Employee Training and Development Essay: Enhancing Skills & Growth

Training and development programs allow an organization’s human capital to grow professionally in its present and future positions. As a result, output, morale, and effectiveness will all improve. Staff training is designed to help employees improve their performance in their current roles and prepare them for promotion (Sung & Choi, 2018). Moreover, to foster growth and improvement. There are a few different names for staff training, but the most common ones are reskilling and upskilling. Training a person for a new position inside the company is reskilling, whereas upskilling is done to improve an employee’s current performance. Learning new skills or enhancing existing ones has many of the same positive effects as traditional training programs.

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Because of the dynamic nature of modern marketplaces, training has become an integral part of any successful business’s internal culture. A solution that is effective now may be entirely irrelevant in the future. Therefore, it is helpful to establish continuous training programs to assist employees in staying informed and ready to respond to changes. Training employees also play a crucial role in motivating them (Younas et al., 2018). The satisfaction of knowing one’s work is valued by one’s superiors is a motivating factor for most workers. Workers generally respond well to training incentives tied to career progression targets.

Increased employee satisfaction and motivation are two outcomes of investing in staff training. When companies invest in their employees’ education and development, they foster an environment where workers feel appreciated and secure. Employees who have participated in training programs have a better chance of progressing and being considered for higher-level roles in the organization. They develop the skills necessary to assume more roles.

Demonstrate that the employer appreciates the staff by investing in them through programs like these.

One of the most valuable benefits a firm can provide is the chance to learn and grow. The ability to acquire new skills and advance in one’s position is a significant draw for qualified candidates. It also helps businesses hold on to their most valued, hard-to-find talent. However, the greatest return on investment (ROI) of learning and development strategies is shown in reducing the widening skill gap many modern businesses contend with (Cemazar, 2021).

Employers realize they need to invest in their employees’ professional growth to maintain market share. Increased positive publicity for the company as an employer is another perk. Training and development should acknowledge employees’ contributions (Mostafa et al., 2015). Recognizing employees’ efforts to improve themselves and acquire new abilities is founded on the belief that people are intrinsically motivated and deserve positive reinforcement.

One of the most often used HR KPIs is the employee training and development rate. It can be employed to assess job satisfaction, motivation, and productivity. Many variables affect how and what employees learn (Croxton, 2014). Workers are most driven by chances to grow professionally when other training needs, such as pay, benefits, and work-life compatibility, are met. In addition, the younger generation dominating the workforce puts a premium on development and training strategies.

Employer branding is a specialty unto itself, and its foremost proponents recognize that nothing surpasses employee testimonials regarding a company’s reputation. Employees’ firsthand accounts of the company’s culture, benefits, and prospects for advancement may be disseminated via traditional advertising and among peers in the same field. In addition, keeping talented employees around is one of the most apparent advantages of funding training and education (Croxton, 2014). The firm can expand rapidly if it can attract and keep talented, ambitious workers.

Historical Roots of Employee Training and Development

The roots of training and development may be traced back to the first beginnings of education. Survival-based learning gives way to classical and religious learning; war and military strategy shape scientific and technical education; and the industrial revolution spawns career training and scientific management, all of which can be seen as stages along a continuum of human progress as depicted by the history of education. It continued with the training of groups and directors in the years after World War II. It then moves on to improving people as workers and the growth of businesses and communities for a wide range of professional goals.

Training and development (T&D) has existed since the dawn of human civilization and has been honed into its present-day form. The United States’ commitment to training and development began around World War II (Torraco, 2016). Due to the growing wartime economy and technical advancements, the need for skilled personnel surged during this time. Employee training and development expanded during this time, partly because of the growing labor movement in the United States. The U.S. labor movement is a staunch supporter of education and development despite facing significant opposition to its creation in the early 1900s.

The Training Within Industry (TWI) service, initiated during World War II, significantly impacted the advancement of training and development in the post-war decades (Torraco, 2016). The U.S. War Manpower Commission and firms throughout the country partnered to create the TWI program better prepare millions of extra workers and managers for the enormous shift to a wartime economy and accelerate the production of military equipment.

