Human Resource Management - Training and Development Trends in the US - Research Paper Example

? Training and Development Trends in the US Human resource departments are mainly tasked with taking care of hiring and recruitment of new workers, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits and development of careers of employees. Employees are the greatest resource that an organization has and the investment into the development of supervisors and employees can be beneficial to the company in a number of ways including improving competencies, promoting ethics and respect in the work environment, and complying with employment rules (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2003). With the advances in knowledge and technology in the past few decades, more companies are resorting to digitalization of their systems and services. Employees who are able to understand the new systems quickly are maintained while the rest are laid off or relocated. This paper seeks to review the current trend of integrating learning and development into a wider strategy in organizations in the United States. Introduction There have been several trends that have emerged recently in the training and development of employees in various institutions and organizations in the United States. Innovative training technologies have been utilized in some major companies to educate and train their workers, while ensuring they are accountable for the required programs they are supposed to undertake. In human resources, departments which are tasked with recruitment, hiring, and catering for career developments of employees (Bones, 2006), require training programs to address issues among their employees such as performance, behavior or conduct issues. Human resources training and development enhances communication in the workplace and it improves the performance and overall morale of workers. This gives the company a great and continuous advantage to their competitors. A training program thus entails assessing the need that an organization has, designing the necessary material to address the need, developing relevant training exercises and presentations and implementing the program with an evaluation of the results for success. Literature Review The emergence of change and advancement of technology and expectation have led to many challenges to organizations around the globe and major trends in the organizations in the United States have been adopted such as the hiring and employment trend (Bones, 2006). Due to small company budgets, managers are resorting to cheap labor by opting to employ non graduates over graduates. They are reducing the amount of human labor in their companies and implementing digital systems to offer services to their clients more efficiently. Several factors determine the decision by managers to resort to these trends in an organization such as the cost implications of a training program, the ineffectiveness of initial training programs and lack of commitment of employees among others. The role of line managers in coaching and development In many organizations, the training and development activities are increasingly declining due to the high cost of training programs. This decrease could be reflected due to small training budgets or no faith in the value that training employees bring to the organization. If the management of an organization invests in a training program and the results of the program have little or no success on the intended business benefits then they would be hesitant to implement the program a second time. Organizations that are small and have a small number of employees are more likely to lag behind on training the workers probably due to budget constraints. Managements in these organizations opt to minimize on human labor or they employ people with minimal skills to save on salary costs. They pay more attention on equipping the managers who the business depend on to lead it more effectively and focus less on coaching the other employees. Organizations with a high number of employees, more than ten thousand, and charitable organizations are also more likely to lag in providing necessary training to their employees. Voluntary organizations which invest all their funds to serve their cause and as such they might find it difficult to allocate funds for training employees. Despite the requirement that all managers should be selected both for their training skills and understanding of leadership and the profession, there is a great number who not trained to coach (Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007). When line managers are being groomed for the role of training manager, a great number spend less than minimal time in preparation. Very few trainers are supervised and yet they are required to coach staff without the necessary support systems to aid in the process. This poses a risk on the value of leadership knowledge and business outcomes. Conducting performance appraisals and related personal development plans are the main responsibilities that line managers in many organizations are involved in. As such it is important that performance management be delivered and owned by the organization lines (Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007). However, the training specialist is still responsible for initiating learning and development activities within the organization. A clear relationship between the shared responsibilities of training specialists, line managers and employees themselves is common though line managers’ responsibilities are much broader than just performance management. The willingness and ability of line managers to undertake additional responsibilities in the workplace determine the motivation that they instill on the employees to take more responsibility to ensure personal learning and development. With more responsible management, workers are more likely to stay committed to the learning and activities assigned to them and this would promote accountability among all staff in an organization (Gibb, 2003). Also, in the allocation of training and development responsibilities between line managers and other human resource specialists, lack of proper supervision by the management would result in the line managers having more responsibilities since new tasks are added to their initial responsibilities. This creates work pressure and reduces the effectiveness of the program. Incorporating coaching and development into wider organizational strategy Due to changes and advancement in the digital world and the change of society from economies based on production to those based on knowledge, organizations have been forced to adopt new ways of working by adapting their structures, activities and strategies to effectively change the organization and ensure its success. In order to ensure the organization remains competitive in the ever changing society, the managements ensure that they develop capability and motivation in their employees and to enable them to make effective decisions and reduce ambiguity. A workforce that can easily learn and adopt new strategies and policies is vital to the success of the company in meeting their customer expectations. Learning and development in the organization would also develop their strategy and ensure change from old practices. The relationship between employees and business manager or senior executives is further enhanced improving the success of the organization. According to the CIPD survey (Bones, 2007), learning and development professionals are of the view that line managers need to place a lot of importance on their involvement in the process. Conversely, the workers who are the direct beneficiaries of the learning and development practices need to increase their levels of engagement in the process and the general activities of the organization. The survey reveals that a good proportion of the organizations