Training and Development - Research Paper Example

? Training and Development Introduction Business environment has been changing rapidly; it becomes crucial for any organization to train and develop their employees to meet market expectations. Training and development helps attain other objectives too. The paper explores the benefits of training and development and also looks into the aspects that are necessary to create alignment among employees or organizational engagement. Importance of Training and Development At the outset, it is worth contemplating why training and development is so crucial. Vance (2006) argues that training and development helps organization to execute its strategy, generate financial gains and push the organization closer to its mission. Training and development helps create employee engagement and commitment. When an employee enters an organization, he or she gets first interaction through orientation programs. That imparts information about company policies, procedures and more than that what the company strives for. Training helps employee to acquire skills and knowledge that are necessary to perform the job. Training increases employee's value for the organization; however, employee engagement is a complex process as organizations define them in a variety of ways. Training and development is one of the ways to keep employees aligned to achieve organizational goals. For many organizations brand is the most valuable asset and that becomes even more crucial when customer interacts with the staff. Harkness (2011) emphasizes on engaging employees to deliver the brand that customers have faith on. Training plays a crucial role in involving staff to demonstrate how they need to change to deliver the brand consistently. Organizations such as National Blood Service and South West Trains have devised training programs even for their directors to make internal communication effective across the organization. Defining Employee Engagement Pascale et al. (1997) argue that the companies excel in the present business environment when a large percentage of employees contemplate deeply about the success of the organization. The feeling motivates employees to take a greater interest in activities of the organization creating increased involvement of the employees in the organization. Dickson (2011) defines employee engagement as a feeling of passion, commitment and energy that transforms into taking initiative, increased innovation and persistency with the tasks. In a survey carried out by Melcrum, a research and training consultancy firm, it was found that 27 percent of the organizations undertook a dedicated engagement program while 54 percent of the organizations took engagement as a routine philosophy ingrained in overall employee practices. This proves that organizations do recognize the employee engagement as an important ingredient for their success. Building Organizational Engagement Bradford (2012) argues that aligning everyone to the organization strategy is critical to achieve what organization has earmarked as its strategic goal in the short as well as long run. Bradford outlines five basic steps to establish employees’ alignment with the company strategy. At the outset, employees must be imparted with the conceptual tools so as to have a good strategic thinking about the work. The examples of such tools are training and role models. That is to say, employees must have freedom to make strategic decisions in line with the company's strategy. It is necessary that employees understand the basics of business to see that the strategy is going to make their organization better, enhance their job security and chances of promotions. Without such conceptual tools, it will be difficult to achieve employee engagement. Secondly, employees must have clear understanding about strategy of the organization. Employees aligned with strategy of the organization will have more focused objective before them. Bradford suggests that the best way of aligning employees is to make it their strategy. It is better to involve as many people as possible in the strategic planning process. The essence lies in making the people feel that they are involved in the decision making process. Thirdly, strategic alignment should revolve around the structure of the organization. The author argues that a 'silo effect' is likely to hinder the flexibility in activities and strategic alignment is possible only through departmental cooperation. That is the reason organization such as Hewlett-Packard has created a 'matrix' kind structure to increase the inter-departmental smooth flow of activities. Fourthly, the job structure, hiring, training, compensating and retaining employees should match with the strategy of the organization. To differentiate, specialty jobs should not have commodity job structures otherwise that will take specialty customers away from the company. Lastly, it is important to identify whether the employee agrees to the company strategy or not. At times, the employee does not agree with company’s strategic goals and it is always better to part with such employee as that neither helps the organization nor the employee. Vance (2006) states that high-involvement work practices can do wonders in the success of an organization. Employees who devise and implement process changes are aligned employees. According to him, employee engagement is made of several components: power, information, knowledge and rewards. Power to make decisions maximizes involvement especially, when power is pushed down from the top to the bottom where decisions are implemented. Information systems means essential data such as costs, revenues, and customer feedbacks can work wonders in engaging employees of the organization. Developing a high-involvement work system requires an information system that provides relevant data necessary for the work processes. Knowledge means skills and abilities that employees must possess to carry out the tasks. That is where training and development plays a pivotal role in the dynamic market place. All these processes are crucial and enhance organizational engagement. The importance of the training and development can be gauged from the fact that a new employee at General Motor's plant go through between 350 and 700 hours of training. Not only that but each employee goes through at least 92 hours of training in a year because work process depends heavily on the employee skills for enhanced quality and higher productivity. That is needed to remain competitive in the dynamic global automobile market. Conclusion Devising and implementing various processes including training and development to form an engaging organization is indeed a huge task. Every organization has unique situation and issues at hand and therefore, it becomes essential that managers and employees constantly undergo training and development process. It is a proven fact that employee engagement develops positive beliefs and attitudes that finally lead to enhanced performance of the organization. References Bradford, R. (2012). Building Support for the Strategic Plan: Aligning Employees with Strategy. Retrieved September 13, 2012 from http://www.cssp.com/CD1001/AligningEmployeesWithStrategy/ Dickson, D.A. (2011). Fostering Employee Engagement, HRD Press, Amherst, MA. Harkness J. (2011). Engaging Your People to Deliver Your Brand. Retrieved September 13, 2012 from http://www.iqpc.com/redcontent.aspx?id=65820 Pascale, R., Millemann, M., Gioja, L. (1997). Changing the way we change. Harvard Business Review, (November-December): 127-139. Vance, R.J. (2006). Employee Engagement and Commitment. SHRM Foundation. Retrieved September 13, 2012 from http://www.cpms.osd.mil/ASSETS/6592058AA71E4895AA72AFB471CB9DD2/Employ eeEngagementOnlineReport%20-%20SHRM.pdf Read More