The Forces Affecting the Workplace and Learning - Essay Example

Training and Career Management Describe the forces affecting the workplace and learning. How can training help companies deal with these forces? The forces affecting the workplace and learning have evolved over the years in keeping with the changing purview of business organizations. In the present day scenario, the key forces comprise competition for obtaining skilled workforce, retaining and attracting employee talent pool, workforce diversity along with changing demographics, and funding issues associated with training and development which are explained below: Competition for obtaining skilled workforce: In the recent years, there has been a major constraint related to skilled workforce faced by the business sector. The competition in the market for skilled workforce has greatly augmented. There are certain key sought after skills that are highly desirable by different sectors, however availing the benefits of such skills often becomes challenging (Eraut, n.d.). Retaining and attract employee talent pool: There is a huge competition prevailing in the market to retain as well as to attract employee talent pool. Consequently, to enhance workplace desirability, providing the scope for learning by the employers plays a vital role (Eraut, n.d.). Workforce diversity along with changing demographics: Diverse workforce and altering demographics act as a key force affecting workplace learning as age, gender and ethnicity of the employees are evolving (American Society for Training and Development, 2008). Funding issues related to training and development: Providing proper training and development is a key constituent for enhancing workplace learning. However, keeping aside adequate funding has always remained a major concern for a number of companies especially during financial uncertainty (Eraut, n.d.). Providing training to the employees can greatly help the companies to deal with these forces. The requirement of skilled employees can be fulfilled by providing proper training to the employees especially the new comers along with the existing one. The aspect of training possesses the ability to increase the overall productivity of the companies. The proper guidance and training can definitely help in retaining and attracting employees. Training can also facilitate to enhance knowledge sharing and comprehend the significance of the forces for the companies which in turn would enable them to determine the strategies to handle different compelling forces (Eraut, n.d.). 2. How would you expect the training activities of a company that is dominant in its product market to differ from those of a company that emphasizes research and development? A company that is dominant in its product market mainly emphasizes the development of various strategies. The company primarily concentrates on increasing its market share. The training activities for such a company are expected to focus on facilitating individuals in the organization to learn the art and technique of grabbing the attention of the buyers. The training activities are expected to make them understand how to deal with different types of customers and sell the products in the market accordingly. The training activities will surely guide the trainees of the company to effectively learn the new skills in keeping with the evolving nature of the product market. Nowadays, introducing the new product into the market has become a decisive challenge and to make the product sell to different customers has become quite complex. Thus, training activities will help the employees in reaching the target customers and increasing the level of profit of the company (Noe, 2010). The facet of research and development (R&D) plays an imperative role in the modern day organizational activities. It particularly focuses on internal growth of the organization along with targeting the new market with new product and development. Therefore, a company that focuses on R&D obtains the opportunity of assimilating its resources for new innovations and developments to win the market with the introduction of a set of new products. Accordingly, the training activities related to the organizations emphasizing R&D predominantly focus on encouraging innovation within the employees. The employees are generally provided the opportunity during training to express themselves by coming up with new innovative ideas. Thus, the key difference lies in the fact that product market focused companies engage in training activities that benefit the company’s product position and boost up its sales. Conversely, R&D focused companies involve in encouraging innovation and idea generation from employees within the training activities (Knoll, 2003). 3. Which of the factors that influence performance and learning do you think is more important? Which is least important? The factors which influence the performance and learning include the following: Setting standards: The standards set by an organization play an imperative role in its performance and learning. Setting standards by managers within the organization can act as a tool in motivating and de-motivating the employees within the workplace. The manager should take effective measures to evaluate the performance and skills which have been learnt in the organization (Liu, n.d.). Motivating employees: To improve the performance and learning of the employees within the organization, motivation is considered as the other key tool. Motivation can act as a key factor to boost the level confidence of the employees which in turn can augment their performance and learning within the workplace. . The motivation can be in terms of providing incentive to the employees who have performed well, which will encourage other employees to boost their level of performance and actively engage in learning new skills (Liu, n.d.). Evaluating the performance and