TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ➢ Tacit knowledge

○ Personal knowledge based on individual experiences that is difficult

LESSON 1: “Introduction to Employee Training and Development” to codify
○ Result of informal learning
➢ Competitiveness: Ability to maintain and gain market share in an ➢ Knowledge management
industry ○ Process of enhancing company performance by designing and
➢ Human resource management: Policies, practices, and systems that implementing:
influence employees’ behavior, attitudes, and performance >>Tools, processes, systems, structures, and cultures to improve the
➢ Stakeholders: All parties that have an interest in seeing that the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge
company succeeds
➢ Learning: Acquiring knowledge, skills, competencies, attitudes, or
behaviors
➢ Human capital: Refers to:
○ Knowledge (know what)
○ Advanced skills (know how)
○ System understanding and creativity (know why)
○ Motivation to deliver high-quality products and
○ services (care why)
➢ Training: Facilitates learning job-related competencies, knowledge, skills
or behavior
○ Development
○ Future focused
○ Includes:
Formal education, job experiences, relationship
Assessments of personality, skills, and abilities
➢ Formal training and development
○ Programs, courses, and events that are developed and organized
by the company
Globalization
➢ Informal learning
➢ Offshoring: Process of moving jobs from the United States to other
○ Learner initiated
locations in the world
○ Occurs without a trainer or instructor
○ Advantage- Lower labor costs
○ Motivated by an intent to develop
○ Disadvantage
○ Does not occur in a formal learning setting
Low standards of health and safety
○ Breadth, depth, and timing is controlled by the
Lack of necessary skills to perform the job
○ Employee
ASSETS
➢ Human Capital- refers to employee’s attributes, life experience,
➢ Explicit knowledge
knowledge, inventiveness, energy and entusiasm
○ Well documented, easily articulated, and easily transferred from
• Tacit knowledge
person-to-person
• Education
○ Primary focus of formal training and development
• Work-related know-how
 • Work-related competence ○ acquiring and assessing employees
➢ Customer Capital- Value of relationships with persons or other ○ learning and development
organizations ○ performance management, and compensation
• Customer relationships ➢ Is important due to:
• Brands ○ Changes in demand for certain occupations and jobs
• Customer loyalty ○ Skill requirement
• Distribution channels ○ Anticipated retirement of baby boomer generation
➢ Social Capital- relationship in the company ○ Requirement to develop managerial talent
• Corporate culture
• Management philosophy Customer Service and Quality Emphasis
• Management practices ➢ Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Informal networking systems ○ Companywide effort to continuously improve the ways
• Coaching/mentoring relationships people, machines, and systems accomplish work
➢ Intellectual Capital- Codified knowledge that exists in a company ➢ Core values of TQM
• Patents ○ Methods and processes designed to meet the needs of
• Copyrights internal and external customers
• Trade secrets ○ Every employee receives training in quality
• Intellectual property ○ Errors are prevented from occurring rather than being
detected and corrected
Changing Demographics and Diversity of the WorkForce ○ Promotes cooperation with vendors, suppliers, and
➢ Increase in racial and ethnic diversity customers
○ Ethnically and racially diverse labor force ○ Measures progress with feedback based on data
○ Increased participation of minorities in the work force
➢ Aging labor force ➢ Quality Standards
○ Increased work-force participation of individuals 55 ○ Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
○ years or greater ○ ISO 9000
➢ Generational differences ■ Family of standards related to quality
➢ To manage diversity managers and employees must be trained in: ■ Address what the company does to meet regulatory
○ Communicating effectively requirements
○ Coaching, training, and developing
○ Providing performance feedback that is free of stereotypes ➢ Six Sigma Process
○ Recognizing and responding to generational differences ○ Measuring, analyzing, improving, and then controlling
○ Allowing employees of all backgrounds to be creative and processes once:
innovative ■ They have been brought within the narrow six sigma
quality tolerances or standards
Talent Management ○ Training helps by:
➢ Systematic, planned, and strategic effort by a company ■ Teaching employees statistical process control
➢ To attract, retain, develop, and motivate highly skilled employees and ■ Engaging in “lean” processes
managers ○ Lean thinking
➢ Involves: ■ Doing more with less effort, equipment, space, and
 ■ time, but satisfying consumer needs and wants ➢ Percentage of services distributed by external providers dropped from 29
○ ISO 10015 % in 2004 to 23 % in 2010.
■ Ensures that training is linked to company needs
and performance