consult learning, training and development specialists at initial stages of planning during the development of strategies of the organization while the rest engage in these practices after the strategic decisions have been made. This could be reflected in the views that senior decision makers do not find learning and development practices important in developing their strategies but rather when dealing with issues that they consider to more importance in the organization. The inability of senior learning and developing managers and line managers to create effective peer partnerships has seen the practices in an organization to be more fulfilling than a requirement. Learning and development of employees have been due to demands by line managers to trainers to provide training courses. Solutions To ensure efficiency of the training programs that organizations use, they should encourage informal teaching as well as formal programs. Managers providing feedback and support to employees in their daily activities boosts the worker’s confidence, enables learning by new employees and ensures retention of learnt material as well as promoting commitment to the activities. Lack of proper motivation makes employees participate in activities because they are obliged to and not because it offers helpful training which improves their development. Individual employees who are capable of coaching their colleagues while working increase the business awareness of the value of their input, and enable the management to evaluate ways in which these skills can be utilized at a greater skill. Equipping line managers to provide adequate training to the employees in an organization is advantageous in that it ensures learning among staff and makes them committed to programs implemented. It also improves the business outcome of the organization. With clear implementation of a program, the management can easily assess where the program is failing in case the business benefits are not met. More focus can be put on how line managers and employee trainers are equipped to ensure the success of these programs. Organizations need to evaluate their options to determine whether investing in training programs, in both formal settings and through line managers would aid their expected business benefits. Both large and small organizations need to decide their motives for implementing a training program and to be clear on the areas they believe implementing the program would improve performance and business results. With this knowledge, the organization would determine the qualities they desire in internal trainers and line managers and this would be the basis of recruitment to ensure development. The line managers and trainers should spend adequate time in training and the organization should provide continuous learning and support to these professionals. The way of practice of line managers and employee trainers determine the response that the employees would have by providing leadership and influencing experiences of employees and by extension, their behavior and attitude (Purcell & Hutchinson 2003). Effective provision of guidance and coaching to employees by line managers improves the levels of satisfaction, commitment and motivation among employees. When a supervisor supports the workers under his supervision correctly, this ensures that the employees are more willing to engage in the development practices in the organization and it improves their overall attitude towards their careers. Increasing the involvement of line managers in training and development is vital in promoting these activities since they integrate the notion of learning and development during daily working activities and improve the attitudes that employees have towards these activities. This enhances development opportunities to a wider group of people hence benefiting more and improving the business benefits from the practices (Gibb, 2003). The involvement of these managers is beneficial to them as well since it helps to improve their competence in the management of people in general and this would be a big step in the contribution to change in organization and improving human relations. In order to support the managers, organizations are supposed to provide them with continuous training through development programs and management training courses. This would serve to reduce pressures due to work overload, address lack of commitment or insufficient training of managers. Organizations should also consider rewarding schemes for line managers and employees who portray training skills in order to promote competence among the staff. A relationship between learning and development teams and the senior managers that promotes consultation would be more appropriate for use in organizations in the changing world. For this model to work, learning and development managers need to gain necessary confidence of management at a senior level in order to engage with training managers as partners instead of simply providing a fulfillment service. Senior business managers and line managers should be more involved in the learning and development practices of the organization and should be comfortable taking part in discussions with each other and with employees about the needs for the process, the design for the instructions, and evaluation models among others. Conclusion From the report, it is clear that qualification and proper subsequent training of staff is important in ensuring they undertake their responsibilities competently. The employment of non-graduates over graduates as a way of reducing costs would be expensive in the long run when a problem arises, as the organization would have to invest in external human resource or training specialists who are more qualified to implement training and development plans within the organization. Proper recruitment criteria and evaluation schemes of employees by the human resource specialists would go a long way in reducing the inevitability of spending more on late hiring of specialists when a problem arises. Employees who display leadership qualities by coaching their colleagues during their daily working activities should also be provided with necessary training to improve on their skills. Internal training and coaching of specialists would be cheaper as compared to outsourcing the expertise of external specialists. Adequate management methods would also ensure that the organizations had enough personnel with clearly defined responsibilities and hence even in the onset of technological advancement, the need to reduce the number of laborers would be reduced. Continuous training of the employees would make them competent in the use different technological systems and would improve the success of the organization. Old systems in organizations of providing training due to demand by line managers and other senior managers should be replaced by newer models that meet the needs of the organizational structures in the digital world. This would be beneficial in adapting effective interfaces between learning and development teams and senior managers in order to support the knowledge of employees in improving and sustaining their capability. References Bones, C. (2006). The talent paradox. In: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Reflections on the 2006 learning and development survey: latest trends in learning, training and development [online]. London: CIPD. Gibb, S. (2003). “Line manager involvement in learning and development: small beer or big deal?” Employee Relations. Vol. 25 (3): 281–293. Purcell, J. and Hutchinson, S. 2003. Bringing Policies to Life: The Vital Role of Front-Line Managers in People Management. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Purcell, J. and Hutchinson, S. 2007. Learning and the Line: The Role of the Line Manager in Learning and Development. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Read More