Importance of Training and Development - Example

Executive summary This report seeks to critically analyze and evaluate the SHRM topic training and development. Various issues are analyzed including the need for an appropriate training and development model for a firm with the objective of achieving organizational growth and development. Various HR challenges with regard to training and development have been explored, in addition to the HR issues and practices that are associated with various training and development strategies. In addition, the paper will provide recommendations that managers ought to adopt and implement in their organizations. Importance of Training and Development- Training and development is crucial for an organization as it helps an organization achieve competitive advantage. This can only be achieved by an organization when it creates value that meets its customers’ expectations and selects markets through which it can effectively improve its market position compared to its competitors. Issues of Training & Development- Issues of training and development include the issue of culture and culture fit. Majority of the research carried out on organizational performance and SHRM systems in the US has been done using a high-capacity work system model that has in many occasions been developed to fit the context of America. Technological challenges are also significant issues of training and development. Proposed Solution A proposed solution is the culture fit model, which involves changing the features of a job to fit the skills of the people employed. Alternatively, the firm may choose to use the ‘right person’ model, which focuses upon selecting the most qualified person for the job; or even the ‘flexible person’ model, by training people to be more effective performers. Table of Contents Executive summary 4 This report seeks to critically analyze and evaluate the SHRM topic training and development. Various issues are analyzed including the need for an appropriate training and development model for a firm with the objective of achieving organizational growth and development. Various HR challenges with regard to training and development have been explored, in addition to the HR issues and practices that are associated with various training and development strategies. In addition, the paper will provide recommendations that managers ought to adopt and implement in their organizations. 4 Importance of Training and Development- Training and development is crucial for an organization as it helps an organization achieve competitive advantage. This can only be achieved by an organization when it creates value that meets its customers’ expectations and selects markets through which it can effectively improve its market position compared to its competitors. 4 Issues of Training & Development- Issues of training and development include the issue of culture and culture fit. Majority of the research carried out on organizational performance and SHRM systems in the US has been done using a high-capacity work system model that has in many occasions been developed to fit the context of America. Technological challenges are also significant issues of training and development. 4 Proposed Solution A proposed solution is the culture fit model, which involves changing the features of a job to fit the skills of the people employed. Alternatively, the firm may choose to use the ‘right person’ model, which focuses upon selecting the most qualified person for the job; or even the ‘flexible person’ model, by training people to be more effective performers. 4 Table of Contents 6 Introduction 8 Functions of Training and Development 8 Importance of training and development 9 Training and development for competitive advantage 11 Implementing training and development 14 Integration 15 Resilience 16 Innovation 16 Business Effectiveness of training and development 17 Conclusion 19 Introduction The issue of training and development is a fundamental aspect of SHRM. Certainly, managers cannot afford to ignore the issue of improving the skills of both new and current employees, as organizations seek to remain competitive (Saks et al, 2011). As the world market place continues to become increasingly competitive, it is imperative that members of staff have the most effective skill requirements. Without training and development the following processes can never be effectively implemented in an organization: careful recruitment and selection, the provision of career opportunities, the effective retention and recognition of the talents and skills of skills, among numerous other functions (Jamrog & Overholt, 2004). Functions of Training and Development Generally, it is the responsibility of the SHRM department to strategically develop and apply ongoing research on various advances even as it trains and develops its staff. One of the particular functions of the SHRM department is to understand and relate to employees as persons, hence recognize needs and career goals of every employee. The department is also responsible for developing constructive interactions between employees, to promote teamwork and constructive enterprise output and the growth of a homogeneous organizational culture (Annacchino, 2007). All recruitment, training and development functions of essential workforce are handled by the SHRM, which also makes requirements for all expressed and promised payroll and benefits. Another very important function of SHRM is to provide effective training and identify fields that suffer insufficient training and lack of knowledge and as a result offer counteractive procedures such as workshops and seminars. It is also the function of SHRM to create a suitable platform for all employees to put across their goals, and more importantly, provide the needed resources to carry out professional as well as personal schedules. In addition, the SHRM implements strategies to generate and sustain competitive advantage, as well as to empower the organization to effectively meet the organization’s strategic goals by effectively managing staff (Annacchino, 2007). Ideally, it is the responsibility of the SHRM to carry out interdisciplinary examination of all of an organization’s employees. Therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure employees add value to the organization, which is achieved through management