New Technology
➢ Influence on training
○ Makes training more realistic
○ Allows flexibility of time and any place
○ Reduces travel costs
○ Provides greater accessibility and consistency
○ Increased ability to access experts and share learning with others
○ Creates a learning environment that provides feedback, self-pacing,
and practice exercises
○ Allows greater use of alternative work arrangements

High performance models of work systems

➢ Work teams
○ Employees with various skills interact to assemble a product or provide
a service
➢ Cross training ➢ Who provides training
○ Training employees in a wide range of skills to fill any of the roles ○ Trainers, managers, in-house consultants, and employee experts
needed to be performed ○ Outsourcing: Training and development activities provided by
➢ Virtual Teams individuals outside the company
○ Separated by time, geographic, cultural, and/or organizational
boundaries ➢ Who is in charge of training
○ Rely on technology to interact and complete their projects ○ Professionals in human resources and human resource development
○ Human resource development
Snapshot of Training Practices ■ Integrated use of training and development, organizational
➢ Key trends in learning initiative investments: development, and career development :
○ Direct expenditures, has remained stable over the last several years ● To improve individual, group, and organizational
○ Increased demand for specialized learning that effectiveness
○ Use of technology-based learning delivery increased from 11%in 2001
to 29 %in 2010
○ Self-paced online learning is the most popular technology-based
learning
➢ Technology-based learning
○ Has improved learning efficiency
○ Has resulted in a larger employee–learning staff member ratio
 LESSON 2: “Strategic Training”
Implications of Learning for Human Capital Development
➢ Business Strategy ➢ Recognition that learning should help:
○ Integrates the company's goals, policies, and actions ○ Employees improve performance
○ Influences how the company uses: ○ Achieve business goals
■ Physical capital, financial capital, and human capital ➢ Learning should occur on as needed basis
➢ Goals- What the company hopes to achieve in the medium- and ➢ Need to support informal learning
long-term future ➢ Learning should be supported psychologically
➢ Strategy determines: ➢ Key capabilities
○ Amount of training required for current or future job skills ○ Aligning learning goals to business goals
○ Extent to which training should be customized for particular needs ○ Measuring of business impact of learning
○ Extent to which training is restricted to specific groups of employees or ○ Movement of learning outside the company
open to all ○ Developing competencies for critical jobs
○ Extent to which training is planned and systematically administered ○ Integrating learning with other human resource functions
○ Importance placed on training compared to other HR practices ○ Including classroom as well as e-learning
○ Designing and delivering leadership development courses
Learning as a Strategic Focus
➢ Learning organization: A company that has:
○ An enhanced capacity to learn, adapt, and change
○ Carefully scrutinized and aligned training processes with company goals
○ Training as a part of system designed to create human capital

