘populations’ of workers
5. Conditions for Effective Training and
Development
• Personnel Decisions International (PDI)
A large and successful HR consulting firm,
developed a simple framework with 5
components
1. Insight – People need to know what it is they
need to learn
2. Motivation – Internal / external means; will
participation in training lead to positive
benefits?
Conditions for Effective Training
and Development
3. New skills and knowledge acquisition –
simply showing how to acquire the needed
competencies
4. Real-world practice – programs that engage
participants in realistic activities, improve the
likelihood that they will apply their learning
5. Accountability – assessments of
improvement and less formal approaches
Conditions for Effective Training
and Development
• Who provides the required guidance?
- Supervisors and other managers
- A co-worker
- Internal / external subject matter expert
- The employee!
→ interpersonal, conceptual, integrative
competencies … literacy and technical
competencies … basic orientation sessions
6. Stating the Learning Objectives
• Cognitive Knowledge
The information that people have available (what
they already know), the way they organize this
information and their strategies for using it
e.g. Company policies and practices – orientation
programs brief new employees on benefit
programs and options, advise them of rules and
regulations and explain the policies and practices
of the organization
Stating the Learning Objectives
• Skills
Cognitive knowledge is inside the head, skills are
evident in behaviors
e.g. Interpersonal – skills in communication, team
building, leadership, negotiation
e.g. Technical – Six Sigma, a management process
that is used for high-impact improvement efforts.
Invented at Motorola in the 1980s, its main
feature is statistical control techniques
7. Choosing the Program Format
• On-the-job training
When employees learn their jobs under direct
supervision
- Job rotation: rotating employees through jobs
at a similar level of difficulty to train them in a
variety of jobs and decision-making situations
- Mentoring: an established employee guides
the development of a less experienced worker
Choosing the Program Format
• Off-the-job training
Appropriate when complex competencies need to be mastered
or when employees need to focus on specific interpersonal
competencies that might not be apparent in the normal work
environment
- Simulation: present situations that are similar to actual job
conditions and allow trainees to practice how to behave in those
situations
- Formal courses: directed by the trainee or by others, formal
classroom courses and lectures
→ Issue of transfer – can employees apply the knowledge learned
during training?
8. Maximizing Learning
• Setting the Stage for Learning
- Clear instructions
- Behavioral Modeling .. it involves describing the behaviors to be
learned to trainees, having a role model provide a visual
demonstration of the desired behavior, allowing the trainees to
imitate the desired behaviors and give feedback
• Increasing Learning during Training
- Active participation, practice
• Maintaining Performance after Training
- Specific goals
- Rein-forcers .. a consequence that follows behavior
9. Team Training and Development
• E.g. NASA
Training comes before effective teamwork .. Before
astronauts are sent into space to live in a community
that relies heavily on teamwork for survival, NASA has
them working together for a year or two to become a
team
• Three main goals
- Team cohesiveness
- Teamwork procedures
- Team leaders
10. Current Issues
• Diversity Training
- Culture Awareness Training
Culture is the social group to which a person
belongs .. and one person can belong in many
and different social groups
• Global Leadership Training and Development
e.g. Intel .. with 91000 employees in 78 counties,
it plans to invest $3 million to train 800 midlevel
managers who are working across cultures
11. Videos
• We will watch a couple of videos from
youtube (titles and links will be given in class)
and try and relate the issues raised in them to
your experience at work
- Do you feel performing better / ‘worse’ at
work?
- What are the reasons your level of
performance?