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Career Guides Career Corporate Human Resources Training & Development Knowledge Managment Time Management Stress Management Sponsors Ezboard IS Community-Supported Communities. Support us and your communities. In order for communities to thrive and grow, they need the support of their members. and we rely on both the support of our users and the support of advertisers to provide these invaluable services to you. Please help keep this site banner free by clicking here. Affiliates A Premier Provider of Management Consultant & Training Solutions. A Pocket PC Unified Body of Individuals in Singapore.		Training & Development Philosophy The Training philosophy of an organisation expresses the degree of importance it attaches to training and development of employees. Some firms adopt a laissez-faire approach, believing that employees will find out what to do for themselves or through, in the old phrase, ?sitting by Nellie?. If this sort of firm suffers a skill shortage, it is remedied by recruiting from firms who do invest in training. Other Companies pay lip services to training and indiscriminately allocate money to it in the good times. But in the bad times these firms are the first to cut their training budgets. Organisations with a positive training and development philosophy understands that they live in a world where competitive advantage is achieved by having higher quality people than other firms, and this need will not be satisfied unless they invest in developing the skills and competency level of their employees. These firms recognize the actual or potential skills shortages can threaten their business future prosperity and growth. In hard commercial terms, these firms persuade themselves that training is an investment and will pay off in the long run. It may be difficult to calculate the return on that investment but they believe that the tangible and intangible benefits of training will more than justify the cost. TRAINING APPROACHES It is not enough to believe that training as an act of faith. This belief must be supported by positive and realistic training philosophy in terms of a ROI (return on investment) in the same way, as other investments have to demonstrate a payback. The areas in which such a philosophy should be developed as follows :- Strategic Approach Training strategy takes a long-term view on skills, knowledge and competency levels of employees. It emphasizes on training and development should be an integral part of the management process. While Performance management requires managers to review regularly, with their departmental teams and individuals reporting to them, performance in relation to agreed objectives, the factors that have affected performance and the development and training needs that emerge from this analysis. This approach is a joint process collaboration between managers, departments and individuals by means of coaching, counseling, relevant learning, training activities and interventions. Performance management leads to personal development plans and learning agreements or contracts. While some organisations do not go in for training at all, others have tended to go in for ?training for training?s sake?. Although in times of recession, this may be less likely, there is still the risk of organisations committing themselves to training areas where benefits in terms of improved performance in key activity areas have not been spelt out. Training must be relevant that it identifies the appropriate training needs. Problem-Based Approach This method should be problem-based in that it should be planned to fill gaps between what people can do and need to do, now and in the future. The problem may be negative in the form of a weakness that needs to be remedied or it may be positive because it refers on how the need in developing new skills or enhance knowledge in meeting future requirements will be satisfied. Action-Oriented Approach This philosophy stress that training exists to make things happen, to get people into action, and to ensure that they perform their job now, effectively better, or will be able to do things that they could not do before. The objectives of any training event or programmes should be defined in terms of ?deliverables? - this is what people will be able to do after training, and this is what they will achieve. Performance-Related Approach Performance-related training philosophy involves around relating training specifically to performance and competency requirements – for example, those following the introduction of a new product, process or system. Continuous Development Training should not be regarded as simply a provision of short, isolated courses at various points in any employee?s career. An organisation providing a measure of training to people at the start of their employment or at occasional points in their careers is insufficient. Learning should be regarded as a continuous process, with less emphasis on formal instruction and an increased in requirement for people to be responsible for their own learning. Hence, the development of such approaches as self-managed learning and learning contracts, action learning and computer-based training. Training Policies Training policies are expressions of training philosophy of the organisation. They provide guidelines on the amount of training that should be given (e.g. everyone in managerial, professional, technical or supervisory positions should undergo at least five days formal training every year), the proportion of turnover that should be allocated to training, the scope and aims of training schemes, and the responsibility for training. TRAINING PROCESS A typical training process design is based as follows :- Identify and Define Training needs This involves analyzing corporate, team, occupational and individual needs to acquire new skills, knowledge or to improve existing competences. This analysis should cover problems to be solved as well as future demands. Decisions are made at this stage on the extent to which training is the best and most cost-effective way to solve the problem. Training must have a defined purpose in areas (i.e. the organizational, groups and individual) which needs to be systemically identified and analysed, as well as more concerned about defining the gap between what is happening and what should happen (i.e. the difference between what people know and can do and what they should know and be able to do). Avoid falling into the ?deficiency model? approach which implies training is only about putting things right that have gone wrong. Instead be more concerned with identifying and satisfying developmental needs – multi-tasking, fitting people to take additional responsibilities, increasing all-round competency and preparing people for higher levels of responsibility in the future. There are 4 methods of analyzing training needs :- ·Business and Human Resource Plans – Determined by its