Making the best of training & development

 

 "Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."       

- Mark Twain

All companies and organizations allocate make budgetary allocations for training and development of their employees. Whether or not the intended results are achieved is another question; or for that matter whether such programmes bring about a dispositional alteration amongst the employees.

            The vital issue, therefore, is to identify specific actions that should be taken to make certain that training objectives fructify and get adopted at work. A support mechanism needs to be in place to guarantee this. In other words, the training conducted has to be effectual and manifest itself in the performance of employees.

How do you ensure that training and development events are helpful and their objectives transportable to the workplace so that differences for the better are perceptible there?  Towards this, various procedures and actions need to be instituted as part of the training regimen so that employees understand things better and derive benefits. And as and when they apply their newly acquired knowledge at work, the company needs to extend all support to them.

Organizations make deliberate planning to conduct learning and development sessions. While the scope of training is a different matter, preparing the employees for it is another; needless to state, the latter is equally important. The following actions pay rich dividends:

·   Ensure organizational requirements necessitate training: A systematic and comprehensive evaluation of all prerequisites and desired proficiency levels amongst employees should be carried out. This will facilitate discerning and establishing actual training requirements; and making certain that the curriculum includes all concerns. Concurrently, answers to the following questions need to be also found:

ü Are time and various facilities made available to employees to facilitate performance of their duties professionally and competently?

ü Are the employees clear about their tasks and roles; and understand their job imperatives?

ü Are the employees qualified for various posts that they hold and the responsibilities they shoulder?

ü Are various job responsibilities assigned keeping in view employee expertise, capabilities and inclinations?

·   Engender a background for training and growth:  Employees should be sensitized on the need to improve upon current skills acquire additional qualifications; this is best done by disseminating information pertaining to new developments and techniques. It should be made certain that employees appreciate the connection between their work and training. The effects of training can be optimized further if they realize that such training will help them perform optimally towards the attainment of organizational objectives. All these aspects will prove to be positive if employees are acknowledged, rewarded or awarded certificates of merit. And more importantly, by creating a background for all training, the degree of enthusiasm amongst employees will increase and in the bargain, their motivation levels will also register an upward swing.

·   Conduct pragmatic training sessions: Talking of pragmatism in training, it implies that the training regimen has to be evolved based on what exactly the employee needs to be trained in. The end result should be kept in mind while formulating training programmes; it is essential that their range and scope actually bring about a positive boost in so much as the knowledge base of employees is concerned. It is quite likely that hired trainers may not be able to bring about the changes; therefore, in-house instructors could also be identified and utilized. It should be remembered that all training activities should be relevant and not be misconstrued as mere time-pass events.

·  Go for programmes that have quantifiable aims: This implies that all aims set out in the training are reckonable and can be applied at the jobs being performed. The training should be so structured that employees are able to expand their perspectives, as perhaps initially planned.  The

employees, on the other hand will know precisely what benefits can be anticipated and hence the possibility of any disillusionment subsequently stands greatly reduced. Thus he will be better geared to take on the challenges of his work by through application of newly acquired knowledge.   

More than what machines require, employees also need maintenance and upgrades. Retraining is maintenance, training an upgrade and development the next-generation model. The incontestable truth of the matter is that the only kind of learning which influences attitudes and disposition is the one that has been taken in by way of experience.