How Training Benefits the PowerTech - Case Study Example

Name Institution Tutor Date How Training Benefits the Organization Executive summary Global competition and dynamic changes underscore the importance of human resource within an organization. In the global economy where uncertainty has become the norm, knowledge has become the most important capital that can trigger growth. Initially built on the foundation of managing particular resources and operating at low-cost, modern-day competition is based on possession of knowledge and the efficient management of knowledge. Present day organizations therefore apply their resources, including information, money and time, in training of employees. Technically, organizations that are incessantly creating new knowledge and transmitting it throughout the organization by training their employees, are likely to offer excellent services as well as provide quality products. These training activities portray the company as a progressive organization with constant innovation being the basis of its business (Skinner and Pownall 478). Training and development constitute activities aimed at improving the skills, knowledge and capacities of the employees within an organization. Employees who are effectively trained possess the requisite competences that can meet the needs, both present and future, of the organization. It can be observed that the training and intervention measures can help the organization initiate high performances as well as have actively-engaged workers (Lee 532). Introduction The global economic uncertainties have triggered businesses to monitor their business practices while focusing on opportunities that can cut costs as well as increase efficiency. A major area of focus in this regard is training the customers and employees. In training the workers, the pathway is often clearer. Large and small to medium sized business have to day continued to explore the benefits of Web-based training. Indeed, modern-day computer-based technologies continue to dramatically enhance the capacity of companies to train their employees. Among the most predominant include the ability to conduct live training as well as carry out meeting sessions through the computer to a wide audience. This way, companies get to significantly slash overhead costs by avoiding expensive travel and lodging associated with training while at the same time improving the performance and motivating workers (Mishra and Bhaskar 50). Collaborative training in the organization such as through the Web-conferencing technologies can be essential in enabling the company to facilitate informal learning processes (Sun 153). Critically, an apparent opportunity for cutting costs within the organization exists in the training function, usually a tradition-bound operation that is scattered across the entire organization. This report is addressed to PowerTech International, a new company that is an ICT solutions supplier and services provider based in Victoria, Melbourne. It offers web design services, mobile solutions, Internet marketing, branding. It also supplies computer services to the companies in the emerging markets. In addition, it offers IT research and consultancy. The services and products focus on providing business management software and ICT solutions to the emerging markets. The company currently has 50 employees. On critical analysis of the company, it has unique business models that are accustomed to the delivery of its ambitious growth strategy leading to it domination of the retail market. Its successful strategy has relied on four aspects, which have been key contributors in its successful business, namely its competitive strategy, good executive leadership and its strengths and weaknesses assessment. However, its weakest area has been its human resource as it has been less productive. The report follows a study on the organizational structure of PowerTech. It is perceived that the company can apply Web-conferencing facility to train its employees. This report presents benefits that the company can gain from training its employees. Statement of Problem The core objective of this report is to explore why PowerTech should implement training and development policies. A major concern arises from the study of the organizational behavior of the company which reveals that the company has employees who are less motivated even as their average wage rate is competitive, the company has a high employee turnover, there is a great waste of time at the organization, most of the employees do not understand the standard procedure requisite in operating some of the equipment and most importantly the employees are less productive. Training and development of the employment has therefore been recommended as the most probable solution (Burnes, Cooper and West 456). Statement of purpose The researcher is an employee of PowerTech who have assessed the organizational behavior of the company and found that training and development is critical if the company has to revive its competitive advantage. Training and development is a possible solution as it as an essential part of the human resource management. With regard to the company’s areas of performance, training and development of the employees comprises the activities aimed at supporting the efficiency of the workers through offering additional instructions depending on the employees’ areas of specialization to improve the organization’s operational processes. Benefits of employee training to an organization Primarily, there are two types of training within an organization, including internal and external. Internal training is a type of training where the organization’s internal human resource department or outstanding staff in a particular sector takes charge of training other employees while external training is often conducted outside the organization by hired personnel, instructors or consultant. Regardless of the type of training, they are all intended at serving the same purpose in positioning the staff for greater organizational challenges. Better Employee Performance Training is a learning process and entails the application of knowledge that has been acquired with the objective of ensuring better performance of the employees. Thus the organization is transformed into a learning organization. In itself, learning organization refers to an organization that is proficient