Employee perceived training effectiveness relationship to employee attitudes Alexandros G. Sahinidis and John Bouris Technological Education Institute, Athens, Greece Abstract Purpose– The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between perceived employee trainin g effec tivene ss and job satisf action, motivation and commitme nt. Design/methodology/approach– The study examined the respons es of 134 employe es and lower mana ger s, of five lar ge Gre ek orga niz atio ns, aft er the y had comp let ed a tra inin g prog ram. The questi ons asked contained information about the employee attitudes towards tvhe traini ng recei ved, as well as their attitudes towards their employers. Findings– The results of the study provide support to the hypotheses proposed, indicating that there is a significant correlation between the employee perceived training effectiveness and their commitment, job satisfaction and motivation. Additionally, high correlations were found between the latter three variables. Research limitations/implications– The study is limited to examining employee feelings, not taking into account their personal characteristics, which may be important. Pract ical impli catio ns– The implications of the findings of this study for managers and especially for Human Resource professionals are quite significant, given their roles in funding, designing and delive ring training intervent ions. Not only does it appear to be important, offering training programs to one’s employees but, the training program content must be perceived as effective and of value to those participating in it. This will have a positive effect, according to the findings of this study, on key employee attitudes, which appear to be related to a greater or a lesser extent, in the pertinent literature, to organiz ational performance outcomes including, produc tivity, turnover and absent eeism Originality/value– The study is ground- breakin g, given that there are no prior studie s examining the relationship between the variables considered in the present one. KeywordsWorkplace training, Employee attitudes , Motivation (psychology) , Job satisfac tion, Greece Paper typeResearch paper Introduction A recent survey of business executives, conducted by McKinsey and Co., asking them to name the factor contributing the most to the increasing competitive intensity in the global markets, identified the improved capabilities of the competitors, in terms ofkno wled ge and tal ent. More low-cos t comp eti tors and more compet iti on were the second and third factors mentioned (The McKinsey Quarterly, 2006). The fast pace ofThe current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0590.htm The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of Chaido Drigogia, in the prepara tion of this p aper. We also th ank the an onymou s reviewers for t heir usef ul commen ts on earlier versions of the paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1st Scientific Conference of the School ofBusiness and Economics at Technological Educational Institute, Athens, Greece on 25-26 of May 2006. Employee training effectiveness 63 Received 20 August 2007 Revis ed 22 Septe mber 2007 Accepted 25 October 2007 Journal of European Industrial Training Vol. 32 No. 1, 2008 pp. 63-76 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0309-0590 DOI 10.1108/03090590810846575
