training is often confused with development but the terms or activities are not synonymous so it is better to start with

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difference between the two training typically provides employees with specific skills and capacities or helps correct
deficiencies in their performance for example the firm might have recently transformed its production process through new
equipment and employees need to be trained on how to use the equipment or an employee you might have deficient
understanding of a work process for example and advisors might still not know how the registration process works after one
or two semesters and needs some training so the focus in training is the current job and the scope is individual employees in
other words training is job specific and addresses particular performance problems of individuals also it has a short term
horizon it tries to offer fairly quick solutions to immediate problems so training is problem oriented an employee's individual
effectiveness is considered to be the basis of organizational success in contrast development provides employees with
abilities to be needed in the future not now for example employees might be given a seminar on administrative skills with the
expectation that some of them will occupy supervisory positions in the future so the focus is mainly possible future jobs
although the current job might also benefit from development administrative skills might rationalize and employees work
place relations for example through an explicit focus on how to get work done also in development the scope is much broader
being the entire organization not individuals the general skill level and flexibility of the workforce is the concern also
development tends to focus on the organization's long-term needs it is part of strategic planning so development is plan
oriented and it is based on the assumption that general organizational vision shapes employees individual career paths

first you need to consider better training is the solution not all performance problems can be fixed through training as we told
in the last chapter performance problems might be based in the causes that are beyond the control of the employees for
example unclear or conflicting requests from supervisors and poor quality materials cannot be improved through training so
you should first determine whether training is what an employee needs

the second issue is goals a training program must have realistic and clear goals for example management cannot realistically
expect that a number of training sessions will make everyone a computer export this code is unattainable and a program with
this call will be failure for sure also if the goal is to improve specific skills those skill areas should be clearly targeted if the
firm needs employees with skills to deal with problem customers then the program should specifically provide that training
that kind of training not a general training in customer relations otherwise the focus might be lost with little improvement
achieved

third training can be expensive the question is whether training is worth the investment in general we know that trainings is
positively related to profitability and stock value but in any case you need to evaluate whether training is profitable enough or
whether it more than offsets its costs for example is it worth gathering all your employees in a seaside resort paying for all
their expenses including accommodation and and also hiring an external consultant for training in teamwork you need to
evaluate possible expected returns and then decide on the worth but this is not always easy training in hard areas such as
running and adjusting machines can be fairly easily observed and measured in softer areas such as teamwork or diversity
training the evaluation can be challenging in such areas more observations might be needed also there might be a legal
requirement for certain training for example regular safety training for firefighters or paramedics in such cases the cost of
training itself is irrelevant you have to give the training and if you do not there might be legal fines also a cost for the
organization the last question is whether training will work or not this is related to the third question whether your training
investment will lead to observable significant and of course positive changes in general training has more positive returns in
an organizational culture that supports change and learning so in a bureaucratic organization for example training is not much
welcome and employees are more likely to stick with what they already know also participants including trainers trainers and
trainees should be made aware of the value of training for example some company members might have participated in
training and be required to tell how they use the material thought in their daily work lastly training will not work unless it is
related to organizational goals for example a training that focuses on cost effectiveness in an organization the customer focus

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 is essential might actually be counterproductive for the success of the company it might result in poor customer service and
lost sales for the sake of keeping costs down

there are three phases you have to manage in the training process these are needs assessment development and conduct of
training and evaluation

in the assessment phase the first phase you determine if training is needed and if so provide the information required to
design the training program assessment consists of three analytical levels organizational task and person

organizational analysis it examines broad factors which might include organization culture mission goals structure as well as
external conditions so these factors might indicate a need or support for training for example an analysis of the environment
might indicate changes in technology which means that the organization needs to train its employees in the new technology
or to achieve the organizational goal of expanding globally managers might need cultural sensitivity training also if some
employees do not understand the core cultural values of the organization they might need training in those values

task analysis it's an examination of a job to be performed so this is job analysis in fact which we covered in chapter two so
the question is what knowledge skills and abilities are required to perform a job adequately and accordingly you determine
training needs for each job if interpersonal skills are the most important for a job for example you develop training programs
to improve those skills in employees performing that job and