Technology, Globalization and other Strategic Forces in Employee Training and Development

Technologies have always played a part in training and development. It has become more significant in the realm of business training and education. Although education may take place with only a sheet of paper and a pencil, today’s classrooms are more intricate than ever. The software makes it easy to detect and organize the individual training requirements of thousands of workers simultaneously.

Investing in workers’ personal and professional growth is a great approach to demonstrate that the employer cares about them and their success. Most workers will gladly accept training on new machinery or software if it means expanding their skill set. Workers in material handling and warehousing are often allowed to learn how to use large machinery like order pickers and forklifts. Businesses may use today’s technological tools to provide their staff with realistic, risk-free training (Caldwell, 2016). It gives the team a risk-free setting to evaluate the candidate’s enthusiasm and prowess at tackling novel tasks.

HR development programs have evolved to make corporate training and education more exciting and applicable to workers. Virtual training, classroom instruction, and more opportunities for simulation and role-playing provide workers access to a wide range of training formats that may better suit their individual needs and preferences (Croxton, 2014). For instance, recent developments in online education have emphasized “gamification,” or the application of game design principles to the education process. HR professionals now have access to innovative tools, such as virtual and augmented reality, for delivering traditional training methods, such as classroom lectures and exams, to users.

Improvements in learning and development technologies have led to a more invested workforce. Engagement is essential to maintain employee happiness and productivity (Croxton, 2014). How staff members are taught significantly impacts how invested, they become in their jobs. Technology expands the options for engaging with workers by giving them several adaptable ways to provide feedback. Innovative instructional technologies allow one to conduct surveys, distribute questionnaires, and collect data on employee performance to get a more accurate picture of their training requirements. The social aspect of technology also allows for two-way communication with workers throughout training, significantly improving their ability to recall and apply what they learn.

Organizational cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity necessitates more training for employees. Managers ought to institute rules and provide training to current staff to ensure everyone can accept one another to safeguard their company and new hires from prejudice. Due to this, some businesses have seen an increase in tolerance for various cultures and perspectives. Others have seen an increase in tension between workers who want a more homogeneous workplace and those who value cultural diversity.

A solid online learning program is becoming more critical as firms adopt a remote workforce strategy (Kaufman et al., 2020). However, the transition from traditional classroom instruction would need a reevaluation of current approaches to training and development. Covid-19 accelerated a rising tendency toward working remotely. A company can create team activities that connect remote workers or use simulations to stimulate creative problem-solving and critical thinking among learners (Kaufman et al., 2020). HR departments must provide online learning solutions accessible to employees from anywhere to accommodate a more geographically scattered workforce and safeguard their training materials in the event of a natural catastrophe.

References

Caldwell, T. (2016). Making security awareness training work. Computer Fraud & Security, 2016(6), 8-14.

Cemazar, S. A. (2021, April 15). How employee recognition supports learning and development. Semos Cloud. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://semoscloud.com/blog/employee-recognition-supports-learning-and-development/

Croxton, R. A. (2014). The role of interactivity in student satisfaction and persistence in online learning. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(2), 314.

Kaufman, E., Lovich, D., Bailey, A., Messenböck, R., Schuler, F., & Shroff, A. (2020). Remote work works–where do we go from Here. BCG. URL.

Mostafa, A. M. S., Gould‐Williams, J. S., & Bottomley, P. (2015). High‐performance human resource practices and employee outcomes: the mediating role of public service motivation. Public administration review, 75(5), 747-757.

Sung, S. Y., & Choi, J. N. (2018). Effects of training and development on employee outcomes and firm innovative performance: Moderating voluntary participation and evaluation roles. Human resource management, 57(6), 1339–1353. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hrm.21909?casa_token=dzYia2IqYSEAAAAA:pF5nSC6XWpK1lvGkzGklNfuYqWpORPh6J5zKyQk82j_la8biyxXxSNYntjSti2anetNBv8v8XpGbZPz2Yg.

Torraco, R. J. (2016). Early history of the fields of practice of training and development and organization development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(4), 439-453.

Younas, W., Farooq, M., Khalil-Ur-Rehman, F., & Zreen, A. (2018). The impact of training and development on employee performance. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 20(7), 20-23. https://www.academia.edu/download/57021484/D2007042023.pdf