Objective of Employee Training and Development

Training and development is concerned with the organizational activities and mainly focuses on bettering the performances of individuals in an organizational setting. This role is often referred to as human resource development and plays a crucial role in enabling employees to remain competitive in the job market. The training part is focused on the activities that develop employees in their current positions while development prepares employees for future duties and responsibilities. This research analyzes the objective of employee training and development by identifying how it helps in ensuring employees perform their jobs effectively through value addition, with the aim of boosting competitive advantage for the organization and for self-growth. By improving their performance, which is achieved through proper training and development, organizational development is also enhanced in the process. This research will identify whether through training and development employees can be equipped with knowledge and information. It will also identify if putting training and development into practice can aid in enhancing organizational productivity and effectiveness, and also whether it can improve the quality of management. The paper will also find out the importance of incorporating education systems and policies in training

Introduction

Over the years, organizations, especially those that want to remain competitive have been using training and development as one of the ways of equipping their employees with skills that can make them to produce high quality work. according to Fatima & Anwar (2015), training and development is mainly oriented not only to what is profitable for the company but also to what is good for the employees. The reasoning behind this is that whatever is good for the employees is also good for the company they work for, and what suits employee development enhances organizational quality, effective management, performance, and productivity. Approaching employee training and development from this point of view inevitably fosters them to progress and perform well, and most importantly, influences the other workers to do better.

Importance

According to Larsen (2017), one of the importance of training programs is that it boosts employee satisfaction, and also enables an organization to minimize employee turnover rates. Employees appreciate having the ability to improve their job performance, building new skills and also their potential chance of evolving towards more challenging duties within the organization because they view learning from training programs as a key factor that can enable them to remain in the job market (Manjhi & Shrivastava, 2018). Therefore, providing and supporting training and development programs shows an organization is committed to it’s the growth of its employees and this plays a crucial role in making staff members to feel valued by the company.

Another importance of training and development programs is that from the perspective of human resource management, developing talent is the best way of staffing the senior roles in an organization because it enables a company to hire its senior positions internally, hence reducing cost (Mone & London, 2018). Additionally, training employees play a key role in enabling an organization to reduce the time required for the hiring process.

The other importance of training and development I an organization is that it makes employers to remain competitive especially if the company operates in a market which is characterized by stiff rivalry. According to Manjhi & Shrivastava (2018), when employees are trained, they get knowledge concerning how to do things in the right manner. This means that they are able to assist in producing high quality services or products at minimum cost and also with limited time. By doing so, a company benefits because it makes its consumers to attain products or services which match their needs, a factor which enables them to develop loyalty with the company.

Also, bringing internal hire up to speed through training and development is simpler and quicker because an employee who has been in an organization knows it better than one who is recruited through an external hiring process (Larsen, 2017). Promoting internal mobility through training and development leads to a more loyal and engaged workforce with a better knowledge on the organizational goals and objectives which translates to more productivity and profits.

Another importance is that training and development programs develop a culture of teaching and learning within the organization. According to Fatima & Anwar (2015), these kinds of cultures allow managers to develop members of their own teams, hence allowing employees to learn and share new skills.

Another significance of training and development is that it addresses some of the weaknesses associated with employees because it strengthens their skills and eliminates weak links within an organization (Dhar, 2015). A robust training and development program makes sure that employees are consistency in terms of their experience and background knowledge. This consistency is crucial for basic procedures and policies in an organization (Ningthoujam & Sombala, 2017). In every workplace, all employees should be aware of the procedures and expectations within the company in order to attain increased efficiencies in their processes and contribute to financial gains for their organization.

 According to Shenge & Nyitor (2014), training programs are crucial because they lead to increased productivity and adherence to quality standards. In most cases, organizational productivity increases whenever the company implements training courses as it increases process efficiency, hence ensuring projects success which in turn improves the organization’s potential market share and turnover (Fatima & Anwar, 2015). Ongoing upskilling and training of employees also encourages creativity in new strategies and products which boost productivity in a company. A strong and successful training strategy assists in developing an organization’s brand, hence making it a prime consideration for mid-career and graduates changes. Training also attracts potential new recruits seeking to improve their skills and experience.

