Contemporary Issues: HR Periodicals
Check current periodicals to find an interesting current event article related to developing and/or rewarding employees for higher productivity. Please see attachment
Read the article.
Provide a summary of the article.
Provide additional recommendations, arguments, and ideas.
Include a citation for the article.
Feel free to use any business-related journals or periodicals. A good place to find HR-related journals is in ProQuest in the Trident Online Library. The following are other suggestions:
The Economist. Available at http://www.economist.com/
Society for Human Resource Management. Available at http://www.shrm.org/pages/default.aspx. HRMagazine, SHRM’s publication, is found in ProQuest in the Trident Online Library.
The Wall Street Journal. Available at http://online.wsj.com/home-page
Employee Training and Development
The quality of employees and their development through training and education are major factors in determining long-term profitability of a small business. If you hire and keep good employees, it is good policy to invest in the development of their skills, so they can increase their productivity.
Training often is considered for new employees only. This is a mistake because ongoing training for current employees helps them adjust to rapidly changing job requirements.
Purpose of Employee Training and Development Process
Reasons for emphasizing the growth and development of personnel include
· Creating a pool of readily available and adequate replacements for personnel who may leave or move up in the organization.
· Enhancing the company’s ability to adopt and use advances in technology because of a sufficiently knowledgeable staff.
· Building a more efficient, effective and highly motivated team, which enhances the company’s competitive position and improves employee morale.
· Ensuring adequate human resources for expansion into new programs.
Research has shown specific benefits that a small business receives from training and developing its workers, including:
· Increased productivity.
· Reduced employee turnover.
· Increased efficiency resulting in financial gains.
· Decreased need for supervision.
Employees frequently develop a greater sense of self-worth, dignity and well-being as they become more valuable to the firm and to society. Generally they will receive a greater share of the material gains that result from their increased productivity. These factors give them a sense of satisfaction through the achievement of personal and company goals.
The Training Process
The model below traces the steps necessary in the training process:
· Organizational Objectives
· Needs Assessment
· Is There a Gap?
· Training Objectives
· Select the Trainees
· Select the Training Methods and Mode
· Choose a Means of Evaluating
· Administer Training
· Evaluate the Training
Your business should have a clearly defined strategy and set of objectives that direct and drive all the decisions made especially for training decisions. Firms that plan their training process are more successful than those that do not. Most business owners want to succeed, but do not engage in training designs that promise to improve their chances of success. Why? The five reasons most often identified are:
Time – Small businesses managers find that time demands do not allow them to train employees.
Getting started – Most small business managers have not practiced training employees. The training process is unfamiliar.
Broad expertise – Managers tend to have broad expertise rather than the specialized skills needed for training and development activities.
Lack of trust and openness – Many managers prefer to keep information to themselves. By doing so they keep information from subordinates and others who could be useful in the training and development process.
Skepticism as to the value of the training – Some small business owners believe the future cannot be predicted or controlled and their efforts, therefore, are best centered on current activities i.e., making money today.
A well-conceived training program can help your firm succeed. A program structured with the company’s strategy and objectives in mind has a high probability of improving productivity and other goals that are set in the training mission.
For any business, formulating a training strategy requires addressing a series of questions.
· Who are your customers? Why do they buy from you?
· Who are your competitors? How do they serve the market? What competitive advantages do they enjoy? What parts of the market have they ignored?
· What strengths does the company have? What weaknesses?
· What social trends are emerging that will affect the firm?
The purpose of formulating a training strategy is to answer two relatively simple but vitally important questions: (1) What is our business? and (2) What should our business be? Armed with the answers to these questions and a clear vision of its mission, strategy and objectives, a company can identify its training needs.
Identifying Training Needs
Training needs can be assessed by analyzing three major human resource areas: the organization as a whole, the job characteristics and the needs of the individuals. This analysis will provide answers to the following questions:
· Where is training needed?
· What specifically must an employee learn in order to be more productive?
· Who needs to be trained?
Begin by assessing the current status of the company how it does what it does best and the abilities of your employees to do these tasks. This analysis will provide some benchmarks against which the effectiveness of a training program can be evaluated. Your firm should know where it wants to be in five years from its long-range strategic plan. What you need is a training program to take your firm from here to there.
Second, consider whether the organization is financially committed to supporting the training efforts. If not, any attempt to develop a solid training program will fail.
Next, determine exactly where training is needed. It is foolish to implement a company-wide training effort without concentrating resources where they are needed most. An internal audit will help point out areas that may benefit from training. Also, a skills inventory can help determine the skills possessed by the employees in general. This inventory will help the organization determine what skills are available now and what skills are needed for future development.
Also, in today’s market-driven economy, you would be remiss not to ask your customers what they like about your business and what areas they think should be improved. In summary, the analysis should focus on the total organization and should tell you (1) where training is needed and (2) where it will work within the organization.
Once you have determined where training is needed, concentrate on the content of the program. Analyze the characteristics of the job based on its description, the written narrative of what the employee actually does. Training based on job descriptions should go into detail about how the job is performed on a task-by-task basis. Actually doing the job will enable you to get a better feel for what is done.
Individual employees can be evaluated by comparing their current skill levels or performance to the organization’s performance standards or anticipated needs. Any discrepancies between actual and anticipated skill levels identifies a training need.
Selection of Trainees
Once you have decided what training is necessary and where it is needed, the next decision is who should be trained? For a small business, this question is crucial. Training an employee is expensive, especially when he or she leaves your firm for a better job. Therefore, it is important to carefully select who will be trained.
Training programs should be designed to consider the ability of the employee to learn the material and to use it effectively, and to make the most efficient use of resources possible. It is also important that employees be motivated by the training experience. Employee failure in the program is not only damaging to the employee but a waste of money as well. Selecting the right trainees is important to the success of the program.
Training Goals
The goals of the training program should relate directly to the needs determined by the assessment process outlined above. Course objectives should clearly state what behavior or skill will be changed as a result of the training and should relate to the mission and strategic plan of the company. Goals should include milestones to help take the employee from where he or she is today to where the firm wants him or her in the future. Setting goals helps to evaluate the training program and also to motivate employees. Allowing employees to participate in setting goals increases the probability of success.
Training Methods
There are two broad types of training available to small businesses: on-the-job and off-the-job techniques. Individual circumstances and the “who,” “what” and “why” of your training program
determine which method to use.
On-the-job training is delivered to employees while they perform their regular jobs. In this way, they do not lose time while they are learning. After a plan is developed for what should be taught, employees should be informed of the details. A timetable should be established with periodic evaluations to inform employees about their progress. On-the-job techniques include orientations, job instruction training, apprenticeships, internships and assistantships, job rotation and coaching.
Off-the-job techniques include lectures, special study, films, television conferences or discussions, case studies, role playing, simulation, programmed instruction and laboratory training. Most of these techniques can be used by small businesses although, some may be too costly.
Orientations are for new employees. The first several days on the job are crucial in the success of new…
