Training, coaching, mentoring, development practices, are some of the important HR practices that affects the quality of the HR outcome in terms of employee skills and ability (employee performance). Apart from these behavioral and attitudinal changes (personal development skills) also leads to high organizational performance. These are achieved by the contribution of the implementation of HR practices. Training is an important factor that has shown a positive effect on organizational performance and is considered to be a key element in attaining organizational goals. Training is the major pillar for implementation of reforms. Qualified, skilled and motivated employees re scarce in community. So organizations need to know the importance of training practices (in other words human-capital development) in implementing reforms (Burke S. Millar, 2009, Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007).
On the other hand training employees is considered as a tedious task. Organizations often face challenges in training their staff so as to make them more efficient to work for reaching the organizational goals. Initially training was designed to add skills in employees to the general educational qualification (Anke Freibert,, Mark Place, 2007). Therefore effective training practices could yield better results than unplanned/ unorganized and unmanaged training practices.
Challenges in Training
The following are some of the challenges faced by HR during training
Retention - Planning maintenance and effectiveness of training practices
Delivery - Are the objectives and goals of training clearly stated as per the requirement
Cost - Is training cost effective or a good investment
Measurement - Is training to be effective or will work out
Performance - Will the employee and organizational performance improve through training?
Is Training Effective
Training is related to development of skills that are necessary to employees, which the management of an organization intends so as to improve the possibility of achieving its goals (Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007). Training could be defined as "the planned intervention that is designed to enhance the determinants of individual job performance" - Mark Place (2007). Training offered to employees, help them to
Reduce their anxiety or frustration
Enable learning (Mark Place, 2007)
Facilitate personal development
Improve the work productivity
Overcome work demands caused due to job responsibilities
Aware with their job role and responsibilities
Handle the job more effectively.
Increase organizational commitment and performance
Improve job satisfaction and career development scopes
It has been reported that organizations train employees to optimize their workforce's potential. Job satisfaction is defined as "pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of one's job or job experiences". Training in organizations has shown direct or indirect effect on both employee motivation and organizational commitment.
HR Strategies - Training goals and achievements
HR strategies and practice play and important role in developing good organizational structure which there fore results in better organizational and employee performance. Organizations must plan and implement effective training goals and should look for the final achievements (Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007). It is important for human resource management to find the most effective ways to train and employ their employees (Burke S. Millar, 2009). HR practices such as training, mentoring, coaching and designing and developing (Mark Place, 2007) people should be effectively planned before implementing them and prior to implementation HRM needs to focus on the effectiveness of training in all means and forecast the challenges that could raise during training (Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007).. The overall goals of training are
Restructuring organization and work
Enable learning in employees (Mark Place, 2007)
Improving decision making skills in employees
Improve employee behavioral and attitude towards work and organization
Improve employee job satisfaction and commitment towards organization
Facilitating employee personal development
Apart from which organization tend to achieve
Organizational goals and objectives
Improved employee behavior, attitudes and outcomes
Improved work and organizational productivity
Training employees includes certain aspects such as attitude and behavior, ethics and morality, leadership and determination finally skills and knowledge (Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007). Considering attitudes it is related to personal or individual thinking and emotional maturity, belief, self confidence etc. are some of the challenging issues faced by the management during training and development.
Training and effectiveness
Training is considered as a critical component of HR strategy formulation (Dorn Williams, 2007) but very few organizations focus on evaluating the effectiveness of training programs. Training effectiveness (Burke S. Millar, 2009) lies in designing and implementing the training practices as no single type of training has proved to be effective overall. Some times participants view training as a day away from the work and such people are unlikely to benefit much from training. Most organizations are unable to evaluate the effectiveness of training due to the lack of effective tools to collect data for evaluation (Dorn Williams, 2007). According to Dorn Williams (2007), organizations need to develop business intelligence tools (BIT) which help the HR management to improve the measurement of training effectiveness. There re different methods such as Learning Management System (LMS) to evaluate and measure training effectiveness. Therefore, it is suggested to practice business intelligence tools to evaluate the effectiveness of training as this is said to improve the learning system and cost effectiveness of training offered to employees.
Training - Good Investment
Training could be expensive, and not conducting training could be a costly choice for management. It could not be said that training could be as effective even though more cost in invested in it. In some cases training could be appropriate but not cost effective. HR managers before planning for training programs or practices should look for the cost effectiveness of the current problems against the cost of training to overcome it (Gomez Mehia, David Balkin, Robert Cardy, 2007).. Determining whether training is cost effective or good investment is determined by the training potential benefits. Training cost invested on hard areas such as training in machineries could be more beneficial than training in soft areas like team building and diversity. To maintain a cost effective training HR management should
Look inside - organizations need to look for in house training expertise so as to build strong relation between employee and management. It is always preferable to consider a training expertise
Do you need - HR management should focus on the intensity for the need of training and choose specific areas where ever necessary.
Giving training a strategic alignment - HR strategies should be aligned so as to achieve organizational goals and objectives
Considering e-learning - The present trend of training is made more cost effective by encouraging employees for e- learning techniques and practices. This practice was found to reduce 50% of the training cost when compared to the traditional training methods.
Conclusion
Training is the major pillar for implementation of reforms and is related to development of skills that are necessary to employees, through which management of an organization could improve the possibility of achieving its goals. Further, we can say that training could be expensive, and not conducting training could be a costly choice for management. Practicing e-learning practices could be more cost effective and will enhance employees to develop skills. Therefore, Organizations must plan and implement effective training goals and should look for the final achievements