The Strategic Training and Development Process

➢ Mission: Company's reason for existing
➢ Vision: Is the picture of the future that the company wants to achieve
➢ Values: What the company stands for
➢ SWOT analysis
○ Internal analysis of strengths and weaknesses
○ External analysis of opportunities and threats
➢ External analysis: Examining the operating environment to identify
opportunities and threats
➢ Internal analysis 2. What capabilities does the company need as a result of the business
○ Identifies the company’s strength and weaknesses strategy and business environment challenges?
○ Examines the available quantity and quality of financial, physical, and 3. What types of training and development will best attract, retain, and
human capital develop the talent needed for success?
➢ Strategic choice: The strategy believed to be the best alternative to 4. Which competencies are critical for company success and the business
achieve the company goals strategy?
5. Does the company have a plan for making the link between training and
Table 2.2- Possible Business Goals Influenced by Training Development and the business strategy understood by executives,
managers, and employees or customers?
Productivity 6. Will the senior management team publicly support and champion training
Reduced scrap and rework And development?
Increased customer satisfaction 7. Does the company provide opportunities for training and developing not
Reduced operational risks and accidents due to employee carelessness Only individuals but also teams?
Increased employee satisfaction and retention
Increased time and value-producing goods, such as increase in billable ➢ Metrics
project time hours ○ Business-level outcomes chosen to measure the overall value of
Better management decisions training or learning
Increased development of human capital ○ Strategic business related measures not linked to one course or
Succession planning needed for competitive advantage and growth. program
➢ Balance scorecard
Table 2.3- Decisions a Company Must Make About How to Compete to ○ Means of measurement for:
Reach its Goals ■ Overall company performance
1. Where to compete? ■ Performance of departments or functions
In what markets (industries, products, etc.) will we compete? ➢ Considers four perspectives
2. How to compete? ○ Customer
On what outcome or differentiating characteristic will we compete? ○ Internal innovation
Cost? Quality? ○ Learning
Reliability? Delivery? Innovativeness? ○ Financial
3. With what will we compete?
What resources will allow us to beat the competition? How will we Organizational Characteristics That Influence Training
acquire, develop, and deploy those resources to compete? ➢ Role of employees and managers
○ Employees- Responsible for quality of goods and services
➢ Strategic training and development initiatives: Learning-related actions ○ Managers must:
that help to achieve business strategy ■ Manage individual and performance
■ Develop employees and encourage continuous learning
Table 2.5 - Questions to Ask to Develop Strategic Training and ■ Plan and allocate resources
Development Initiatives ■ Coordinate activities and interdependent team
■ Facilitate decision making
1. What is the vision and mission of the company? Identify the strategic ■ Create and maintain trust
drivers of the business strategy. ■ Represent one’s work unit
➢ Top management support ● Contract employees
○ The CEO is responsible for ● Alliance/partnerships
■ Setting a clear direction for learning ○ Human resource planning
■ Providing encouragement, resources and commitment for strategic ■ Identification, analysis, forecasting, and planning of changes to
learning help meet changing business conditions
■ Governing learning and reviewing objectives ➢ Extent of unionization
■ Developing new learning programs for the company ○ Joint union-management programs help employees prepare for new
■ Teaching program or providing online resources jobs
■ Serving as role model for learning ➢ Staff involvement in training and development
■ Promoting the companies commitment to learning ○ Effectiveness of the training program depends on the level of
➢ Integration of business units involvement of:
○ Training likely includes rotating employees between jobs in different ■ Managers
businesses ■ Employees
➢ Global presence ■ Specialized development staff
○ Training helps prepare employees for temporary or long-term overseas ➢ Staff involvement in training and development
assignments ○ If line managers are aware of what development activity can achieve,
➢ Business conditions they will be more willing to become involved in it.
○ Impact the ability to find employees with necessary skills, and retain ■ They will also become more involved in the training process if they
current employees are rewarded for participating.
➢ Other HRM practices ○ An emerging trend is that companies expect employees to initiate the
○ Human resource management (HRM) practices: Activities related to: training process.
■ Investments
■ Staffing Training Needs in Different Strategies