learning skills of employees: The evaluation of the performance and learning skills of the employee within the organization helps the managers to judge the performance of the particular employee (Liu, n.d.). The least important factor can be ascertained to be evaluating the performance and learning skills of the employee as it may make the other employees to have a negative feeling. The positive evaluation of a set of employees and their skills of learning can make the other employees to think that they are not up to the mark of the organization which may in turn hamper the productivity of the organization. Thus, effective measures should be taken to ensure and avoid such dilemma within the business organization. Project 1 1. A brief description of the training program The training program which Google had introduced is known as GoogleEDU. Google believes that this program will make a vast difference in providing training to the employees. Google firmly believes that it will greatly help the company’s employees to derive an understanding of the aspects that are required to be learned by them in order to ensure that the company’s level of profit is rising. The training program i.e. GoogleEDU which started in 2010 is determined to be a learning and leadership-development program. Besides, the program emphasizes formalizing learning by depending on data analytics to teach employees. In the recent years, many companies have managed to provide proper training to the employees in order to increase their productivity. This makes Google to believe that it is necessary to provide quality and effective training to the employee so as to meet their short-term as well as the long-term goals. This kind of effective training program provides various benefits to both the organization and to its employee (Walker, 2010). Notably, it is necessary to understand that training will provide or yield better result only when it is properly planned and executed. The clear and vivid rules and regulations of the company will allow reaching the goals of the organization. In the recent times, training has become an effective tool to better meet the demands of the business organizations. Keeping the desired goals in mind, providing training to the employees of Google will help it to ensure a renowned position in the market. Google finds that the various companies have long sought for providing training to the business organization to improve their performance in order to enhance their productivity. In the United States (US) alone, it had been estimated that US$171.5 billion amount of money was invested by companies on providing effective leaning and development program. Similarly, GoogleEDU focuses on managers’ review of employees to suggest required courses for them. Statistics are being used in this training program obtained from former as well as current employees to determine and recommend courses to managers in different segments of an employee’s career (Walker, 2010). 2. Identify which theory of learning this training program is based on and explain why you think this training is based on this theory? GoogleEDU training program is based on Adult Learning (Andragogy). This theory was postulated by Malcolm Knowles. Knowles wanted to highlight that adulthood arrives only when the individual believes and behaves like an adult. Knowles pointed out that adult learning has a number of ways in which the individual will benefit. Adult learning can provide the learner a great deal of experience. This experience will ultimately act as an invaluable resource for business organizations. The adults have better understating of the influence of the particular decisions and they can take better actions after proper training (Dunn, 2002). It can be observed that GoogleEDU is based on this theory because the adults can better understand the implementation and usefulness of training within the organization. An individual who is an adult can make better make judgment along with decisions. Google believes that providing training to the adults will help them in meeting the demands of their stakeholders. The training program can certainly help the company to make effective as well as important decisions to increase its level of performance. Moreover, it will make the respective company to differentiate its working environment from the other companies by engaging the adult learners in the type of training they require as per their career position. Moreover, the training program will also provide an opportunity to serve the customers with quality and valuable products through knowledge enhancement (Walker, 2010). 3. Explain Why You Think This Training Would Be Effective or Ineffective In the recent years, one of the growing concerns is to provide effective training to the employees. It can be noted that, by providing proper training to the employees, an organization can promote and can encourage high performance. Thus, the training programs should be so designed that it matches the needs of the organization. Proper training to the employees will provide them an opportunity to actively participate and use their knowledge as well as their skills whenever it is required by the organization in the future. Google also thinks that by introducing GoogleEDU, the company will be able to train their employees and simultaneously reduce the cost associated with continuous training and re-training. This factor justifies the fact that the concerned training program would be effective. Moreover, the use of data analytics can also facilitate Google to determine the requirement of the employees related to their training and to evaluate their progress during the course of their career (Walker, 2010). Evaluating the training program 1. A brief description of the training program Google has introduced a learning and leadership development training program called GoogleEDU. It is entirely a new concept developed in 2010 where the company considerably relies on the analytical data which helps it in teaching the employees according to their learning requirement. This considerably facilitates Google to ensure sustained profitability. This training program would aid the company to overcome a number of pitfalls and can subsequently help it in taking proper decisions during the period of instability. The company believes that such training and development program will help to build proper understanding between the managers and various executives within the organization (Walker, 2010). 