processes for example workforce planning and recruitment processes, orientation and training of hired employees, administration and evaluation. Importance of training and development The need for an appropriate training and development strategies is increasingly becoming inevitable for organizations to enable them achieve organizational strategy and growth. To understand this need it is fundamental that this concept is firstly understood, as this is prerequisite to understanding the strategic training and development approaches that firms should adopt in their SHRM models. Training and development is recognized as among other interrelated SHRM areas of importance, without which effective training and development processes cannot be achieved. These include careful recruitment and selection, the provision of career opportunities, extensive communication and information sharing, decision-making involvement, the appraisal of every individual’s development and job security (Jamrog & Overholt, 2004). Every organization should come up with activities that can help its staff members meet its mission through formal and informal traisning, education, and on the job developmental experiences. SHRM experts agree that the focus should be on developing a culture of knowledge sharing and development so as to continually the quality of work life. The majority of companies use various means, for example online learning, traditional classrooms, blended models, online learning, satellite broadcast or the common method, on the job training. In addition, organizations also use appropriate in-service curricula which can be founded on the estabished training needs, departmental initiatives and professional standards. This can be achieved using resources of the organization in various departments, in addition to resources such as web based training resources and computer based training. It is recommended that the SHRM manager should evaluate each training and ddvelopment opportunity presented to an organization, focusing on the return on investment. With regard to training, important elements that should be evaluated include the delivery method, cost of the method per participant, travel elements, and the impact of the opportunity. It is also recommended that the SHRM manager should coordinate the required training so that it can include elements such as technology usage to boost productivity. Training System Process Model The Four Steps In Training And Development Training Needs Analysis (specific levels)- With regard to organizational performance, a Training needs Analysis will provide direction as well as focus for the problem-solving process. This is achieved by documenting, identifying and determining appropriate methods. A Training Needs Analysis will provide a systematic way for making strategic plans to ensure improved performance. This is a vital planning strategy in the SHRM context, as it will ensure that the company has an adequate amount people with the required skills, knowledge and motivation to meet the strategic business plans of the organization. Input Instructional Design (curriculum)-This is a crucial step as well, as it is where trainers and SHRM employees involved in staff training carry out elements such as task analysis, needs analysis, lesson planning, testing for learning outcomes and organizational development. It is through this step that an organization can establish instructional design measures. These will lead to measurable and predictable performance improvement, as well as competency improvement. Training Delivery process Validation- Training and development processes encompass a rigorous validation process. This process calls for experienced and trained personnel. Skilled validation personnel should be available from the organization’s employee pool to facilitate the process. Otherwise, this resource can be obtained from third-party training providers or from independent validation resources. Output implementation- Last but certainly not least, this is the determinant step in the success of the training and development processes. According to theory and research, effectiveness in technical strategic human resource management (SHRM), which entails processes such as psychometrically sound SHRM practices developed to achieve specific objectives, is a vital basic to achieve successful implementation of a Strategic Human Resource Management process (Saks et al, 2011). Training and development for competitive advantage Competitive advantage can only be developed by an organization when it creates value that meets its customers’ expectations and selects markets through which it can effectively improve its market position compared to its competitors (Armstrong & Long, 1994). Critical success factors refer to the things that a firm must perform to enable it become competitive in the market, particularly vital things that must be performed for the firm to achieve its mission. One of the leading areas that training and development should focus upon is on the issue of culture and culture fit. Majority of the research carried out on organizational performance and SHRM systems in the US has been done using a high-capacity work system model that has in many occasions been developed to fit the context of America. However, there has been growing interest to transfer such work system models to other cultures, bringing to the fore concepts of culture and cultural fit. Firms in America are trying to use these models in their international links as they seek to manage host-country nationals that work for them. Firms in countries outside of the United States are also implementing these methods, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Globalization pressures, for example, have been significant in promoting interest in the use of high-involvement work systems characteristics by companies in Korea (Price, 2007). Issues of culture and cultural fit have raised significant challenges to SHRM practices as firms seek to match the requirements of a job with the skills and abilities available. These, however, can be resolved by using the culture fit model, which involves changing the features of a job to fit the skills of the people employed. Alternatively, the firm may choose to use the ‘right person’ model, which focuses upon selecting the most qualified person for the job; or even the ‘flexible