Training in Organizations under the changed Economic Scenario

The journey towards knowledge economy demands new/additional types of competencies. During the last ten years, “lifelong learning” has become one of the most frequently heard terms in training circles. This is perhaps an apt response to the increasingly rapid changes that are under-way in the Indian businesses. Today’s businesses being knowledge and information-intensive, there is a high premium on the continued upgrading of skills and competencies of the workforce. Hence organizations need to approach training from an altogether new platform—preferably on the following lines:

Current Scenario

Most of the training programs conducted presently are confined to business processing and service delivery although current research carried out elsewhere indicates that businesses today require a broader range of skills than what was contemplated as essential in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Some such identified skills are:

• Communication skills
• Teamwork skills
• Problem solving skills
• Initiative and enterprising skills
• Planning and organizing skills
• Self management skills
• Learning skills
• Technology skills
• Critical facets of management, such as ‘leadership development’, ‘strategic business management,’ enterprise-wide risk management, etc.
• Linkage between training and succession-plans

Assessment of Training Gaps

Nothing is more demoralizing for the staff than sitting in a classroom taking a course that provides little or no benefit to their immediate work. Therefore, identification of training needs shall be the first priority. Need Assessment study helps identify discrepancies between employee’s skills and the skills required for effective job performance and discrepancies between current skills and the skills needed to perform the job successfully in the future.

Needs could exist at any of the three levels: at the organization, job and person level and ideally it should be measured via Organizational analysis, Job analysis, Personal analysis….

  

Training Methodology

Pedagogy must be chosen based on the age, the learning level of the participants and objectives of the program. The effectiveness of alternate training methods should be taken note of for achieving a given objective. 

Table : Effectiveness of alternate training methods
Training Method	Knowledge Acquisition		Changing Attitudes			Problem Solving Skills			Inter-personal Skills		Participant Acceptance		Knowledge Retention
Case study	2		4			1			4		2		2
Discussion method	3		3			4			3		1		5
Lecture with questions	8		8			8			8		8		8
Business games	5		5			2			5		3		6
Video films	4		6			7			6		5		7
Programmer	1		7			6			7		7		1
Role playing	6		2			3			2		4		4
Sensitivity training	7		1			5			1		6		3
Very effective	1	2		3	4		5	6		7		8	Not effective
Scale

Selection of Training Faculty

Selection of faculty makes a lot of difference in making training efforts succeed. For, it is their enthusiasm to impart right skills to the trainees and the confidence with which they undertake their job that makes trainees ready to absorb what is being taught. It must therefore be based on the traits of prospective candidates: performance orientation, technical skills, social skills, self-employability, etc. 

Evaluation of Training

Program evaluation is the final phase in the training process, during which the effectiveness of the training program is measured. This is an important but often ignored activity. Careful evaluation provides information on participant’s reaction, how much they learn, whether they use what they learnt back on the job and whether the program improved the organization’s effectiveness.

Training evaluation is best accomplished by carrying it out at four levels: First at the reaction level — “Smiley Face Survey”; second at learning stage— pre and post training tests; third at change in behavior after a certain lapse of time and finally the impact of the training on the organizational functioning.

Objective measurements shall be obtained on all these four counts through a well-constructed questionnaire and must be subjected to necessary statistical techniques.  

Based on these findings, suitable improvements shall be attempted constantly to edge-out the challenges posed by the competitors. 

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