Training and Training and Developing a Developing a Competitive Workforce

Competitive Workforce

1. Strategic Importance of Training and Development

• The use of training and development practices to improve the ability of the workforce to implement the organization’s business strategy

• Development of organizational cohesiveness, employees become more united.

• Development of employee commitment• Address the employees’ needs in terms of their own

competitive advantage and long-term employability

2. Training and Development within an Integrated HR System• Training, Development and Socialization

- Training

Its main objective is to improve performance in the near term and in a specific job by increasing the competencies of the employees

- Development

The activities intended to improve competencies over a longer period of time in anticipation of the organization’s future needs

Training and Development within an Integrated HR System - Socialization Teaching the employees about the organization’s

history, culture and management practices• Disney - Recruitment and selection It begins its socialization process during recruitment

as a way to discourage applicants who may not fit the corporate culture … The first step of the hiring process is to show a video of the dress code and rules of grooming and discipline.

3. The HR Triad• Managers Acting as coaches, trainers, mentors• Employees By participating in training and development programs,

they can facilitate their own socialization into the organization, potentially receiving longer-term benefits such as greater income, job satisfaction, better sense of personal identity

• HR Professionals Identify the objectives to be achieved through training and

development and then choose and design appropriate activities (given the objectives)

4. Determining Training and Development Needs

0Organizational Needs Analysis

It begins with an assessment of the short and long term strategy and strategic business objectives of the company

0 Job Needs Analysis

(Or task) .. It identifies the specific skills, knowledge and behavior needs to perform the tasks required by present or future jobs

Determining Training and Development Needs

0Person Needs Analysis

It identifies gaps between a person’s current competencies and those identified as necessary or desirable

0Demographic Needs Analysis

It determines the training needs of specific ‘populations’ of workers

5. Conditions for Effective Training and Development

0Personnel Decisions International (PDI) A large and successful HR consulting firm,

developed a simple framework with 5 components

1. Insight – People need to know what it is they need to learn

2. Motivation – Internal / external means; will participation in training lead to positive benefits?

Conditions for Effective Training and Development

3. New skills and knowledge acquisition – simply showing how to acquire the needed competencies

4. Real-world practice – programs that engage participants in realistic activities, improve the likelihood that they will apply their learning

5. Accountability – assessments of improvement and less formal approaches

Conditions for Effective Training and Development

0Who provides the required guidance?

- Supervisors and other managers

- A co-worker

- Internal / external subject matter expert

- The employee!

→ interpersonal, conceptual, integrative competencies … literacy and technical competencies … basic orientation sessions

6. Stating the Learning Objectives

0Cognitive Knowledge The information that people have available

(what they already know), the way they organize this information and their strategies for using it

e.g. Company policies and practices – orientation programs brief new employees on benefit programs and options, advise them of rules and regulations and explain the policies and practices of the organization

Stating the Learning Objectives

0Skills

Cognitive knowledge is inside the head, skills are evident in behaviors

e.g. Interpersonal – skills in communication, team building, leadership, negotiation

e.g. Technical – Six Sigma, a management process that is used for high-impact improvement efforts.

7. Choosing the Program Format

0On-the-job training When employees learn their jobs under

direct supervision - Job rotation: rotating employees through

jobs at a similar level of difficulty to train them in a variety of jobs and decision-making situations

- Mentoring: an established employee guides the development of a less experienced worker

Choosing the Program Format

0 Off-the-job training Appropriate when complex competencies need to be

mastered or when employees need to focus on specific interpersonal competencies that might not be apparent in the normal work environment

- Simulation: present situations that are similar to actual job conditions and allow trainees to practice how to behave in those situations

- Formal courses: directed by the trainee or by others, formal classroom courses and lectures

→ Issue of transfer – can employees apply the knowledge learned during training?

8. Maximizing Learning

0 Setting the Stage for Learning - Clear instructions - Behavioral Modeling .. it involves describing the behaviors

to be learned to trainees, having a role model provide a visual demonstration of the desired behavior, allowing the trainees to imitate the desired behaviors and give feedback

0 Increasing Learning during Training - Active participation, practice0 Maintaining Performance after Training - Specific goals - Rein-forcers .. a consequence that follows behavior

0A reinforcer is any consequence that causes the preceding behavior to increase. The increase may be in intensity, frequency, magnitude or some other quality.

0There are two subtypes:

0Positive0Negative

Reinforcers

0Positive reinforcement works by presenting a motivating/reinforcing stimulus to the person after the desired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior more likely to happen in the future.

Examples?

0Giving a child a compliment or candy for a job well done.

0o Getting paid for a completed task.0o Watching your favorite TV show after doing all

your homework.0o Dolphin gets a fish for doing a trick.0o Dog gets a treat for sitting, laying, rolling over.0o Get a candy bar for putting money in the machine.

Reinforcers

Negative reinforcement occurs when a certain stimulus (usually an aversive stimulus) is removed after a particular behavior is exhibited. The likelihood of the particular behavior occurring again in the future is increased because of removing/avoiding the negative consequence.

Negative reinforcement occurs when something already present is removed (taken away) as a result of a behaviour and the behaviour that led to this removal will increase in the future because it created a favourable outcome.

Examples?

0 Why is this negative reinforcement?

0 The car stuck in front of Sarah is aversive to her and she wants it removed. She blasts her horn at the car and it moves out of the way (it’s removed). She knows from experience that blasting her horn like this gets rid of these annoying cars and so continues to do it, therefore negative reinforcement is occurring.

0 Before: annoying car in front.0 Behaviour: blast the car horn.0 After: annoying car is gone.0 Future behaviour: Sarah will blast the horn when an annoying car is in front of

her.

0 Why is this negative reinforcement?0 Negative reinforcement can also occur when something is prevented from

happening. John has learned that to prevent burning his hands all he has to do is put on the oven gloves. So the behaviour of putting on the oven gloves is an example of negative reinforcement.

0 Before: piping hot bowl.0 Behaviour: put on oven gloves.0 After: hands are prevented from being burned.0 Future behaviour: John will put on oven gloves when taking a hot bowl out

of the microwave.

9. Team Training and Development

0E.g. NASA Training comes before effective teamwork .. Before

astronauts are sent into space to live in a community that relies heavily on teamwork for survival, NASA has them working together for a year or two to become a team

0Three main goals - Team cohesiveness - Teamwork procedures - Team leaders

10. Current Issues

0Diversity Training - Culture Awareness Training Culture is the social group to which a person

belongs .. and one person can belong in many and different social groups

0Global Leadership Training and Development e.g. Intel .. with 91000 employees in 78

counties, it plans to invest $3 million to train 800 midlevel managers who are working across cultures

CASE STUDY