person’ model, by training people to be more effective performers. A firm may choose one of these strategies or even a combination of these models. This depends upon the ability to determine the features needed o successfully perform the job. While this may seem simple at first glance, a deep examination reveals that it is indeed a complex process (Milosevic et al., 2009). A firm may be forced to review its strategies to take into consideration technological changes and new market conditions. The case of European supermarket corporation Sainsbury’s emphasizes this. After a number of years of enjoyed success and growth, Sainsbury’s had to contend massive competition from discounters. Having more than 120,000 employees and paying salaries of more than 1 billion pounds annually, it was inevitable to examine the SHRM department. Under the policy of ‘retail is detail’, the company was reputed for high quality by making sure that goods and procedures were expansively checked by employees. When the use of IT in eliminating management and clerical tasks was explored, this significantly changed the roles of staff members and reduced staff members resulting to a key revision in SHRM planning (Price, 2007). The concept of training employees on culture fit involves fitting the person to the firm using the notion that while jobs can be reshaped, people are permanent. When a firm requires many employees, a search is carried out for people who seem to possess the personal features needed to ‘fit in’ with the firm’s culture. In this regard, personality is regarded as being more important that technical skills. The strategy of culture and cultural fit is particularly common in traditionally run Asian companies. The emphasis is usually to match people to organizational culture as opposed to the organizational structure. Recruitment strategies are focused upon obtaining young people who can easily be socialized into the company’s work systems (Lawler & Hundley, 2008). In recent decades, Western managers, who justify it with its potential to attract creative and potential employees, have embraced the approach of culture fit. Alan Price, however, seeks to draw a line between recruiting and training creative and plastic minds, arguing that what really Western managers are doing is recruiting and training more and more potential “clones” because of their benefits such as being cheap, young and trouble-free in management (Price, 2007). Implementing training and development In the United States, more than 90 percent of large firms use the Internet as one of their ways of recruiting potential employees, which significantly makes it very easy for job seekers to access the companies and importantly, sharply cutting the required time for employers to fill jobs. There has been rising concern. According to Raymond A Noe and Robert Hoyt, professors at the Ohio State university’s Fisher College of Business, “companies are not only interested in skills and abilities; they want to know if the applicant will fit in their culture” (Price, p. 335). The two argue that when a firm comes up with a clearly defined culture, this can significantly help with employee commitment, help the employees understand what the mission of the firm is and most importantly, provide development opportunities for those who can match well. Therefore, a firm cannot develop an appropriate SHRM model without considering its cultural fit strategies, as these are what will enable recruiting personnel to understand and embrace the culture of the firm in attracting and retaining high-quality employees (Schuler & Jackson, 2009). The following are important considerations that the SHRM team can see implemented in developing an effective web based training and development cultural fit strategy: it is fundamental to make consultations with experts in measuring organizational culture and make use of professionally established methods to ensure that the firm’s culture is appropriately measured and the correct feedback is provided to jobseekers; The culture fit feedback tool should be designed to make it anonymous, which should be communicated to job seekers beforehand. The failure of doing this makes the process ineffective when they attempt to assess their cultural fit themselves; To avoid influencing the responses of job seekers and obtaining biased responses, it is fundamental to provide the cultural fit tool up front before describing the organization’s culture. An appropriate SHRM model requires assessing the form’s SHRM systems through various processes, one of these is alignment. Alignment is critical in developing a suitable SHRM model as this is what helps the firm to determine the different cultures needed in understanding various business strategies. Integration An additional strategy that SHRM managers should implement in their training and development strategies is integration. A unified strategic focus is a critical consideration that can make sure SHRM systems effectively work together to have a considerable effect on business results. Integration requires ensuring that the firm’s performance management practices, organization design practices, compensation practices, talent practices, communication practices and other SHRM practices provide a steady point of view and focus on why the organization manages its SHRM. The thought plan is to ensure that there are efficient outside in communication to help people focus on critical business stakeholders. SHRM management should therefore ensure that its personnel understand what they are supposed to do and how to effectively do it when conducting training programs. Resilience Importantly, transforming SHRM processes through training and development practices requires more than just making incremental improvements to each process. According to a research study carried out by Mark Huselid and his contemporaries it was established that SHRM managers must have the resilience and patience to come up with a comprehensive system of strategic SHRM processes and therefore reach a level where SHRM has a significant effect on organizational results. The research developed SHRM processes and asked organizations to rate their performance based on the processes; (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). Innovation In addition to integration and resilience, innovation has also been established as an effective