Training and development concepts and practices

Training and development is an often-overlooked element of human resources, yet it might be the most important. The people that the organization brings in come with specific skills and traits, but it is what the organization can do with those skills and traits that distinguishes the organization. Thus, training and development can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage for companies, if they can take workers similar in caliber to those of their competitors, and give them additional training that enhances their skill level, so that the output is a higher level of talent than that of the competitors. This paper will provide an overview of how training and development works, what it accomplishes for an organization and some of the best practices are among the world's leading organizations.

Competitive Advantage

There is a considerable body of research that highlights the competitive benefits of training and development. An organization gains competitive advantage when it does something better than its competitors. This competitive advantage can often be matched, but in some cases sustainable competitive advantage can be developed where a competitive advantage forms part of a positive feedback loop. So if a company excels at the training and development function, its workers will have a higher skill level and more positive attributes. When this training enhances the ability of the company to fulfill its strategic objectives, this highlights the strategic nature of training and development (Lado & Wilson, 1994).

When those lead to higher levels of innovation, the company can gain more patents, which provide long-lasting competitive advantage. When those skills and attributes are passed throughout the organization, this makes it even more difficult for competitors to match the advantage. An example is this -- if your organization has ten skilled people who drive the business, the organization might suffer if a competitor hires them away, or develops their own equivalent talent. If your organization has 10,000 highly skilled people, it is much more difficult for employers to match that, because it takes a lot more effort to train 10,000 people to a high level than it does to train 10. Furthermore, when these 10,000 people are all capable of disseminating that knowledge and training to others, the expansion of knowledge in the organization can at that point be exponential.

This principle is known as knowledge transfer, where organizations benefit from having knowledge that is disseminated freely throughout the organization. A higher level of training and development will allow for the employees to play a critical role in knowledge transfer, as opposed to having only a handful of people involved in knowledge transfer. The knowledge that is embedded within the organization is a significant contributor to any organization's success. Training and development unlocks that knowledge and ensure that as many people as possible throughout the organization possess it (Argote & Ingram, 2000).

Barney & Wright (1997) studied the role of training and development as a source of sustained competitive advantage by using the resource-based framework. Human resources are one of the most significant inputs a business has, especially in today's knowledge-based economy. While human resources arrive with education and work experience, these are not necessarily tailored specifically to the company. Most companies realize that they must train the employees to do their jobs, but then stop at that point. Yet, the most successful companies have employees that are capable of growing beyond that point. Companies typically determine what to train employees through a skills audit, a perspective that focuses on what the company is missing, but sustainable competitive advantage implies that companies should focus on what they need to excel, and train for that. Doing so will create employees with enhanced skill sets and traits that are able to adapt and create. This is because such employees will be a more capable resource, which makes them a more valuable resource. Companies will often embark on training will little understanding about how it affects their competitiveness, Barney and Wright (1997) argue, but if they focus on enhancing their existing human resources, they will derive sustained competitive advantage because of knowledge transfer, problem-recognition and solving, and the fact that these skills and traits are difficult to replicate once they become established at the organization-wide level.

It has also been found that the value of training and development exists in small companies as well as large. Smaller, more entrepreneurial companies often feel that they lack the resources to have a coherent training program, or that their businesses evolve too quickly. Yet it has been shown that small companies that pay attention to broader strategic issues and find a way to enhance their existing human resources enjoy more success, and those that fail to pay attention to these things have less desirable outcomes (Jennings & Beaver, 1997).

Needs Assessment

While many companies have a somewhat ad hoc system of needs assessment, this is clearly far from ideal. One common method that actually has merit is the skills audit. This process seeks to examine what skills and knowledge exist within the organization and then to compare this with the skills and knowledge that the organization needs to thrive, and to meet its strategic objectives (Liebowitz et al., 2000). This process takes into account the job descriptions within the organization, the key success factors and other observations, usually gathered through formal process. An example of how this might work is that a company may see competitors beginning to have a high level of innovation and start winning market share. The managers would look at this trend and realize that their company also needed a higher level of innovation in order to thrive in the industry going forward. At that point, they might look within the company and realize that there are very few people with a background in innovation and that the company has traditionally not been all that innovative. This would lead management to create training programs that emphasize innovation.

Maximizing Learning

Organizational learning is a concept that came into vogue in the late 90s. The idea is tied to a growth in the profile of the idea of strategic human resources management. While many organizations have in the past operated on the assumption that experience was a key determinant of organizational learning, research has shown this not to be the case (Simonin, 1997). Experience, when internalized into the organization, can be powerful. This highlights the value of training and development, in that it provides a way for the experience within the organization to become internalized. One person having skills and experience is not that useful -- the organization is more useful when many people have skills and experience.

