Training in Human Resource Management - Assignment Example

Training in Human Resource Management Introduction 3 Executive Summary 4 Strategic Approach 5 Existing training program and the problems: 5 Aims of the training program: 6 Training program: 7 Cross Training 8 Social Contexts of training 9 The actual plan of the train program 9 Modules 9 Adult training learning-self directed training plan 10 Final Considerations 10 Conclusion: 11 Reference: 12 Russell, R. S., and Taylor, B. W., (2009). Operations Management Along The Supply Chain, 6Th Ed. Wiley Book. Pp331 12 Cooke, W. N., (2003). Multinational companies and global human resource strategies. Greenwood Publishing. Pp132-135 12 Raymond, A. G., (2009). Creating a Furniture factory for the future. Retrieved May 13, 2010, < http://www.raymondnet.com/AGRCo-Articles/Articles/a_g_raymond_furniture_factory_for_the_future_060509.pdf> 12 Lake, H., (2008). Analysis of Human Resource Management Practices. Report from Indonesia’s Labor Intensive Light manufacturing Industries. Retrieved May 13, 2010, < http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADQ565.pdf> 12 Colbert, B. A, (2004). ‘The complex Resource Based view: Implementation for theory and Practice in Strategic Human Resource Management’. Academy of Management Review, 29(3) pp341-358 13 Mitchell, D. J. B., (2001). ‘IR journal and conference literature from the 1960s to the 1990s: What can HR learn from it? Where is it headed?’ Human Resource Management Issue. 11(4). pp375-393  13 Volpe, C. E., (1996). ‘The impact of cross-training on team functioning: an empirical investigation’. Journal of Human Factors. Vol. 38. 13 Introduction Taking a strategic approach to human resource management would mean that the company has to take decisions regarding its HR functions not in isolation but in the context of the overall culture of the company, the existing system of feedback to and fro employees that helps the organization align itself with personal goals and functions (Massy, 1994). A strategic approach also requires that the organization makes an assessment of global and the immediate human resource environment within which the organization is required to function; it also means that an organization has to ensure that the there is in place a system that forecast and readies itself in accordance with the human resource requirements that are most likely to arise (Das and Waqar, 2007). In companies with a commitment to quality job training is extensive and varied. Expectations for performance and advancements from both the employees and the management tend to be high (Colbert, 2004). Executive Summary Typically, numerous courses are available for training in different jobs and functions (Russell and Taylor, 2009). Job training is considered part of a structured career development system that includes cross training and job rotation. This system of training and job rotation enhances the flexibility of the production process. It helps the creation of a talent reserve that could be used as need arises when products or processes change or the workforce is reduced. The following report will outline a training program for a medium size furniture company with emphasis on mid level training. The report would outline the strategic integration of human resource management aims with the overall aims of the company and based on this it would outline a program of training. The report concludes with the prerequisite need fulfillmnent ofr the success of the program. Strategic Approach Ideally, a strategic approach will also make space for a system that analyses the job functions and does a competency audit of the employees. Beside these, the strategic approach cannot under any circumstances forego the traditional functions that are associated with a successful HR management program of any given firm. These would in turn include: 1. Usage of powerful "coaching" questions to help employees attain personal and organizational goals 2. Usage of competency-based recruitment and selection techniques. 3. Management and motivation of employees by using the basic principles of strategic human resource management. Third there has to be some amount of stress that has to be put on training and development for the staff. The idea behind this focus is not just to improve skills for the current job but also to prepare the employee for future responsibilities. Job rotation and participation in cross functional or cross divisional tasks can get rid of the feeling of stagnation and boredom that seems to have set in (Charvatova and Veer, 2006). The idea is to give the employee a new challenge, continuously helping him evolve thereby adding greater value to the organization’s resources with the same amounts of inputs. There is also a certain amount of stress that needs to be laid on promotion from within the organization itself, thereby help remove the feeling of alienation and disillusionment from the staff.     Existing training program and the problems: There is common perception within much of the manufacturing and business world that no business could survive on price alone and there is the need for extra value that has to come from within the organization that would give the company an added competitive advantage. The idea therefore is the mission of the company is to ensure that all employees with a new corporate value program that emphasizes quick, efficient work. The company has introduced the concept of away days where the mission of the company was explained to the employees. There was also the introduction of the new strategy of emplp0yee personal presentation that meant that all employees were presented with a card that enumerated company objectives. The company recognizes that it is the employees that were crucial to the success of the business and that there was requirement for keeping costs in control to ensure that much of the work carried out by the firm was done in the context of flexible labor. There is training program for mid-to high levels managers and executives that targets 20 training days in a year. There is also stress laid on ensuring that much of this training is limited to the department they are employed in so that they are able to achieve higher levels of expertise within their given scope of