in the creation, acquisition and transfer of knowledge, as well as enhancing its organizational behavior to incorporate new insights and knowledge. Social theorist have postulated that the “the heart and soul” of this kind of organization relies on the creation of innovative results and knowledge, or insights that result from continual learning. Even though the nature and significance of learning organization has been a contentious issue, it has grown and radically diversified over the years. In the modern-day business world, the fundamental underlying concept has not changed as organizations can only manage to sustain themselves through continual training. Training programs can ensure a huge change with regard to the attitudes, employee behavior and proficiency of the employees. With these training programs, the employees are familiarized with what the organization expects of them as well as how they should improve their skills and abilities. In addition, it is a means through which to ensure the overall development of the organization and its effectiveness in a manner that is welcome to the organization. Training is a form of employee empowerment. As a consequence, the employees are expected to generate new ideas as well as practice them in their daily work scenarios. The innovative activities are therefore decentralized through employee empowerment. Through this kind of induced empowerment, the company transforms from not only a learning organization but one that can sustain its abilities to learn in the long run. A major benefit of training employees is that it reduces the need for strict supervision of the workers when they perform their duties. Further, the employee is likely to gain newer skills, knowledge as well as have an attitude that is beneficial to his personal growth as well as the growth of the organization. Training also ensures that the employees’ confidence at workplace is increased. This will ensure that PowerTech employees perform their duties while assured of success. Employees who have confidence are also more likely to be motivated which in return would cut the employee turnover rate. This is effective in ensuring that the organization performs in a way that its overall success is assured. Training employees also ensures that the company cuts costs associated with hiring new employees. Typically, employees who are well-trained perform better than those who have not been trained. In addition, they have better career prospects. Further, they will perform their duties and obligations independently. For instance, once PowerTech trains employees, it is expected that managing them would become much easier as it reduces the need to constantly supervise them. Internal training of employees offers proper positioning and demand with satisfaction of the needs that are intertwined into the current processes and workflow. Once a new aspect of work, or problem is identified, training the employee ensures that he is equipped with skills to adapt to the changes and can suitably solve the problems. This means continuous employee training can have a significant impact on the organizational and individual employee performance. Indeed, training plays a critical role in ensuring that organizations are able to confront some challenges. This means that organizations must train their workers to work in multicultural settings, such as in working with persons from varied cultures. This implies that employs who are trained are more dynamic, accommodative and have greater people skills. In addition, training offers the instructional staff an opportunity to instantaneously correct the employees’ mistakes at the workplace, identify more training opportunities as well as review the training programs. Critical understanding of employee training equally calls for understanding of the impacts of learning. Since employee training is the generator of new knowledge, it is positioned within the broader strategic purpose of human resource management. To sustain its acquired position as well as to boost its competitive advantage, PowerTech has to have the capacity to create new knowledge as well as learn to maintain the available knowledge (Prugsamatz 244). Further, when the training offers expected outcome, employees will tend to demonstrate greater sense of ownership of their various jurisdictions within the workplace. This has the capacity of ensuring that the organization increases its productivity and efficiency while job satisfaction increases simultaneously. Studies have indicated that workers who are satisfied with their work will always double their efforts and prove valuable assets to the organization. In turn, this will make the company more productive. For an organization to achieve a competitive advantage, the training should be focused on reducing employee performance deficiencies. When the deficiency is caused by inability and lack of motivation, then the training should be aimed at improving the skills of the workers to boost their interest in the organizational activities. Once employees understand what they do and gain confidence at all levels of work, it is likely that they will be motivated. This means that perception of the tremendous importance of training is effective in boosting the confidence of the organization (Darryl and McCarthy 534). Within the organizational scenario, motivation is a greatly considered asset attributed to its potent influence in triggering certain controlled behaviors, in which case, the individuals within the team carry on in performing the tasks with persistence. Then again, effective leaders are individuals capable of motivating their teams and achieve a common objective through improved performances. Researchers argue that is crucial that individuals who make up the team be motivated and stimulated with an apparent suggestion of focus to enable them to direct their energies towards the predestined direction (Baumeister, 554). It is on this basis regard that it can be argued that motivation is a psychological aspect that stimulated organisms to work towards the preferred goals, as well as elicit certain behaviors and restraints. Indeed, it can be regarded as a psychological drive that compels a response towards achieving a certain goal. Just as hunger can be pointed out as a motivation that triggers the desire to eat, motivation can be pointed out as eliciting certain organization