Discussion

Training and development consist of three main activities namely; training, development, and education. The training part upgrades the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of an employee depending on the needs of the jobs for the present and also for the future. Training is very crucial for the success and development of a company (Shaldad & Habib, 2016). The other component of training and development is education and is given to employees by teaching them on how to do a different job. Education is normally given to employees who the management terms as promotable. The last activity is development which is the training given to staff members with the aim of making them to be creative. For a company to create a successful training program, it must first identify the available needs by finding out the type of training required, job requirement and the future needs for a particular job (Asad, Mahfod & Joma, 2015). This can be done through establishing need analysis which can enable a company to come up with a training program that meets the needs of the employees and also one which induces their motivation.

  An organization also needs to do a training sustainability analysis to know whether the training program has what is needed to solve employees’ problem. Therefore, it is important to figure out the effectiveness of training in the development of employees’ skills, which otherwise can prove to be a waste of resources and time (Shenge & Nyitor, 2014). Because motivation is a goal-oriented psychological process, employees should be motivated because according to Shenge & Nyitor (2014), motivation is an essential part of successful training and development program because employers invest their money and time in training and development so as to boost profitability by improving employee performance.

Although training is fundamental for organizations managers who undertake these activities face several challenges which include the inability to identify learner or the specific needs of an employee. Another challenge is the possibility of the employees or the training managers to see training and development as an event and not a process. Training in the workplace should be a continuous process because the skills of employees need to be upgraded from time to time.

 Lack of employee engagement towards training is the other challenge that training managers face during training and development of employees (Raghavan & Mahmood, 2015). Given the three levels of engagement; cognitive, behavioral and emotional, employees should have all of them in order to deal with various challenges that they may face and commit their efforts towards attaining the best for their organization.

Limitations

When carrying out this research, the researcher encountered some challenges that could potentially hinder a successful training and development program. One of the challenges was in the formulation of the aims and objectives of the study because the researcher had to narrow them down because he had formulated them too broadly, so as to increase the level of focus of the study. Another challenge is that the nature of implementing data collection method could have been flawed due to lack of adequate primary data collection sources. A small sample size was another limitation that the researcher faced during this research. Because of the research problem that he had, his sample was not enough to draw reliable conclusions. for this reason, he had to increase the size of his sample so that he could be able to identify the significant relationships within the data set using statistical tests.

Also, he had inadequate studies that were previously done in my research area, which posed a great challenge during his research. Previously done studies helps in identifying the scope of work done in a research area (Shenge & Nyitor, 2014). Since he lacked adequate information on his research area, He had to increase the number of research forms for his assessment so as to enhance the generalizability of his findings. Also, as the foundation of his research was to be built upon the available findings, he had to increase his findings forms I order to come up with a stronger foundation and to achieve his objectives. Lastly, since he had few years of experience in conducting researches and producing large-sized academic papers, the depth and scope of the discussions in his research might be compromised in many levels compared to the work of scholars who are more experienced.      

Future research

A research that should be carried out in future should be on the effectiveness of training and development programs so as to understand the attitudes and opinions of various categories of employees towards the maintenance of training services. As training cannot be measured directly, employees’ response regarding this aspect, as well as the behavior and attitudes that occurs after training should help a company to draw conclusions on the programs. The research will be useful as it will help companies to determine the efficiency of programs as well as employee level of satisfaction which will be necessary for making managerial decisions. It will also help employees and employers to play a role in enhancing the training facilities. Undertaking this research will also help companies to determine whether training programs meet both the secondary and primary objectives of the organization.

Conclusion

Training and development is seen as a growth strategy by organizations as it is used to fill the existing gaps between employee skills and future opportunities. Training programs improve efficiency, enhances employee skills, increase opportunities and productivity. Skills, attitudes, and knowledge are the basis for efficient organization’s management through its human resources. Also, investing in development of employees means increasing organizational value which makes training of employees a necessity for a company to be productive. Many organizations train their high-potential employees to develop their skills in order to be able to hold a senior position instead of hiring externally. Evaluation of training should be appropriate for employees and the situations where the feedback taken is important not only for the managers but also for employee confidence.

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