Training and Development: Job Satisfaction, Morale & Retention

Introduction

Employee training and development is generally thought of in terms of employees learning or acquiring new skills of some kind to serve a functional need. Training and development can be instituted as an ongoing formalized process or can also arise in response to organizational change. Although training and development has direct implications for an employee's skillset and role in the organization, it can also affect employees in a number of other ways. For example, the literature indicates that training and development can make beneficial contributions to factors such as job satisfaction, morale, and employee retention. The interactions between such factors are not always clear, and there are undoubtedly mediating factors inherent in these relationships. This analysis will attempt to provide insight into the relationship between training and development and how it affects job satisfaction, morale, and employee retention.

Statement of the Problem

The modern business environment is dynamic and evolves at speeds that were previously unimaginable. Organizational change can place a significant amount of pressure on an organization to adapt. As a consequence of perpetual organizational change, employees must continually learn new skills to keep pace with the changing external environment. Training and development has a functional role to play in providing the skill sets that can make an organization competitive. However, there are many indirect benefits to effective training as well. Studies have found that training programs can have a significant influence on turnover rates when analyzed using a survival analysis model (Mattox & Jinkerson, 2005).

Therefore, not only does an organization invest a significant amount of resources in the training of employees, but this investment can only be rewarded if the employees remain with the organization long enough to utilize the skills they have gained. One challenge for human resource management in this environment is how efficiently their workforce acquires new skills and how the organization can retain employees in order to see a return on its training investment. Modern organizations must generate the greatest value possible from their human resources in order to create a competitive advantage, and employee satisfaction and retention are critical components of this equation.

Since training programs represent a significant investment in terms of both time and money, it is critical that these programs are effective for multiple reasons. For example, one study found that an employee's satisfaction with their level of training correlates with their overall job satisfaction (Schmidt, 2007). The costs of any training program therefore go far beyond the time and money required to offer the programs. This suggests that if an employee is dissatisfied with their training and development opportunities, they are more likely to become dissatisfied with their job in general.

Employee development is generally considered a longer-term process related to a series of training events that can occur over the duration of an employee's career (Lepak & Snell, 1999). Training is often associated with technical or functional skills delivered in a single session or a series of sessions. With a specific beginning and end date and a desired outcome, these sessions are comparatively easy to evaluate in terms of effectiveness, as the desired outcome can be compared against the actual outcome in most circumstances.

Holton's Factors Model and Training Effectiveness

Even though the end result of an intended skill transfer may be quantifiable, it is difficult to identify all the components that constitute an effective training program, let alone determine how those components influence satisfaction and job turnover. One model developed to account for the categories of factors present in training is Holton's Factors Model (Min, 2010). This model breaks down the effectiveness of a training session into three key factors: the individual's motivation to acquire the skills, the climate in which the skills are transferred, and the design of the training program itself. Since these factors influence training outcomes, they also likely mediate the relationship between training and development and outcomes such as satisfaction and intention to quit.

Training evaluation research and practice has been dominated by a focus on the outcomes of completed training programs and on the methods used to assess those outcomes (Brown & Gerhardt, 2002). However, training outcomes are commonly weighed only against the direct cost of training rather than the broader value of the employee to the organization. For example, if an employee lacks the motivation to undergo training, outcomes will likely be poor and the employee would also score higher on measures of intention to quit (Ramiall, 2004). Training is therefore likely to be most effective with respect to satisfaction and retention when the employee is actively seeking development opportunities. This category of employees will also tend to rate their career satisfaction based on the development opportunities made available to them.