■ Performance management ➢ Internal growth strategy
■ Training ○ Focuses on new market and product development, innovation, and
■ Compensation and benefits joint ventures
➢ Staffing strategy: Company's decisions regarding: ➢ External growth strategy
○ Where to find employees ○ Emphasizes acquiring vendors and suppliers or buying businesses to
○ How to select them expand into new markets
○ The desired mix of employee skills and statuses ➢ Disinvestment strategy: Emphasizes liquidation and divestiture of
businesses
➢ Strategic value of Job and employee uniqueness
○ Uniqueness: Extent to which employees are rare and specialized and Models of Organizing the Training Department
not highly available ➢ Centralized training
○ Strategic value ○ Training and development resources, and professionals are housed in
■ Employee potential to improve company effectiveness and one location
efficiency ○ Training investment and delivery methods decisions are made from
■ Results in four types of employees one department
● Knowledge-based workers ○ Advantages- Helps integrate programs for developing leaders and
● Job-based employees managing talent
 Table 2.9- Features of Training Function Organized by the BE Model
● Strategic Direction
Broadly disseminates a clearly articulated mission
Recognizes that its customer base is segmented
Provides customized solutions to its clients’ needs
Understands product life cycles
Organizes its offerings by competencies
Competes for internal customers
● Product Design
Uses benchmarking and other innovative design
Implements strategies to develop products quickly
Involves suppliers strategically
● Structural Versatility
Employs professionals who serve as product and classroom instructors,
managers, and internal consultants
Uses resources from many areas
Involves line managers in determining the direction of the department’s
offerings and content
● Product Delivery
Offers a menu of learning options
Delivers training at the work site Marketing the Training and Creating A Brand
● Accountability for Results ➢ Internal marketing-Making employees and managers excited about training
Believes that individual employees must take responsibility for their ➢ Internal marketing tactics
personal growth ○ Involve the target audience in developing the training program
Provides follow-up on the job to ensure that learning takes place ○ Demonstrate how a training program can be used to solve
Considers the manager the key player in supporting learning specific business needs
Evaluates the strategic effects of training and it’s bottom-line results ○ Identify a “champion” who actively supports training
Guarantees that training will improve performance ○ Listen and act on feedback received
○ Advertise on e-mail, on company websites, and in employee break
➢ The BE model with Centralized training areas
○ Allows the company to gain the benefits of centralized training ○ Designate someone to interact between the training designer and
○ Ensures that training content and delivery methods that are business the business unit
specific ○ Determine the financial gains top- level executives are concerned
➢ Resistance to change: Managers’ and employees’ unwillingness to change with
➢ Control: Managers’ and employees’ ability to obtain and distribute valuable ○ Don’t use jargon
resources
➢ Power: Ability to influence others Outsourcing Training
➢ Task redefinition: Creating changes in managers’ and employees’ roles and ➢ Outsourcing: Use of an outside company that takes:
job responsibilities ○ Complete responsibility and control of some or all training or
development activities including
■ Administration
 ■ Design LESSON 3: “Needs Assessment”
■ Delivery
■ Development ➢ The design process begins with a needs assessment
➢ Business process outsourcing ➢ Subsequent steps in the process include
○ Outsourcing of any business process, such as HRM, production, or ○ Ensuring that employees have the motivation and basic skills
training necessary to learn
➢ Advantages of outsourcing training: ○ Creating a positive learning environment
○ Cost savings ○ Making sure that trainees use learned skills on the job
○ Time savings ○ Choosing the training method and evaluating the results
○ Improvements in compliance with training mandates ➢ Needs assessment: Process used to determine whether training is
○ Access best training practices necessary
➢ Reasons companies do not outsource their training ➢ Involves
○ Inability of outsourcing providers to meet company needs ○ Organizational analysis: Determines the appropriateness of training,
○ Desire to maintain control over all aspects of training and development given the company’s business strategy and resources
○ Person analysis: Determines
■ Whether performance deficiencies result from a lack of knowledge,
skill, or ability
■ Who needs training
■ Employee readiness for training
➢ Task analysis: Identifies the important tasks and knowledge, skills, and
behaviors that need to be emphasized in training for employees to
complete their tasks

