Unleashing Employee Expertise in the Workplace - Term Paper Example

Evaluation of Employee Training Demand and Section # of This paper presents a literature review and analyses on the evaluation of employee training demand. EVALUATION OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING DEMAND Employee training is defined as improving employee knowledge structure and skills in order to make the employees more productive and dynamic. It has a strong relationship with the corporation's target and its ultimate goals because every organization heavily depends on its employees in order to drive the business and become profitable. The corporations achieve this target by effectively designing the training plan. Therefore the very first step before beginning employee training is to evaluate the employee training demand. Evaluating the employee training demand also assists in confirming the training target. This process is the research problem source between employee and corporation performance. After this process judgment is made whether training can actually assist in solving the problem or not. What kind of training is required is also determined. In order to evaluate and make the judgment if the employee training will assist in solving the problem or not, a number of training and non-training elements need to be considered. The training factors that should be considered include: Whether training is needed or not In this aspect it is important to determine if there is a real need for training or not. This need may arise from the decreasing organizational profits, decreased productivity, increase in the costs and ineffective operations of the organizations due to the lack of proper skills and non-performance of efficient practices by the employees. Why training is needed In this facet of evaluating employee training demand, you need to determine that if the training is needed, why it is needed. The possible reasons can be the changing global trends according to which the skills of the employees need to be polished, it can be a legal requirement, a customer need etc. What kind of training is needed Here you determine what kind of skills training is required. The skills and knowledge of the employees that needs to be improved may include communication skills, negotiation skills, interpersonal skills and relationship skills and managerial as well as non-managerial skills. Therefore it is important to determine what core competency needs to be improved. Which employees need training It is also important to know that which employees need what training. This is because employees in different departments need different kind of skill sets and their knowledge and learning requirements are entirely different. For example, it may be necessary for the purchase department people to have the negotiating skills training while it may not be important for the quality control department employees. How and where will the training take place During the evaluation of employee training demand it is also important to know that how will the training take place, i.e. determining will the training sessions be conducted in the office timings or not, will the trainers be hired from within the company or not, will the training sessions be conducted in the office premises or not, etc. The evaluation of training demand should also include some non-training elements, such as organization structure, work environment, salary system and etc. as they have a strong influence on the corporation's conditions. These elements are discussed below: Organizational Structure: Organizations with hierarchical structures are more prone to redundancy of work assignments. Therefore there is usually there is less need for the training of all the employees in such organizations. However in flatter structured organizations, a single employee should have a broad skill set and therefore most of the employees in such organizations have a high demand for training. Organizational Work Environment: The work environment and the working conditions of the organization also are an important factor that compels the need for employee training. Also, for a better working environment, there is a need to improve the employee knowledge and skills. Hence, for better working environment, there is a high demand for employee training. Reward and Salary System: In order to get promoted and reap more benefits offered by the organization, the employees themselves also realize that the employee training is very essential. Organizations also have separate reward systems for the trained employees. RESEARCH OF INFORMATION SOURCES This section covers the evaluation of employee training demand and comprehensively presents the researched information and analysis of it. The researched information includes data from three sources: inside information, work information and personal information. Inside Information The inside information includes the elements like employee emotion, accident, waste, demission interview, equipment conditions and etc. These are discussed below: Employee Emotion: Employees in the organization have different reactions and emotions to the employee training. These emotions determine the inside information about the employees. In the process of evaluating demand for employee training. It is therefore important that the employee emotions are determined and examined and care should be taken that employee emotions are not ruined due to the training. Accident: For the purpose of determining demand for employee training, any accidents that can become a hurdle in the process should be evaluated. Pre-planning should be done for any accidents and also these accidents should be forecasted and any corrective and preventive actions should also be determined and included in the evaluation for employee training demand. Waste: The training of the employees may result in a waste of time, resources, money and skills. Therefore a proper inside information is required for this purpose and the demand for employee training should be efficiently evaluated so that in the future, employee trainings do not result in a waste of time and resources. Equipment Conditions: For the employee training to be successful, it is important that the equipment conditions which will be used during the training are appropriate for the training. The equipment conditions, thus, also need to be evaluated while planning for the employee training. Work Information The work information includes information about the requirements that are necessary for an employee to survive in an organization's work environment. The work information includes elements like employee's knowledge, skills, ability information. These are discussed below: Employee's Knowledge: Depending on the level of knowledge an employee possesses, the demand for employee training increases or decreases. If an employee has less knowledge as compared to the task that he is assigned