Training And Development in The UK Business - Research Paper Example

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN UK BUSINESS Table of content page Table of contents 2 Introduction 3 Problem ment ..4 Research questions . 5 Literature review 5 Methodology a. Research design . 7 b. Sample size .... 7 c. Data collection tools and administration ... 7 d. Data analysis . 8 Ethical considerations..... 9 Implementation table. . 9 Bibliography . 10 Introduction Training and development is an important element in the function of any organization. It is an integral part of development of human capital in any organization. It has been shown that a competent workforce is an important source of a competitive edge for an organization which cannot be replicated by other competing organizations. In this regard many companies will invest a huge part of their revenue in training and development of the workforce. There are several methods that can be used in training and development of organizations. Organizations can carry out internal training or on-work training where employees will undergo training when they are still working. This helps the organization to train the employee while they are still performing their duties. On-work training is one of the most effective ways of helping an organization to increase the skills of its workforce. However organization can also train their employees in other institution. In this case employees are given study leave to attend training in other institutions. This is usually important when organization want to train their employees on new technology which is not readily available. There are other benchmarked ways that have been shown to be important in the training and development of the workforce that can be used by organization (Arkin 1995, p. 73). Employees can also be trained on different issues. The kind of skills that the company imparts to its workforce depends on the line of operations. But there are general skills that any company will need to impart to its workforce including communications, customer services, respecting diversity in the workplace, ethics in operation, human relations, and others that are important in the functioning of the organization as one system. But the most important skills that any organization would like to impart of its workforce with the special skills that are used in its line of operations. However at the end of the day there are number of benefits that both the employees and the organization are likely to have. Although the organization will use a lot of resource in training the employee, at the end it will have a competent workforce and increase its overall production. It will haves satisfied workforce and reduce its rate of employee turnover. It will also help to enhance the image of the company and help in risk management. For the employees, there will be increased job satisfaction, increase level of employee motivation, increase efficiencies in the production process, increase capacity for them to adapt to the new work processes and the new technologies that are being implemented in the workplace, increase innovation and reduced turnover (Beard 2002, p. 83). Most of the studies that have been carried out have shown that there is a difference between different companies in the way they train their employees and the achievement of the employees. In this case it has been noted that companies may use the same training and development process but achieve different end results. While the quality and the level of train can be taken as a probable factor causing this difference, many studies have not looked the employee's contribution factor in the efficiency of the process. There is need to carry out more research on the different between employee expectation and perception of training and the overall success of training and development initiatives (Thorpe 1997, p. 23). Problem statement Although most companies have invested in the training and development of their workforces, they have not been achieving the same result. Studies have shown that the quality and the orientation of training determine the overall results of the training process but they have overlooked the employee factor. The perception and expectation of employee as far as training and development is concerned to be researched on. Research questions The following question will help the research to collect data that can used to find the gap between the result of training and development program and the perception and expectation of the employees: Which is the major reason that leads companies to invest in research and development What are the expectations of the employees from training and development programs before and after they undergo training What is the overall satisfaction of the employees and the company with the training and development process How does the company and the employee benefit from the processes in tangible and intangible aspects Literature review According to Alder (1995) employees need to undergo training from time to time in order to enhance their competitiveness. Employees need to undergo refresher training most often to remind them of what they have been practicing, to impart new skills in them in order to change the way the organization has been operating, and in order to orient them to the new technology in the market. Carter gives this as the most important reason why organizations have to carry out training and development program from time to time Alder 1995, p. 86). For along time now organizations have been treated like machine that continuously perform according to the way that they were first set. But organizations have been found to be dynamic and don't act like they are dead. The dynamism in organizations has been shown to be vested in the changing environment and therefore in most instances, organization will change their mode of operation in order to be in line with the changing environment. They will need to be renewed from now and then to be in line with the changes in the environment. This means that that training and development in any organization should not be taken as spontaneous activity that is catalyzed by the demands in the environment. Rather, long term planning in the HR department on how it is going to implement training and development is important in the long run (Alliger, 1997, p. 32). It has been shown that most organizations usually obtain different results as far as training and development is concerned. One of the major causes of this difference has been shown to be the long term training of the training and development programs in the organization. Most of the organizations which have recorded success on training and development programs are those which have expended time in planning it and involving the employee to