It has also been noted that an organization can maximize learning by having a learning culture. The role of culture in training and development is sometimes understated. Culture is important in maximizing learning in a few different ways. The first is that organizational culture provides a strong complement to existing training and development programs. A culture that emphasizes learning means that the company is going to have a high level of learning even when it is not engaged in active training. So an employee can exit training but will not stop learning. They will instead build on the things that they learned during formal training. Furthermore, the people within the organization will help each other to enhance their learning, as people will tend to provide support and assistance to each other -- a culture that emphasizes learning will result in people who are more engaged in organizational learning than a company that does not have such a culture.

Training

In terms of formal training, there are a number of tactics that companies have with respect to formal training. The effectiveness of training can be difficult to pinpoint. Among the factors are those relating to trainee characteristics, training design and the work environment Trainee characteristics include cognitive ability, self-efficacy, motivation and perceived utility of training (Grossman & Salas, 2011). While the first two of those traits are dealt with at the hiring level, the second two are quite relevant for the training design. Successful training design requires an explanation of why the training is being done and how it ties into the broader organizational strategies. While the company surely understands these things, they often do not communicate them. That communication is essential.

Training design is also very important to the effectiveness of training. There are a few types of training design -- classroom, experiential and online. Within these, there are a number of theoretical models that are used to explain the best design method. With experiential designs, there needs to be a high level of compatibility between that raining and the actual job. Where the training is less realistic it will be less effective. Role playing is a type of experiential design that can be effective, but again only when the role playing results in a realistic scenario that can later be recalled and put into practice (Chapman, 2014).

Classroom designs and online designs are in many ways similar -- they focus on presenting information in a one-way communication and then asking the employee to memorize key points or through processes. Such training can be effective, but it depends on the learning style of the trainees. This is an area where training design can be particularly challenging. Many people have different learning styles, so group training is likely more effective with some people and less effective with others. Many people require a more hands-on approach to their training, the result being that they might struggle with classroom training. It is important in training design that the predominant learning style of the trainees is taken into account.

Transfer to the Job

Experiential training is often favored because it is believed that this form of training is easier to transfer to the job. When people have walked through a scenario, they find it easier to see that same scenario when they are working. Group training is also fairly effective at this, because other members of the group can correct one's behavior, when they identify that a person is not following through on the training. Group members are often willing to help and to enforce the norms and practices that were in the training program.

Grossman and Salas (2011) found three key variables were highly correlated with transfer to the job -- support, opportunity to perform and follow-up. Group training is effective because it is tied to support. The group acts as a support for the employees. Management can serve this function, but there are often few managers per employee so there are fewer opportunities to provide support. The nature of the support also matters -- employees need to feel support more than just occasionally, and it helps if it comes from peers rather than bosses.

The opportunity to perform is also important. When you train somebody you have to give them the opportunity to put that training into practice. If this does not happen, transfer will be poor, if there is a lag between the training and the point where they employee can actually put that training into practice. It would be expected that the employee would lose some of that knowledge over the lag time. Giving the employee an opportunity to put his or her training into practice right away is important.

Lastly, transfer is more effective when there is follow-up. The follow-up does not need to take the same formal format as the initial training, but there should be some follow-up. It is important to understand that transfer is unlikely to be 100% complete just based on training alone - managerial follow-up provides the opportunity to identify where transfer is less than 100%, and to remedy that, and also to provide an opportunity for the employees to give feedback.

Training Evaluations

There are a number of ways for companies to evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs. For this there are formalized models such as the Kirkpatrick model, which consists of evaluating the employee reactions to the training (or they excited, confused, disenchanted?), learning, behavior and results. The learning can be tested, for example at the end of the training to understand the degree to which the lesson have sunk in. Behavior is a deeper level of evaluation, because it tests not only how much was learned but how much of that learning was actually transferred to the job. The behavior is therefore a function of both learning and transfer, and knowing both learning and behavior allows companies to measure the effectiveness of their knowledge transfer programs. The final component of the Kirkpatrick model is in the results. For some forms of training this is easy -- the company needs to find the right metrics, but it should have been training to specific objectives from the outset. Thus, training evaluations should consist of direct feedback from trainees, testing at the end of the training, follow-up feedback from employees and managers and finally an examination of the outcomes to see if the training program helped the company to meet its needs.

Succession Planning

Succession planning is a training issue, in particular at the upper levels of management. These roles can be quite complex, and it is necessary that the people who are being groomed for this roles are fully trained on the skills they will need. Many academics and practitioners therefore argue that succession planning needs to be a formal practice within the organization. Finding the right successor appears to be the most important variable. In many organizations, it is found that push from the successor rather than pull from the incumbent is critical to succession (Sharma, Chrisman & Chua, 2003). This means that the successor needs to be given the key training well before they are slated to take over. Doing so provides an opportunity for the successor to put some of that training into practice -- opportunity to perform -- and for the successor to receive feedback from the incumbent -- follow-up. By incorporating the classic training and development processes to succession planning, a company can ensure a smoother transition between leaders.