2. An explanation of how you would evaluate the training program Feedback is one of the fundamental and most essential methods in order to evaluate the training program. Providing training to the employees also depends on the commitment of the way the individual employees can actively achieve and build their confidence. It is necessary to evaluate the training and development program as the employees can easily wipe of the knowledge of the training and development program which is provided to them during the training session. Thus, to avoid such issues within the organization, it is necessary to motivate the employees by seeking feedback from them regarding what they have learnt and what they feel they are lacking. Supporting and encouraging the employees through continued feedback during evaluation will help the company to make the employees remember what they have learnt during the training program. It is worth mentioning that this sort of evaluation and encouragement is not generally seen within the organization. The outcome that can be used to evaluate the training program i.e. GoogleEDU is to judge the level of productivity and commitment of the different sets of employees. As the training program focuses on teaching evidence based learning to the employees in different segments of their career thus the level of increased knowledge can be evaluated as an outcome from time to time. Besides, employee retention and enhancement of their morale can be the other outcomes that can be measured related to the training program. Moreover, in order to measure the level of success of the program continued review of the employee’s learning can be made after the special classes. The design of the evaluation process will include the feedback from the employees along with determining their level of learning from the imparted learning after special classes. This design will help to properly judge where the key pitfalls lie in this training program. Feedback of the program as mentioned will help in taking decisions in terms of effectiveness of the program for career and professional learning development of the employee. Furthermore, such evaluation process can enable the managers to understand the influence of the training program on employees’ learning and their professional development. 3. List At Least One Threat to the Validity of Your Study and Explain Why This Is A Threat Validity of the concerned study can be stated as the key factor to uphold the integrity of the facts presented. In relation to the study of the training program of Google named GoogleEDU, it can be ascertained one key threat to the validity of the study is a lack of use of different sources to judge the primary facts presented by the author of the article. The article presented in The Wall Street Journal written by Joseph Walker emphasizes certain key elements related to the GoogleEDU program. Nonetheless, the author in the article solely highlights the views of different managerial executives of Google with regard to the program. He does not provide facts presented by other authors regarding the effectiveness or applicability of the training program to ensure sustained success of Google. Besides, the author primarily presents his view regarding training program specifications without providing much detail about the success after the implementation of the program. This factor can be highlighted as a key threat to the validity of the conducted study as to a certain extent it is based upon opinion derived from the understanding of the author rather than on reviewed facts. It has been often observed that judgmental opinion based understanding might not highlight the crux of the matter in hand which might represent a biased understanding. Consequently, in this study as well although the author presented valuable insights about the training program of Google along with presenting certain crucial viewpoints of concerned individuals undertaking the program but still a lack of review of other authors’ views regarding the discussion area can create a dubious understanding amid the readers. References American Society for Training and Development. (2008). Train the trainer: Training programs: A compilation of basic workplace learning programs. United States: American Society for Training and Development. Dunn, L. (2002). Learning and teaching briefing papers series. Retrieved from http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/resources/briefing_papers/learning_theories.pdf Eraut, M. (n.d.). Learning in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.niace.org.uk/lifelonglearninginquiry/docs/WPL0006i.pdf Knoll, N. (2003). Business R&D and the role of public policies for innovation support: A qualitative approach. Retrieved from http://www.tip.ac.at/publications/business_rd.pdf Liu, C. C. (n.d.). Factors that influence students learning attitudes toward computer courses for technology and vocational institute students in Taiwan. International Journal of Applied Management Education and Development. 1(3), 1-12. Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development. Retrieved from http://serverlib.moe.gov.ir/documents/10157/42675/Employee+Training+and+Development.pdf Walker, J. (2012). Schools in session at Google. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303410404577466852658514144 Read More