Training and Development - Introduction
Training can be introduced simply as a process of assisting a person for enhancing his efficiency and effectiveness to a particular work area by getting more knowledge and practices. Also training is important to establish specific skills, abilities and knowledge to an employee. For an organization, training and development are important as well as organizational growth, because the organizational growth and profit are also dependent on the training. But the training is not a core of organizational development. It is a function of the organizational development.
Training is different form education; particularly formal education. The education is concerned mainly with enhancement of knowledge, but the aims of training are increasing knowledge while changing attitudes and competences in good manner. Basically the education is formulated with in the framework and to syllabus, but the training is not formed in to the frame and as well as syllabus. It may differ from one employee to another, one group to another, even the group in the same class. The reason for that can be mentioned as difference of attitudes and skills from one person to another. Even the situation is that, after good training programme, all different type skilled one group of employees can get in to similar capacity, similar skilled group. That is an advantage of the trainings.
In the field of Human Resources Management, Training and Development is the field concern with organizational activities which are aimed to bettering individual and group performances in organizational settings. It has been known by many names in the field HRM, such as employee development, human resources development, learning and development etc. Training is really developing employees’ capacities through learning and practicing.
Training and Development is the framework for helping employees to develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities. The focus of all aspects of Human Resource Development is on developing the most superior workforce so that the organization and individual employees can accomplish their work goals in service to customers.
All employees want to be valuable and remain competitive in the labour market at all times, because they make some demand for employees in the labour market. This can only be achieved through employee training and development. Hence employees have a chance to negotiate as well as employer has a good opportunity to select most suitable person for his vacancy. Employees will always want to develop career-enhancing skills, which will always lead to employee motivation. There is no doubt that a well trained and developed staff will be a valuable asset to the company and thereby increasing the chances of his efficiency in discharging his or her duties.
Trainings in an organization can be mainly of two types; Internal and External training sessions. Internal training involves when training is organized in-house by the human resources department or training department using either a senior staff or any talented staff in the particular department as a resource person.
On the other hand external training is normally arranged outside the firm and is mostly organized by training institutes or consultants. Whichever training, it is very important for all staff and helps in building career positioning and preparing staff for greater challenges in developing world. How ever the training is costly. Because of that, people who work at firms do not receive external trainings most of times. The cost is a major issue for the lack of training programmes in Sri Lanka. But nowadays, a new concept has come with these trainings which is “Trainers through trainees”. While training their employees in large quantities, many countries use that method in present days to reduce their training costs. The theory of this is, sending a little group or an individual for a training programme under a bonding agreement or without a bond. When they come back to work, the externally trained employees train the employees who have not participated for above training programme by internal training programmes.
Employers of labour should enable employees to pursue training and development in a direction that they choose and are interested in, not just in company-assigned directions. Companies should support learning, in general, and not just in support of knowledge needed for the employee's current or next anticipated job. It should be noted that the key factor is keeping the employee interested, attending, engaged, motivated and retained.
For every employee to perform well, especially Supervisors and Managers, there is a need for constant training and development. The right employee training, development and education provides big payoffs for the employer in increased productivity, knowledge, loyalty, and contribution to general growth of the firm. In most cases external trainings for instance provide participants with the avenue to meet new set of people in the same field and network. The meeting will give them the chance to compare issues and find out what is obtainable in each others environment. This for sure will introduce positive changes where necessary.
It is not mentioned in any where that the employers, managers and supervisors are not suitable for training programmes. They also must be highly trained if they are expected to do their best for the organization. Through that they will have best abilities and competencies to manage the organization. Training employees not only creates a more positive corporate culture, but also add a value to its key resources.
Raw human resources can make only limited contribution to the organization to achieve its goals and objectives. Hence the demands for the developed employees are continuously increasing. Thus the training is a kind of investment.