training and development strategy that SHRM leaders can exploit. Innovation requires keeping abreast of the recently developed SHRM practices in the company’s industry as well as in the broader SHRM community. Important considerations that a program should take into account include: the functions and practices that the company’s rising competitors are doing and the recently established innovations by leading thinkers in driving impact with the company. Additionally, the SHRM manager should ask whether the innovations implemented would make HR practices more suitable in developing strategic issues such as customer connectivity, customer speed as well as efficiency. After taking into account these considerations, it is important that the SHRM manager adapts the innovations and implements them in a strategy developed to fit the company’s culture and objectives. It is always worth remembering that these innovations may not be effective or they may fail totally. This is a major risk of innovation which, however, can be managed as one seeks to learn from it and make necessary adjustment (Wei, 2006). One of the principal themes that have faced SHRM managers and firms is operating in low cost models that require constantly seeking to reduce costs of labor processes as well as financial, equipment and operations. Because of competitor pressures, the majority of firms have resulted to practices such as using international outsourcing, decreasing labor costs, adapting management practices and even closing operations so as to become competitive. Such organizational changes have significantly altered organizational processes as HR managers seek for ways to ensure that their systems effectively fit with their environment (Lawler & Hundley, 2008). It is very important, therefore, that training and development programs take into account such considerations, as this is what will ensure that they are cost-effective. Business Effectiveness of training and development According to C. Rudolph Becker IV, vice president of sales and marketing, Becker Orthopedic, Troy, Michigan, the quality of people hired and retained in any organization is the sole process that has the supreme impact on the organization’s corporate dynamic. Therefore, every organization should have great confidence in its workforce, the kind of confidence accorded to its management. This is evident when managers engage in actions such as actively seeking the opinions of employees when implementing its training and development programs (Nejati & Nejati, 2009). Research studies carried out in the field of SHRM indicate that effectively employing training and development elements of SHRM in an organization is always reflected in the organization’s better performance. Various researchers have found that organizations that have long-term incentive plans for their employees have better increases in return on equity than other organizations. For example, the extent to which managerial reward is derived from an organization's fiscal performance is considerably related to the future financial performance of the organization. In addition, the researchers have found that training and development is directly related to financial performance. Notably, firms that have training and development plans that take account of every employee attain superior financial performance. When combined, the studies show that companies that possess a stronger training and development culture achieve better financial performance in the long-term compared to organizations that have a weaker training and development culture (Annacchino, 2007). A relationship has also been identified that exists between high performance work practices and organization-level outcomes. Notably, is always important to remember that a single practice such as hiring can lead to better productivity of an organization; however, it is the synchronized use of the various training and development that effectively leads to the success of an organization in terms of its turnover, productivity as well as financial performance (Annacchino, 2007). Conclusion The effects of the recent economic crisis are apparent in today’s business environment and scholars, commentators, as well as government officials are faced with one of history’s greatest economic puzzles in understanding ways to avoid the recent economic crunch. Central to the debate is the role played by SHRM. The ideologies that put off companies from understanding and questioning risky actions as well as the role played by leadership and values in shaping actions within companies are some of the important issues that raise questions concerning the factors that contributed to the mess. To avoid similar problems in the future, the field of SHRM plays a fundamental role in improving the performance of people in all roles within an organization, and in rethinking the firm’s design for more effective functioning. Training and development is therefore an element of SHRM that every manager should implement taking into consideration the issues discussed in this report. References Annacchino, M. (2007). The pursuit of new product development: the business development process. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Armstrong, M., & Long, P. (1994). The Reality of Strategic HRM. London: Institute of Personnel and development. Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2003). The reality of strategic HRM. Hampshire: Palgrave macMillan. Lawler, J. J., & Hundley, G. (2008). The global diffusion of human resource practices: institutional and cultural limits. New York, NY: Emerald Group Publishing. Milosevic, D. Z., Martinelli, R., Waddel, J. M., & Z, D. (2009). Program Management for Improved Business Results. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. Nejati, M., & Nejati, M. (2009). Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal. New York: Universal-Publishers. Price, A. ( 2007). Human Resource Management in a Business Context. London: Cengage Learning EMEA,. Saks, A. M., Haccoun, R. R. & Haccoun, R. (2011). Managing Performance Through Training and Development. London: Cengage Learning. Schuler, R. S., & Jackson, S. E. (2009). Strategic human resource management. NJ: Wiley- Blackwell. Wei, L. Q. (2006). Strategic Human Resource Management: determinants of fit. Research and Practice in Human , Resource Management. Read More