Overview of Training Concept, Scope, Importance, Objectives, features, Need

Training is an organised activity for increasing the technical skills of the employees to enable them to do particular jobs efficiently.

“Training is the act of increasing the knowledge and skills of an employee for doing a particular job.”: Edwin B. Flippo

Training provides the workers with facility to gain technical knowledge and to learn new skills to do specific jobs. Training is equally important for the existing and as well as new employees. It enables the new employees to get acquainted with their jobs and also increase the job-related knowledge and skills.

Training means imparting the knowledge, skills and aptitudes necessary to undertake the required jobs efficiently with a view to developing the worker to his fullest potential. As an organised activity, training is designed to create a change in the thinking and behaviour of people. Training is a two-way and continuous process because there is no end to learning and secondly, a person gets to learn new technology, new patterns etc., continuously.

Scope

  1. Rank and File: i.e., employees who have no administrative or supervising work.
  2. Supervisory Employees: i.e., the first line foreman, supervisor and their immediate supervisors.
  3. Staff: i.e. specialised personnel such as technical and professional persons attached to the line organisation as advisors.
  4. Middle Management: i.e., all the managerial personnel holding positions between line supervisors and the top management.
  5. Top Executives: i.e., all executives who hold major responsibility for the overall planning and control.
  • Offering the employees’ performance counselling and performance interviews from the superiors.
  • Career planning and development programmes for the employees.
  • Development of employees through succession planning.
  • Workers’ participation and formation of quality circles.
  • Employee learning through group dynamics and empowerment.
  • Learning through job rotation and job enrichment.
  • Learning through social and religious interactions and programmes.
  • Development of employees through managerial and behavioural skills.

Importance

Reduce Employee Turnover:

A well trained employee will take more interest in his job and will be a more efficient worker. He will get more job satisfaction. People who love their jobs are more loyal towards the organization.

Better Managerial Skills:

Training and development programmes inspire the employees to think, plan, solve problems and take important decisions. This hones up their managerial skills.

Improve Employee Morale:

When employees are trained to become better performers, they feel a sense of accomplishment. They realize that they are effectively contributing towards organizational goals and thus get a morale boost.

Healthy Work Environment:

Training and development programmes help to modify the thought and behaviour process of the employees in such a way that is conducive to building a healthy work environment.

Build Team Spirit:

Training often takes place in groups where the trainees are encouraged to interact with each other and discuss organizational issues. This helps to create team spirit among the employees.

Increase Productivity:

Knowledge about usage of sophisticated machinery and new technology is imparted to employees which will enable them to use the equipment more efficiently and thereby increase productivity.

Creating a Highly Skilled, Motivated and Enthusiastic Workforce:

The existing workforce is trained to increase their productivity, and motivated to contribute their best towards the organization. The employees will be more confident about themselves and enthusiastic about their job. They will adapt to technological changes and innovations more readily.

Objectives

The overall objective of the training programme is designed to solve the problem. For example, Wyeth, pharmaceutical company, focuses its training on separate sets of companies for sales employees, and for managers. Training is the application of the knowledge. It makes people aware of the rules and procedures for guiding their behaviour.

To Facilitate Organisational Changes:

Organisations need to be dynamic to cope with, adjust and adapt to the changes in technology and other environmental forces. The personnel have to be conditioned to learn new skills and capabilities to enable them to be receptive to required changes and to assimilate them.

To Prepare for Higher Responsibilities:

The personnel need to have opportunities for advancement in their careers. Concurrently, they should also be striving for assuming higher responsibilities and performing more complex tasks with competence. For this purpose, an organisation may design a system whereby opportunities are made available to personnel for their career advancement and simultaneously preparing them through training for higher positions.

To Develop Proper Job-Related Attitudes:

The employees have to be trained to develop positive and helpful attitudes towards their jobs, superiors, colleagues and juniors, the goals, policies and procedures of the organisation and to the environment of the work place.

To improve Job Related Skills:

Some employees are not able to perform their jobs well. They possess inadequate skills and knowledge of their assignments with the result that they produce poor quality and volume of output, waste resources, damage equipment and tools, respond insufficiently to the supervisor’s instructions and so on. They need a training course for the purpose of removing their deficiencies and fitting them to their jobs.

To Enhance Knowledge of Employees:

Organisations need to help their employees to keep up their knowledge in tune with the contemporary trends. This is especially so in these days of explosive improvements and innovations in science and technology. Organisations should support their personnel in the battle against obsolescence. Personnel are to be exposed to refresher courses and developmental programs with a view to improve their utility to the organisation.

Features

  • Relatively permanent change in employee behaviour: Training is actually a learning experience that seeks a relatively permanent change in individuals that will improve their ability to perform on the job.
  • Narrow focus: Tends to be more narrowly focused and oriented toward short-term performance concerns. It tries to fix current skill deficit. The goal of training is a fairly quick improvement in workers’ performance. It is a job specific and individual-oriented effort aimed at improving short term performance fairly quickly.
  • Increases knowledge and skills for doing a particular job: Training bridges the gap between job needs and employee skills, knowledge and behaviours.
  • Concentrates on individual employees: Training lays emphasis on chang­ing what employees know, how they work, their attitudes toward their work or their interactions with their co-workers or supervisors.
  • Focuses attention on the current job: It is job specific and provides em­ployees with specific skills. Training helps employees’ correct deficiencies in their performance.

Need

Effective Management:

Training can be used as an effective tool of planning and control. It develops skills among workers and prepares them for handling present and future jobs. It helps in reducing the costs of supervision, wastages and industrial accidents. It also helps increase productivity and quality which are the cherished goals of any modern organization.

Reduction of Turnover and Absenteeism:

Training creates a feeling of confidence in the minds of the workers. It gives them a security at the workplace. As a result, labour turnover and absenteeism rates are reduced.

Industrial Safety:

Trained workers can handle the machines safely. They also know the use of various safety devices in the factory. Thus, they are less prone to industrial accidents.

Technology Update:

Technology is changing at a fast pace. The workers must learn new techniques to make use of advance technology. Thus, training should be treated as a continuous process to update the employees in the new methods and procedures.

Reduction of Learning Time:

Systematic training through trained instructors is essential to reduce the training period. If the workers learn through trial and error, they will take a longer time and even may not be able to learn right methods of doing work.

Quality Improvement:

The customers have become quality conscious and their requirement keep on changing. To satisfy the customers, quality of products must be continuously improved through training of workers.

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