personal analysis determines which employees need training you examine and evaluate how well employees carry out their
jobs training is necessary when there's a discrepancy between an employee's performance and the firm's expectations for
example underperformers are natural candidates for training if not for discharge also employees with high potential might be
required to take some training as the firm might have high expectations from them and try to help them realize their potential
then determining training needs remember that performance problems can be based in various sources which you may not
affect through training in needs assessment you have to make sure that performance problems can be fixed by individual
effort which will be complemented or improved by training for example an employee should be able to increase her
productivity by learning how to keep her focus on the job but if this employee has an uncontrollable attention disorder there's
not much you can do through training you also need to assess as we have seen the cost of training it is if it is too costly the
efficient workers might be transferred to other units or the employment might be terminated then in line with the
requirements of the japanese employees might be hired for example for new technology training existing employees might be
more costly in some cases than hiring new employees with the knowledge of the technology at the assessment phase you also
develop objectives as specific or clear as possible and renew state training objectives in behavioral terms clarity increases for
example improving interpersonal sensitivity is very abstract as a training objective you need to define what behaviors refer to
adequate interpersonal sensitivity so you can first for example break interpersonal sensitivity into two behavioral components
including listening skills and feedback skills then you can define more specific behaviors under each of the two for example
not interrupting others speech under listening and attacking the problem not the person under feedback so in this way you
make interpersonal sensitivity concrete for employees to learn and for managers to evaluate

there are several approaches in the conduct phase approaches vary by location presentation and type in terms of location
training can be carried out on the job or off the job in on-the-job training employees are trained while their work they are
under the guidance of an experienced employee or supervisor job rotation apprenticeships for blue collar positions and

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internships for white collar positions are some of the examples of on-job training is obviously relevant to the job because the
tasks performed in training are the tasks to be performed after training so employees can easily transfer their learning to the
job only job training is also cost effective you do not have to take employees out of the work environment for training so you
do not lose work time also you do not have to pay for outside trainers you use your experienced personalized trainers which
is part of their job lastly on-the-job training helps build relationships between senior and junior employees because they
frequently interact during training so it facilitates cooperation between employees and contributes to the development and
preservation of organization culture on negative side only job training can be costly if unwed trainees cause customer
frustration because they do not know the job value yet customers might switch to a competitor due to poor service damage to
equipment by a trainee might occur as well because using actual equipment is part of training another problem is supervisors
or experienced employees might fail to train junior employees even if they are high performance they might lack training
skills and professional trainers might be needed also the quality and content of on the job training can vary substantially
across organizations an employee considered skillful in one organization might be considered unskilled in another
organization this is a problem when you hire an employee from another company the employee might claim that he or she
ordered this necessary training in his or her from former workplace but you cannot know what he or she she really received
as training

off-the-job training is the alternative it occurs outside the work setting examples are formal courses from universities or other
education agencies simulations and in classroom playing exercises one advantage of off the job training is you study
uninterrupted by the requirements of work so you're able to focus on what you learn without being concerned about a job to
be performed the obvious disadvantage is that it is less likely to transfer what you learn to the job so you need to adapt what
you learn to the real work setting even well-developed simulations do not match closely real work situations and also
employees might view training as an opportunity to short from work and in that case you do not expect much learning to
occur