Why is Needs Assessment Necessary?

➢ Training may be incorrectly used as a solution to a performance problem
➢ Training programs may have the wrong content, objectives, or methods
➢ Trainees may be sent to training programs for which they do not have the
basic skills, prerequisite skills, or confidence needed to learn
➢ Training will not deliver the expected learning, behavior change, or
financial results that the company expects
➢ Money will be spent on training programs that are unnecessary because
they are unrelated to the company’s business strategy
 Figure 3.1 – Causes and Outcomes of Needs Assessment ○ They can be a great hindrance to the training process if they do not feel
they have had input in the process

Methods Used in Needs Assessment

➢ For newly created jobs, trainers often do not have job incumbents to rely
on for this information
➢ Historical data review provides information regarding current performance
levels
➢ Online technology is available to monitor and track employee performance
➢ Because no one technique of conducting needs assessment is superior to
the others, multiple methods are used
Table 3.1 – Key Concerns of Upper-Level and Mid�Level Managers and ➢ Focus groups: Type of SME interview that involves a face-to-face meeting
Trainers in Needs Assessment with groups of SMEs in which the questions that are asked relate to
specific training needs
➢ Crowdsourcing: Asking a large group of employees to help provide
information for needs assessment that they are not traditionally asked to do
➢ Benchmarking: Using information about other companies’ training practices
to help determine the appropriate type, level, and frequency of training