determine the kind of skills that they need to make them more effective. Therefore the planning process will determine the way in which the organization will carry out the activities and the end result to the employees and to the organization in general (Parry 1996, p. 90). Most employees usually have very high expectations when they are put in a training program. Most of them have shown that they expect to be promoted once they complete their training while others have shown that they expect gain higher salaries than what they used to earn before. Once they don't meet these expectations, most of them feel demoralized and may even perform poor that they did before they went for training (Burgoyne 1997, p. 43). The perception of the employee has also been shown to be a factor in the success or failure of the program. Most of the employees who are trained by their fellow workers have a poor perception of the training and development program as compared to those who are trained by instructors outside the organization. The perception of the employee about the quality of training affects their overall performance after the training. (Hodges 1999, p. 3) Methodology The research will collect both primary and secondary data for the study. (i) Research design The study will use survey research design since it is best suited to collect social research data for the study. The research will use case study of companies that have put in place a training and development program for the employee. The case study will be best suited since it will give the research result from the companies that have put the process in practice and carried out evaluation on the process to asses its success or failure. (ii) Sampling and sample size The sampling frame for the study will be the organizations and their employees. The study will select a sample of 5 companies that have successfully carried out training and development program in the UK industrial sector. From these organizations the study will then randomly select 10 employees from each. Random selection will be used in order to reduce bias in the study but the selection process will be done from each department in pro-rata bases depending on the number of department in the organizations. Therefore the study will have a sample size of 50 that will participate in the study. Among the 10 samples selected from each company four will be selected from and administration while the rest will be from the employees. (iii) Data collection tools and administration The research will employ face to fact interview and delivery and collection self administered questionnaires. In this case it will seek to have face to face interview with the management staff in each organizations while it will deliver and collect self administered questionnaires to the workers in order to reduce the level of disruption from their work. The researcher will give those questionnaires which they will fill at home and then collect them the following day but only after giving clear instructions on how to fill them (Trochim, W 2000, p. 78). For the administration of the data collection tools, the research will start by developing the draft questionnaire which will then be pretested for its validity. Then a final questionnaire for the study will be made. The research will then seek permission from the organizations where it intends to carry out the study. After being granted permission to carry out the study, the research will then select the samples that will participate in the study. It will then seek permissions to have interview with the management and give out questionnaires to the employees. The interview will be attended to as per the schedule for those managers who will be very busy to grant an interview they will also be given questionnaire to go fill and then collect it later. For the secondary data, the research will review a number of researches that had been done in the past. In this case it will use research results from other studies and also from the government ministry of labour. This will be collected also from international research and performance of other international companies. Secondary data will be collected from the internet, periodicals, academic journal, company performance results, and other sources. The secondary data will be important to help the researcher to build on the topic. (iv) Data analysis The collected data will be analyses using simple data analysis tools. This will make use of median, means, percentages and other tools. The collected data will then be compared to the secondary data in order to come up with conclusions. Ethical consideration There are a number of ethical considerations that will be observed during data collection. The following will be some of the practices that will ensure ethics in the study: The research will inform all the participants in the study about the research and purpose of the research. This will help clear doubt among the participants of the intention of the research. For the period of the data collection, the study will keep to its purpose and will not deviate or use the participants to collect any other information (Cooper and Frank 2001, p. 73) The data that will be collected will be used solely for the purpose of the study. It will not be diverted for any other use. The research will ensure the participants of their privacy and therefore the results of the study will not be given to the management of the company to take any action against those employee who will have given negative answer to question that pertain the relationship between the employee and the organization. Research time table Activity July August September October November Drafting the Questionnaire X Pretesting questionnaire X Sampling and booking interviews X Data collection X X Data analysis X Writing the Report X References Alder, A 1995, The changing nature of outdoor training, Management Training, Vol. 1 Alliger, G1997, A meta-analysis of the relationship among trainee criteria, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 50 Arkin, A 1995, Breathing fresh air into training, People Management, Vol. 5 Beard, C 2002, The practice of learning: a handbook for trainer and educators, Kogan Page, London Burgoyne, J 1997, Management learning, Sage, London Cooper, W. R. & Frank, G. L 2001, Key ethical issues facing the property and casualty insurance has a decade made a difference CPCU Journal, Vol. 54, Issue 2, 99-111 Hodges, T 1999, The value of measuring learning and performance, American Society of Training and Development, Vol. 56 Parry, O 1996, Measuring training ROI, Training and Development, Vol. 49, Issue 2 Thorpe, R 1997, Research traditions in management learning, Sage, London Trochim, W 2000, The Research method knowledge base, Atomic Dog Publishing, Cincinnati Read More