to perform, there will be a high demand for employee training. However, the employee who has more knowledge of his work area may have a less demand for employee training. Therefore, the knowledge an employee possess is essential work information with regard to the evaluation of employee training demand. Employee's Skills: There is a different skill set required at different positions in an organization. Every task and assignment demands a different skill set to be present in the employee. The skills required by a marketing manager will be entirely different from even those required by a finance manager. Therefore, for the purpose of performing new job assignments and improving on the current job assignments, there is a high demand for the employee training. Depending on the skills and employee possess and the skills required for a certain job, the demand for employee training varies. Employee's Ability: Knowledge and skills are not the only crucial work information that is necessary. It is the abilities of the employees as well that count. Whether an employee is capable or not for performing any task depends not on just the knowledge and skills of the employee but it is highly dependent on the employee's ability to perform the task. Most employees, without even having the right knowledge and skills can perform a task. This is due to the employee's capability. Thus, the employee's ability to perform a task is also a major determinant that affects the demand for employee training. Personal Information The personal information is the personality testing of the employee through different ways and means. The personal information includes elements like notes, test, evaluate personal performance, questionnaire and etc. Notes: The notes taken by the employees and the private files on the employees' workstations are an intellectual asset as these determine how the employees carry out the actual analysis of the tasks and how they find solutions to problems. These notes taken by the employees are an important source that must be analyzed in the process of evaluating employee training demand. Test: The need for employee training can be gauged through testing the employees on various skills and activities. Through the test, it can then be determined if there is a high requirement for employee training or not. These tests should be basically designed for evaluating the employee training demand and based on the results of the tests, no differences should be built among the employees of the organization. Evaluate Personal Performance: The personal performance of the employees can be gauged through the tasks they perform and the efficiency and effectiveness of those tasks. This evaluation should not be made at the departmental or group level but at the individual level, so that the demand for employee training can be effectively forecasted. Questionnaires: With the help of the questionnaires, surveys and focus groups among the employees, the personal information can be filtered and the need for employee training can be evaluated. These are effective tools for the purpose of mining information from the organizational structure. Thus, through the different information and analysis discussed above about the personal, inside and work information, it can be concluded that in evaluating the demand for employee training, these three are equally important. The information about the employees determine their need for employee training, the organizational information determines the need of the organization for employee training and the study of the job tasks determine the requirement of the employee training for specific jobs and assignments. ANALYSIS METHOD AND FUNCTION The analyses method encompasses the organization analyses, work mission analyses and personal analyses. These analyses are important in order to evaluate the employee training demand for the organization and the employees themselves. Organization Analysis Through the analyses of the corporation development the organization gets to know about the job needs, the knowledge needs, skills needs and the ability needs. It is discussed above that how the job, skills, knowledge and ability need is determined. At the same time, it is also important to analyze the performance and the need for employee training from the aspect of every department. Different departments have different training needs. Depending on the departments, various weaknesses need to be identified and rectified in order to properly evaluate employee training demand. Once the weaknesses are determined, the training plan can then be designed and the target of the employee training can be determined. Work Mission Analysis Work mission analysis is a crucial stage in the process of evaluating employee training demand. In this analysis, the job standard is compared with the employee's knowledge, skills and ability. For example, the job standard of a purchases manager requires the employee to possess communication, negotiation and interpersonal skills, ability to perform purchasing tasks for the company and the relevant educational background and knowledge about the area. Based on this, a comparison can be made about what the job requires and what the employee possess and consequently the weaknesses can be determined and a training plan can be devised. Personal Analysis The personal analysis includes personal investigation and personal performance evaluation. By evaluating personal performance, the weaknesses possessed by the employees can be determined and rectified through employee training. Personal investigation involves collecting information from every employee to know what are their needs and requirements. The method include: questionnaire, skills test and etc. Through the questionnaires, skill tests and focus groups, the personal evaluation of the employees can be made based on which the training plan can be altered to employee needs and requirements. CONFIRM TRAINING TARGET AND TRAINING ORDER Once an organization has determined the training needs of the employees and the job standards by appropriate analyses method, they need to analyze the difference between employee's conditions and corporation target. The corporation's target is to be profitable and produce maximum output through the minimum inputs possible. However, the employees may have their own personal conditions for the training. After both the organizations' and employees' conditions are met, the training target is then confirmed and the training order as well. Bibliography Amanda L. Ahlstrand, Laurie Jo Bassi, Daniel P. McMurrer (2003) Workplace Education for Low-Wage Workers. W.E. Upjohn Institute U. S. 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Kozlowski (1997)Improving Training Effectiveness in Work. John Kevin Ford, Steve W. J. Kozlowski. Darin E. Hartley (2000) On-demand Learning: Training in the New Millennium. Human Resource Development Press. Read More