Organizational Analysis

Who Should Participate in Needs Assessment

➢ Subject-matter experts (SMEs): Employees, academics, managers,
technical experts, trainers, and even customers or suppliers who are
knowledgeable with regard to
○ Training issues
○ Knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful task performance
○ Necessary equipment and conditions under which task has to be
performed
➢ Job incumbents: Employees who are currently performing the job Person Analysis
➢ It is important to get a sample of job incumbents involved in the needs ➢ Helps to identify employees who need training
assessment because: ➢ The need for training may result from the pressure points
○ They tend to be most knowledgeable about the job ➢ Readiness for training: Refers to whether:
 ○ Employees have the personal characteristics necessary to learn ➢ Trainers can determine whether it is feasible to lower the reading level of
program content and apply it on the job training materials or on�the-job training
○ The work environment will facilitate learning and not interfere with ○ Employees without the necessary reading level could be identified
performance through reading tests and reassigned to other positions more
➢ This process includes evaluating person characteristics, input, output, congruent with
consequences, and feedback ○ their skill levels
➢ A major pressure point for training is substandard or poor performance ○ Using reading tests, trainers can identify employees who lack the
➢ Another potential indicator of the need for training is if the job changes necessary reading skills and provide them with remedial training
such that current levels of performance need to be improved or employees ○ Alternative training methods need to be considered, or managers can
must be able to complete new tasks elect a nontraining option
➢ Consequences: Type of incentives that employees receive for performing ➢ To develop basic skills or close the skills gap, many companies are
well engaging in skills assessment, training, or a combination of the two
➢ Feedback: Information that employees receive while they are performing
➢ Motivation to learn: Trainees’ desire to learn the content of training Self-Efficacy
programs ➢ Employees’ belief that they can perform their job or learn the content of the
➢ Personal characteristics include basic skills, cognitive ability, language training program successfully
skills, and other traits that employees need to perform their jobs or learn in ➢ Employees’ self-efficacy level can be increased by:
training and development programs effectively ○ Letting employees know the purpose of training
○ Providing as much information as possible about the training program
Basic Skills and the purpose of training prior to the actual training
➢ Skills that are necessary for employees to perform on the job and learn the ○ Showing employees the training success of their peers who are now in
content of training programs successfully similar jobs
○ Cognitive ability ○ Providing employees with feedback that learning is under their control
○ Reading skills and they have the ability and the responsibility to overcome any
○ Writing skills learning difficulties they experience in the program
Cognitive Ability
➢ Includes three dimensions: Awareness of Training Needs, Career Interests, and Goals
○ Verbal comprehension, quantitative ability, and reasoning ability ➢ Managers should communicate the link between training and improvement
➢ Trainees’ level of cognitive ability also can influence how well they can of skill weaknesses or knowledge deficiencies
learn in training programs ➢ Employees need to be given a choice of what programs to attend and must
➢ To identify employees without the cognitive ability to succeed on the job, understand how actual training assignments are made to maximize
companies use paper�and-pencil cognitive ability tests motivation to learn
➢ To ensure that the work environment enhances trainees’ motivation to
Reading Ability learn:
➢ Readability: Difficulty level of written materials ○ Provide materials, time, job-related information, and other work aids
➢ Readability assessment usually involves analysis of sentence length and necessary for employees to use new skills or behavior before
word difficulty participating in training programs
➢ If trainees’ reading level does not match the level needed for the training ○ Speak positively about the company’s training programs to employees
materials, four options are available
 Age and Generation Task Analysis
➢ Millenniums and Generation Y (born after 1980): ➢ Job: Specific position requiring the completion of certain tasks
➢ Optimistic, willing to work and learn, and technology-literate ➢ Task: Employee’s work activity in a specific job
➢ Gen Xers (1965 to 1980): Need feedback and flexibility; they dislike close
supervision The Needs Assessment Process (cont.)
➢ Baby boomers (1946 and 1964): Competitive, hardworking, and concerned ➔ Knowledge – Includes facts or procedures
that all employees be fairly treated ➔ Skill – Indicates competency in performing a task
➢ Traditionalists (1925 and 1945): Patriotic and loyal; great deal of knowledge ➔ Ability – Includes the physical and mental capacities to perform a
of the history of organizations and work life task
➢ Steps involved in a task analysis
○ Select the job or jobs to be analyzed
Input ○ Develop a preliminary list of tasks performed on the job by:
➢ Situational constraints: Include lack of proper tools and equipment, ■ Interviewing and observing expert employees and their managers
materials and supplies, budgetary support, and time ■ Talking with others who have performed a task analysis
➢ Social support: Managers’ and peers’ willingness to provide feedback and ○ Validate or confirm the preliminary list of tasks
reinforcement ○ Once the tasks have been identified, it is important to identify the
knowledge, skills, or abilities necessary to successfully perform each
Output, Consequences, and Feedback task
➢ Trainees need to understand what specifically they are expected to learn in
the training program Competency Models
➢ Norms: Accepted standards of behavior for workgroup members ➢ Identifies the competencies necessary for each job
➢ For employees to perform to standard, feedback needs to be given ➢ Competency models provide descriptions of competencies that are
frequently, not just during a yearly performance evaluation common for an entire occupation or organization
➢ They can be used for:
Determining Whether Training is the Best Solution ○ Performance management
➢ If employees lack the knowledge and skill to perform a job and the other ○ Identifying the best employees to fill open positions
factors are satisfactory, training is needed ➢ Competency models are useful for training and development in several
➢ If employees have the knowledge and skill to perform but input, output, ways
consequences, or feedback is inadequate, training may not be the best ○ Identify behaviors needed for effective job performance
solution ○ Evaluate the relationship between the company’s current training
programs and present needs
○ Provide a framework for ongoing coaching and feedback to develop
employees for current and future roles
○ Help in succession planning
○ Help integrate and align the company’s HR systems and practices

Scope of Needs Assessment

➢ ➢ Rapid needs assessment: Needs assessment that is done quickly and
accurately, but without sacrificing the quality of the process or the
outcomes
➢ There are several ways to conduct a rapid needs assessment
○ Scope of needs assessment depends on the size of the potential
pressure point
○ Consider using already available data collected for other purposes
○ If business problems, technological developments, and other issues
facing the organization are attuned to, training needs can be
anticipated

Needs Assessment in Practice

➢ The manufacturing operations of the Owens�Corning insulation business
were interested in increasing the productivity, product quality, and safety
performance of the business
○ Training was viewed as critical for helping the company meet its
strategic objectives
○ Person analysis consisted of a survey of supervisor skills
○ Training programs were developed to improve the identified skill
deficiencies through methods that were congruent with the plant
environment and culture