work. This has meant that there is long standing jealousy between departments, and a perception of senior managers as being autocratic. There is also the perception within workers that there is a lack of learning and development opportunities, which ahs led to frustration in new managers and supervisors. All of this has resulted in direct manifestations in terms if direct stress related symptoms, and a poor recognition of new consumer approach, a lack of skills and product knowledge in part-time and casual workers. Aims of the training program: In order for one to design a successful training program in the context of the furniture factory it would be essential first and foremost that one is able to outline the aims that the training program would have to accomplish. The success or failure of any given factory depends primarily on the quality of its work force (Lake, 2008). The idea behind this program would be the promotion of a factory based on a work culture wherein even if the pant is mediocre plant and equipment operated by a world class team. A factory of the future would have to be staffed with people who care if whether or not the company succeeds or fails; know-how to help the company success and the reasons and motivation to learn new skills.   In order to work towards the generation of these skills it becomes essential that the future management of the company be able to conduct formal employee training and education programs (Raymond, 2009). The second aspect of the training program would be the development of en effective leadership development program given the fact that great companies have great leaderships from the corner office down to the plant floor. It also needs to be kept in mind that the need of the day would be the development of a well led and trained work force in terms of the development of an effective front line of workers. This would in the long run help assure quality, improve processes within the plant and help streamlining responsibilities, better maintenance of equipment and training new members, by taking on these responsibilities’ the front line workers replace costly supervisory ad support overhead. There would also be the development of a bias for change and action, given the fact that probably one of the most important elements in a winning factory system is a bias for change and action. The ability to fear change and possible failure is key to ensuring that the factory remains at the top of its game it would also be essential for a factory of the future to ensure that it has good engineers that would be able to drive continuous improvements in products and processes. Training program: The plant would invest 40 hours of formal training per year and pay the workers when in the classroom. The curriculum would be inclusive of the training in terms of problem solving and exposure to the strategically critical pieces of the business. Often the most productive changes have their initiation ay the grassroots with passionate workers who have solid analytical skills and understand the drivers of success and value the things that really matter. The second part of the program would be the regular publishing of the key performs metrics given the fact that all workers would automatically want to know how they are doing vis-à-vis the expectations of the company. The company would also have to pay for the induction of new skills in as much as the fact that doing well would automatically serve as a motivating factor and help workers in the improvement of their working skills and help provide sound back ups for the job. It is in this context where in the plan would make use of the cross-training technique of employee training.   Cross Training  In cross training a given employee learns more than one job in the company. Cross training has a number of attractive features that make it beneficial to the company and the employee. For the company it provides a safety measure with more job coverage in the event of an employee resignation and absenteeism and sudden increases in a particular job activity. Employees are given more knowledge and a variety so that they wont get as easily bored, they would find more value in what they do and their interest levels in the company would increase in the long term (Cooke, 2003). Because of their increased knowledge they would have the opportunity to move to other jobs within the company without leaving. Employees wild respect each other because they would be familiar with each other’s jobs and the consequent stresses and demands that define the colleague’s life (Volpe, 1996). However cross training requires significant investment in terms of time and money, so the company should be committed to its implementation and sure of the benefits it hopes to realize from cross training. Job rotation is not exactly the same where cross training is concerned given the fact that it gives an employee the ability to move between the jobs if needed (Mitchell, 2001). Cross training it must be mentioned differs from job rotation which requires cross training but is also inclusive of horizontal movement between two or more jobs in accordance with a plan or a schedule. This not only creates a flexible employee but also reduces boredom and increases employee interest. Social Contexts of training One has to understand the fact that a company’s training program cannot be developed in a vacuum. They need to be placed in an organizational context and designed with the specific training needs of the targeted employees. It would thus become essential that at the very beginning of the program on would have to speak with the managers about the organizations operation environment: the political, social and technological trends that have an impact on the organization and may given role to training requirements. The program would also need one to gather information on the organization’s short medium and long terms objectives to ensure that the training program supports these directions. The actual plan of the train program Modules The program would be modeled on the concept of modular training incorporating a total of seven modules over a year long period. The program would make use of the single-issue training seminars wherein topics would include: Workplace