business, personnel strategies and plans from which flow human resource plans. ·Job Scope – Examining the job description or scope, performance standards in terms of quality and output and knowledge, skills and competences needed to perform the job competently, thus meeting performance standards. ·Performance Management Reviews – Concentrating on performance improvement programmes, learning contracts, individual learning and developmental needs which are related to jointly determined action plans. ·Training Surveys – Assembles information obtained from other methods of analysis in order to provide a comprehensive basis for the development of a training strategy and its implementation. It may be necessary to interview managers in establishing their views about training needs by discussing with staff undergoing training or who have just completed a training course on their opinions about its effectiveness. Examines also whether existing training arrangements are meeting training needs. Defining learning requirements This is necessary to specify as clearly as possible what skills and knowledge have to be learnt, what competences need to be developed and what attitudes need to be changed. These 3 areas (i.e. the organizational, departments and individuals) are inter-related. Analysis of corporate needs will lead to identification of training needs in various departments, which in turn indicate training requirements for individual employees. Defining Training Objectives A setting learning objective not only defines what has to be learnt but also what trainees must be able to do after their training programmes. Training objectives can also be defined as ?criterion behavior? i.e. standards or behavior changes on the job to be achieved; if training is to be regarded as successful, resulting in ?terminal behavior?. Transfer of learning is what counts; behavior on the job is what matters. Plan Training programmes These must be developed in meeting the needs and objectives by using the right combination of training techniques and locations. The art of designing training programmes is selecting the right blend of on-the-job vs. off-the-job training. Emphasis should always be towards putting learning into practice and therefore, first consideration has to be given to what happens on the job. Learning by doing what appropriate guidance from managers, colleagues or mentors. Deciding on a Training Provider The organization needs to decide the extent on which the training provided is done either internally or externally. At the same time, the division of responsibility between training department, managers, team leaders and individuals has to be determined. External training is useful for the development of managers, team leaders, technical, social knowledge and skills, especially if the courses cover standard theory and practices that can be easily translated from general to the particular. It can be useful to implant highly specialized knowledge or advanced skills with advantage of broadening the horizons of trainees because they will be exposed to their peers from other organisations. It may be difficult to select relevant courses from the bewildering variety available. Training Implementation Decide on the most appropriate methods used to enable trainees in acquiring skills, knowledge, levels of competency and attitudes they need. The courses should be continually be monitored to ensure that they are proceeding according to plan and within agreed budget. All trainings should be evaluated after the event to check on the extent of delivery results. There are, however, a number of considerations which may effect the conduct of such training for specific jobs, as well as those concerning managers and team leaders, sales staff, skilled workers and office staff. Special approaches may be used for teambuilding trainings. Training Evaluation To monitor the effectiveness such training during the programmes and, subsequently, the impact of training is assessed by the degree which learning objectives have been achieved. It is at the planning stage that such basis upon which each category of training is to be evaluated should be determined. Evaluation leads to control, which means, deciding whether or not the training was worthwhile (preferably in cost-benefits terms) and what improvements are required to make it even more cost-effective. It is also the comparison of objectives (criterion behavior) with effects (terminal behavior) to answer the question of how far the training has achieved its purpose. Evaluation can be difficult because it is often hard to set measurable objectives and even harder to collect information on the results or to decide on the level at which the evaluation should be made. The 5 common levels evaluation are :- ·Reactions – Trainees reaction of training experience itself; how useful or how enjoyable they feel the training is, what they think of individual sessions and speakers, what they would like put in or taken out and so on. ·Learning – Measured on what trainees have learned as a result of their training, new knowledge and skills they acquired or the changes in attitude that have taken place. ·Job behavior – Measuring the extent of trainees have applied their learning on-the-job. Assessing the amount of transferred learning that has taken place from off-the-job to the job itself. ·Organisational – Measures the effect of changes in job behavior of trainees functioning as part of the organisation in which they are employed. Measures can be in terms of improvements in output, productivity, quality, contribution, or sales turnover. This type of evaluation is not simply what behavioral changes have taken place, but what good have those changes done for the unit or department in which the trainee works. ·Ultimate Value – Measuring how the organisation has benefited from the training in terms of greater profitability, survival or growth. This is related to the criteria by which the organisation judges its efficiency and its success or failure. Its difficult to sometimes assess how far the trainees has contributed to the ultimate result. Amend / Extend Training (If necessary) Decide on the basis if evaluation, the extent that the planned training programmes needs to be improved and how any residual learning requirements should be satisfied. Steps can be taken to revise the aims and content of the training programmes, to improve delivery of training or to ensure that the transfer of learning takes place to good effect.		Updates HR Professionals Guide Training & Development Guide Manager's Trouble Shooting Guide Series Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Selling Series HR Management Practises Series Featured Communities BIK & Associated A Premier Training & Management Provider in Training & Development Workshops. PPCSG.Org A Web Forum for the Techno Gadgets Trend Followers. Lots of Informative and Guides for your Pocket PC.
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