Training and Development,an Overview

Training and Development is the framework for helping employees to develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities. The focus of all aspects of Human Resource Development is on developing the most superior workforce so that the organization and individual employees can accomplish their work goals in service to customers.

All employees want to be valuable and remain competitive in the labour market at all times. This can only be achieved through employee training and development. Employees will always want to develop career-enhancing skills, which will always lead to employee motivation and retention. There is no doubt that a well trained and developed staff will be a valuable asset to the company and thereby increasing the chances of his efficiency in discharging his or her duties.
Trainings in an organization can be mainly of two types; Internal and External training sessions. Internal training involves when training is organized in-house by the Human resources department or training department using either a senior staff or any talented staff in the particular department as a resource person.
On the other hand External training is normally arranged outside the firm and is mostly organized by training institutes or consultants. Whichever training, it is very essential for all staff and helps in building career positioning and preparing staff for greater challenges.

Employers of labour should enable employees to pursue training and development in a direction that they choose and are interested in, not just in company-assigned directions. Companies should support learning, in general, and not just in support of knowledge needed for the employee’s current or next anticipated job. It should be noted that the key factor is keeping the employee interested, attending, engaged, motivated and retained.

For every employee to perform well especially Supervisors and Managers, there is need for constant training and development. The right employee training, development and education provides big payoffs for the employer in increased productivity, knowledge, loyalty, and contribution to general growth of the firm. In most cases external trainings for instance provide participants with the avenue to meet new set of people in the same field and network. The meeting will give them the chance to compare issues and find out what is obtainable in each other’s environment. This for sure will introduce positive changes where necessary.

REASONS FOR EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT:
The reasons behind employee training and development cannot be overemphasized. From our discussions so far, one can easily deduce some reasons behind firms engaging in training and developing their staff. We will summarize some of the reasons thus;

• When needs arise as a result of findings from the outcome of performance appraisal.


• As part of professional development plan.


• As part of succession planning to help an employee be eligible for a planned change in role in the organization.


• To imbibe and inculcate a new technology in the system.


• Because of the dynamic nature of the business world and changing technologies.
  
  SOME TOPICS TREATED IN EMPLOYEE TRAININGS:


• Communications: The increasing diversity of today's workforce brings a wide variety of languages and customs, thus staff should be able to be very good in both written and verbal communication.


• Computer skills: Computer skills are becoming a necessity for conducting administrative and office tasks. In this era of technological advancement, computer skills are very necessary for almost of departments in an organization.


• Customer service: Increased competition in today's global marketplace makes it critical that employees understand and meet the needs of customers. The firm that stands out from the crowd is that firm that puts its customers first before every other goal. Then the need to always train staff on customer service.


• Diversity: This includes explanation about people and their different perspectives and views, and how this can be handled.


• Ethics: There are divergent ethics in different firms. Some firms attach more importance to certain issues like moral, work period, latness etc than other issues. Today's society has increasing expectations about corporate social responsibility. Also, today's diverse workforce brings a wide variety of values and morals to the workplace. This calls for the need for staff to be reminded of these always through training and development.


• Human relations: The increased stresses of today's workplace can include misunderstandings and conflict. Training can help people to get along in the workplace with good understanding of each other and the office inter personal relationship to reduce official conflict.


• Quality Management: Initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, benchmarking, etc., require basic training about quality concepts, guidelines and standards for quality, etc.


• Safety: Safety training is critical where working with heavy equipment, hazardous chemicals, repetitive activities etc. Staff should be made to understand that despite the fact that they have a safety department, the safety of each staff is in his /her own hands.
  
  
  BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT:


• Increased job satisfaction and morale among employees.


• Better inter personal relationship and customer satisfaction.


• Increased employee motivation.


• Increased efficiencies in processes, resulting in improved financial gain.


• Increased capacity to adopt new technologies and methods.


• Increased innovation in strategies and products.


• Reduced employee turnover.


• Enhanced company image.


• Better Risk management and staff safety consciousness.


• Increase in productivity.