Cooperation, OSH, HR Management and Working Condition, Effective Management of Working Time, First Aid training, Negotiation Skills, and Gender Awareness). The factory based workers training program would be styled along the lines of the use of soap opera style videos. The program would also be characterized by the use of Induction kits such as videos, comics, and a trainer’s manual. Training for use of human resource managers or factory based trainers. Finally the program would be based on the betterment of supervisory skills. Training would be geared to ensuring that there is the development of the capacity of factory’s industry supervisors and senior managers. The training scheme is designed to improve both labour-management relations and productivity. Adult training learning-self directed training plan Plan of action in training parameters would be based on the implementation of adult centered learning and action-based training principles. Implementation at the factory level would be made a priority. The method would be inclusive of 1. the first phase of the program would be a two day training workshop that would be based on a wide selection topics decided on the usage of participatory training methods 2. the training would be followed by visits from experts in motivation and ILO labor work methods experts such as remediation unit staff member or a VBNK trainer to each factory for a day. These would be a bi-monthly occurrence (once within a few days of the workshop and a second time a few weeks after that) after each module. Their role would be to help the training participants pass on information to the Performance Improvement Consultative Committee (PICC) and assist them in developing a Factory Improvement Plan (FIP) 3. The FIP should be developed and owned by the factory. It should set realistic goals on the implementation of improvements for each module and be quite realistic and therefore limited in its scope 4. The Better Factories remediation unit staff would provide continuing support and follow up execution of the plan 5. Around 6 weeks after the initial module there will another 1/2 day training seminar for each module. This would give the members of the trained worker’s team for sharing ideas on the accomplishments and problems characterization of implementation of the learning at the workplace. Final Considerations The most intensive is the modular training program that takes 1 group of 7 factories through 7 modules. Each factory will be entitled to 4 participants per workshop – 2 management and 2 worker representatives. This means a total of 28 participants will directly be involved in each round of training. The worker representatives will be nominated by the relevant unions and will normally include the union president and vice-president. The worker representatives and at least one of the management representatives will be constant. However the second management representative may change according to the subject area of the training. At least half the participants should be women. The participating factory will be responsible for ensuring that all participants (including union/ worker representatives) are provided transportation to and from the training venue and other benefits. The training method one finds would be focused largely on the self directed method, giving people the opportunity to take control of their own training. They get to decide what they want to learn and how they would want to learn it, when to do it and where. This is why much of the program makes use of individual research books, magazines and from material largely available from the internet. It would also make use of self paced manuals., tapes and videos and of computer based training plans, accessing information from floppy disks, CD-ROMs and the organizational intranet facilities. Responsible person The factory will nominate one person to be responsible for implementation of factory improvement plans Conclusion: The program focuses on performance improvement for each participating enterprise, with a particular emphasis on those areas where training is expected to impact positively on performance improvement to ensure a continuous improvement strategy is integrated into each participating factory’s management system. In conclusion therefore it may be stated that in a furniture company it would be essential that there be the development of skill based training that would aim in the long run to promote motivational factor within the employees of the company, so that there could be the long term integration of the company’s aims with the aims of the HRM goal achievement. Reference: Charvatova D and Veer C G, 2006, Communication and Human Resource Management and its Compliance with Culture, pub, International Journal of Social Science, Vol.1 No1, pp14-18   Massy R, 1994, Taking a Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management, Pub, Journal of Health Manpower Management, Vol.20 Issue5, pp27-30    Das H and Wagar T, 2007, Canadian Human Resource Management: A Strategic Approach (8th Ed.). McGraw-Hill Ryerson: Toronto, pp31-48    Russell, R. S., and Taylor, B. W., (2009). Operations Management Along The Supply Chain, 6Th Ed. Wiley Book. Pp331 Cooke, W. N., (2003). Multinational companies and global human resource strategies. Greenwood Publishing. Pp132-135 Raymond, A. G., (2009). Creating a Furniture factory for the future. Retrieved May 13, 2010, < http://www.raymondnet.com/AGRCo-Articles/Articles/a_g_raymond_furniture_factory_for_the_future_060509.pdf> Lake, H., (2008). Analysis of Human Resource Management Practices. Report from Indonesia’s Labor Intensive Light manufacturing Industries. Retrieved May 13, 2010, < http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADQ565.pdf> Colbert, B. A, (2004). ‘The complex Resource Based view: Implementation for theory and Practice in Strategic Human Resource Management’. Academy of Management Review, 29(3) pp341-358 Mitchell, D. J. B., (2001). ‘IR journal and conference literature from the 1960s to the 1990s: What can HR learn from it? Where is it headed?’ Human Resource Management Issue. 11(4). pp375-393  Volpe, C. E., (1996). ‘The impact of cross-training on team functioning: an empirical investigation’. Journal of Human Factors. Vol. 38. Read More