in terms of presentation there are several options to slides and video tapes are generally used as supplementary training
material and provide consistent and standardized information so when they are used as the only means feedback is not
possible teletraining can be used when trainees are dispersed across face locations and of course when you are able to
schedule the training for everyone to attend this also provides consistency because these one trainers teaching employees at
different places and also it facilities feedback as you can interact with the trainer computer-based training can range from the
use of a cd-rom to web-based training this is a cost-effective way of training as you do not have to bring employees together
in one place employees can control can also control the time and pace of training taking it at waste times and with their own
speed of learning a sub category of computer based training is internet or internet training or e-learning this standardizes
training across employees at various locations and again there are no costs of travel and accommodation because employees
take the training where they are located but feedback is limited and not prompt as a trainer may not be available another sub-
category is simulations which are devices or situations that replicate job conditions and job requirements are complex job
equipment is expensive and the cost of wrong decisions is high they are useful for example they are used in training pilots
military personnel and security officers simulations are actually very effective because they directly related to the job as they
replicate the job they also provide a safe environment in which the trainee can learn without the fear of making costly
mistakes virtual reality again a computer-based training replicates the entire real life working environment rather than some
aspects of it is in the case of simulations within a three-dimensional uh environment you can interact with and manipulate
objects for example an army can train soldiers by having them practice in or experience typical battlefield situations that have
been virtually recreated in an organizational setting virtual reality is especially useful to train employees on how to handle
stressful situations as in the case of battlefield situations or airplane accidents because it exactly replicates those situations
lastly we have the classical option of classroom instruction and role plays this can be boring or interesting as you might know

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depending on the subject instructor and supplementary techniques used and classroom teaching is generally more useful if it
is complemented with case discussions to apply conceptual material and role plays to apply interpersonal skills

types of training are many skill streaming is obviously the most common type it is to improve existing skills or add new skills
to the existing so if you are not satisfied with your employees skills in handling customer complaints you provide specific
training on those skills for example an important component of skills training is job aids these are external sources of
information such as job guidelines or operation manuals or a centralized database which employers can access and use when
they need help in performing a job job aids provide employees with a way to recall specific job information or steps which
might be forgotten since the training retraining is a subset of skills training it enables employees to catch up with the job's
changing requirements for example when a company upgrades its machines its workers need retraining even though they are
expert in operating the older machines retraining is especially important when the level of automation increases so that
workers can work with more sophisticated equipment cross-functional training this is to train employees in a in more than
one area so that they can perform well in different jobs we already touched upon this issue when discussing job rotation
which is a way to cross train employees so rotating employees you expose them to different jobs and the requirements for
example putting an employee in the front office to learn how to handle customer complaints and then take her to the back
office to learn how to process customer orders along with job rotation peers colleagues might help employees performing
different jobs might be required to train one another in their specialized areas so you train me in accounting and i train you in
human resource management and i better understand the role of accounting in hr and you understand the role of hrm
accounting also you might apply a formal training program to cross-train employees an external consultant firm might train
engineers in marketing for example the main advantage of cross training is flexibility there will be more than one or two
employees capable of performing a particular job and the organization can replace one employee for another who is not
available team training is about how to work effectively within teams it includes training on content tasks and on group
processes training in content tasks refer to individual level skills to complete teamwork or objectives such as how to control
costs in a job training in group processes concern group level skills or debate team members function and interact such as the
way they solve internal conflicts so both individual and group level processes are addressed in team training creativity
training this is an attempt to enable employees to engage in creative thinking in dealing with various job situations and find
new maybe more efficient ways of solving problems brainstorming is part of creativity training so it's a technique in which
participants generate ideas openly without fear of judgment for example you do a kind of brainstorming when you discuss my
questions in group if of course one of you do not dominate the discussion you freely develop ideas on the question and
evaluate the degree of fit to the question similarly in a firm setting ideas are evolated in terms of cost and feasibility one
problem with creativity training is to measure its effectiveness creativity is a very subjective and contextual phenomenon so
you have no clear criteria on creativity also the impact of this kind of training might be short-lived if creative thinking is not
supported by managers who prefer working with established ways literacy training is the training in basic skills of reading
writing and arithmetic uh the book distinguishes between generally to see and functionally to see the former generator see is a
person's skill level achieved through formal education at the primary level and the functional literacy is a person's skill level
in a particular area achieved through formal and informal training at secondary levels here it is functional literacy that
concerns us in terms of hr training although general literacy is the base of functional literacy so an empty is considered
functionally literate if she or he can understand and communicate to requirements the requirements of a job for example she
should be able to read and understand her job safety guides knowing and interpreting technical details for example i am
functionally illiterate in terms of the job of a chemical engineer or a mechanic one important point is that public education
system including universities and vocational schools is not always effective to make people functionally literate for work so
some training is almost always necessary after you enter a job diversity training is to teach employees to work effectively
with people with diverse characteristics and backgrounds so for example employees are trained about gender religion
regional culture and ethnic differences and how to respond to them in the workplace so this is an issue we already covered in