behaviors, wishes, goals or desires. The employees and the organization Training employees assures a company of intangible benefits. Consequently, this is of benefit to the employees and the organization in the long-run. By training the employees, the employees’ level of skills is improved. This in return increases worker’s commitment to their specific jobs as well as to the organization. Studies have found that organizations with employees who understand their jobs reduce the accident and incident rates (Bratton and Gold 48). An additional benefit to the organization is that training employees offers skills within the company which minimizes comprehensive operational costs. In addition, if PowerTech integrates training through the Web or other multimedia, these can ensure that costs associated with hiring consultants to train employees, or transporting employs to a central location for training are reduced. In the long run, this reduces operational costs. Since quality is a major aspect essential for the survival of an organization, studies have shown that employees who are trained are likely to produce quality output. Indeed, quality management techniques and top quality management (TQM) demand that training of employees serve as an important requisite that must be implemented. Quality training of employees can promote customer satisfaction, which in return increases repeat business. Training of the employees can encourage good customer relations, which will increase the quality of the services and products thus increasing customer satisfaction. Since it has been showed that proper training improves employee productivity and production processes, it can improve waste reduction as well as minimize machine down time. Consequentially, this makes the organization to be more competitive in its market segment. The organization is also likely to benefit from investing in training once it is aimed at improving employee satisfaction. When this is ultimately achieved, the employee turnover rate can be reduced significantly as well as enable the organization to retain its competitive and most productive staff. Training is likely to increase the appreciation of the organizational culture (Dymock 185). In a competitive service industry, an organization’s major source of income is undoubtedly its employees’ professionalism and competences. This can be acquired through training. In addition, training is a key prerequisite for new entry requirements, thus proper training and evaluation of the employees’ skills can enable the organization to understand its position, strengths and weaknesses. This implies that the strategic employee training procedure should encourage creativity as well as ensure inventiveness. It should as well shape the organizational culture and provide the organization with unique knowledge (Dymock 186, 187). In addition, training programs can enable the organization to increase the communication within the organization. Since the training programs tend to be interactive, open communication at all levels of an organization are encouraged. Organizational training is effective in ensuring that the company gains a competitive edge in its area of enterprise. Even as there are no single training program benefits, a company that is devoted to improving its human resource capabilities through training can fortify its competitive advantage. At the same time, the employees’ career and personal goals are improved, all which add up to the benefits that the employer accrues. In due course, the objectives of the human resource department are also promoted. The organization also benefits from greater flexibility which ensures stability in growth of the organization. Since trained employees are likely to be more efficient, they can contribute to the overall growth of the organization. In return, growth shows prosperity. In addition, trained employees tend to be more adaptive to organizational changes which ensure continuity and stability in the organization. Conclusion Business operation and survival in the modern-day dynamic environment rely on the organizational knowledge. The ability of employees and the organization to acquire new knowledge as well as master new skills has become the key that unlock an organization’s potentials. Proper management of the human resources, particularly the significance of internal employee training has become unavoidable in the competitive environment. Some researchers have posited that the rate of organizational learning should be greater than the rate of organizational change. Overall, employee training is a continual procedure that though can only become meaningful to an organization when a logical approach is applied. It is thus important to understand that human resource embodies an intellectual capital as an organizational resource. Aside from increasing the productivity of the organization, it can sustain the prosperity of the business in the long-run especially in a dynamic business environment. Works Cited Burnes, B., Cooper, C., & West, P. “Organizational Learning: The New Management Paradigm?” Management Decision, 41.5 (2003) 452–464. Sun, H. conceptual clarifications for 'organisational learning', 'learning organisation' and 'a learning organisational', Human Resource Development International, 6.2 (2003) 153-66 Mishra, Bijaya & Bhaskar, Uday. Empowerment: A Necessary Attribute of A Learning Organization? Organizations and Markets In Emerging Economies 1.2 (2010) Skinner, J., Pownall, I. Cross, P. Is HRD practiced in micro- SMEs?, Human Resource Development International 6 .4 (2003) 475-89. Torrington, D., Hall L., and Taylor, s., Human Resource Management, 6th ed, Essex: Prentice Hall Europe, (2005) Lee, M. A Refusal to Define HRD, Human Resource Development International, 4.3 (2001) 327-41 Bratton, J., and Gold, J. Human Resource Management: Theory and Practise, 3rd ed, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan (2003) Darryl, D. & McCarthy, C. Towards a learning organization? Employee perceptions. The Learning Organization, 13.5 (2006) 525–536 Dymock, D. Developing a Culture of Learning in a Changing Industrial Climate: An Australian Case Study. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 5.2 (2003) 182–195 Prugsamatz, R. Factors that influence organization learning sustainability in non-profit organizations. The Learning Organization , 17.3 (2010) 243–267 Read More