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chapter four i'm talking about managing diversity crisis training is designed to help employees to handle crisis situations such
as accidents disasters and workplace violence crisis training might be corrective or on what to do after a crisis has emerged
for example how to educate people in case of advice it can also be preventive or on what to do to prevent a crisis from
emerging for example taking safety precautions in construction sites crisis training is not much common because
organizations generally avoid investing in something with no short-term tangible returns ethics training it clarifies and
translates the company's ethical policies for its imp for for the employees to apply to their everyday work for example focus
on recycling is clarified as using as few papers as possible and some other techniques might also be taught to employees ethic
training ethics training might also be a public relations issue to establish and protect the company's image and lastly customer
service training and this is to train employees to meet and exceed customer expectations it is generally given to frontline
workers who directly interact with customers and organizations might avoid providing this training when they employ
temporary workers on the front line which is a mistake you should provide you should provide this training for all workers
temporary or permanent because customers are the bottom line of any business the book gives the example of a restaurant
chain which had to pay 46 million dollars to sell a lawsuit about about its serving staff's discriminatory barriers against
minority group members not integral customers in north america veterans and matrices are generally temporary employed
and as the example indicates they might need customer service training

evaluation the effectiveness of training is evaluated so what is important here is that training effectiveness should be evolated
on how well training addresses the needs determined in the assessment phase for example if the goal of training is to increase
employees efficiency the evaluation should look at whether employees average productivity has increased for example after
the training a sas agent might visit three more customers per day than before the training so indicating an increase in
efficiency a four level framework can be applied to evaluate the success of a training program first the reaction of the
employees trained can be evaluated the question at this level is how happy or how satisfied the trainees are with the training
for example you might apply a survey asking the trainees their satisfaction level with different dimensions of the training
such as its content its strange and its duration for each dimension the employees might rate their satisfaction on a five-point
likert scale and you reach an overall satisfaction score for each employee at level two through a skill or knowledge exercise
we elate how much the trainees have learned for example after the diverse training you might strictly ask an employee which
common negative words should not be used when talking to minority groups level three it refers to behavioral change so the
trainees might have well obtained the knowledge taught in the training but it is not clear whether they reflect that knowledge
in their behaviors so you need to observe their behaviors for example to see whether they have stopped using those negative
words in in informal encounters or meetings lastly we look at the results generally return on investment the question is what
the firm has got in return for training which is in fact an investment so the example i gave at the beginning applies here as
well you evaluate employee productivity before and after the training and compare the difference or increase to your training
cost so this will give you an idea whether the training is worth the investment non-financial results are also important for
example you might survey customer satisfaction with your employee service before and after the training and see whether the
training has any positive impact also keep in mind that the evolution process has the function of providing feedback for
example the level three assessment whether a behavioral change has occurred as a result of two training can be
communicated back to the employees if the employees have changed and improved their behaviors the feedback might
further motivate them and reinforce the learned behavior if no change has occurred then the feedback might be used to
encourage the employees to modify the ibis in line with the training

okay when employees start with a firm a training process starts as well and two dimensions of this process are orientation and
socialization orientation is a short term formal program of informing new employees about what is expected of them and
smoothing the transition for example a workplace tool an introduction to other employees are generally part of an orientation
orientation itself is part of socialization which is a long-term informal process that integrates employees into the organization

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 socialization helps employees understand the organization's culture and settle in the job daily interactions with employees
learning informal ways of doing the work and becoming a member of groups within the firm are part of socialization and the
more you control the process of socialization the more likely a common cultural environment emerges and new employees
can understand the norms of the environment for example you must structure daily interactions as much as possible by let's
say scheduling coffee break times so you partly shape those instructions a pattern emerges and can be recognized by a new
employee