Human Resource Development Enabling Employees Gain New Skills Applicable in Their Careers - Essay Example

Workshop Critique Name Institution Introduction Human resource development is an integral part of human resource management in any organization. It entails training and other career development strategies that an organization applies to improve effectiveness in its workforce (Werner and DeSimone, 2011, p.4). HRD aims at equipping the employees with new knowledge and skills that can be used to solve emerging life problems. One way of developing such skills in employees of an organization is through workshops (Steinert and Davis, 1992). The workshops emphasize on the acquisition and practicing of skills to solve problems associated with an assignment at work place. Essentially, effective workshops ‘can create gap between desired and actual job performance, and are most valuable if practical and relevant to both organizational and individual training needs’ (Bellman & Kelly, 2000, p.1). The training needs of the learners need to be considered when planning such workshops in order to register some success. A workshop is often designed with key learning outcomes and objectives, which are formulated when planning such an event. Clifford and Thorpe (2007) note that the learning outcomes and objectives of some training workshop will contain the knowledge and skills that the learners need to develop at the end of the session. At the end of the workshop, an evaluation needs to be conducted to identify the knowledge and skills developed by the learners. This helps in evaluating the success of the workshop- its efficiency and the extent to which the objectives have been met. This paper provides a critical analysis of a HRD workshop. The design of the workshop, its efficiency in implementation, and the outcomes are discussed. Rationale behind the workshop design The development of an effective workshop will borrow largely from the theories and principles for learners in general and those specific to adult learners. Various theories have been advanced to explain a true learning process, which reflect on the design and planning of a development process. According to David Kolb (Kolb’s experiential learning cycle), learning involves four stages: gaining some experience, reflecting upon the experience, creating theories out of the experience, and applying the theories to solve life experiences when such problems are next encountered (Clifford and Thorpe, 2007, p.20; Sadler-Smith and Evans, 2006, p.115). Consequently, four different learning styles emerge among adults; diverging, assimilating, converging, accommodating styles (Thurber, 2003). The design of a human resource development workshop should then consider and incorporate all the four stages of learning and the different styles. Thus, an effective workshop will present the participants with an experience, enable them to reflect and conceptualize the experience, and practice applying the concept in a real life situation. Consequently, developing an effective workshop will certain key steps. Firstly, it is important to identify and define training needs (Bellman and Kelly, 2000). This explains why our group sought information from some HR professional from a five star hotel. In the needs analysis, we attempted to determine the understanding of various professionals on the appropriate mechanisms for retaining employees in an organization. We sought to identify the professionals’ understanding of the factors such as culture in employee retention, essence of training programs on employee retention and the general solutions to employee turnover in the hotel industry. These were attempts to identify the training needs for the workshop. The next step is to define the objectives of the workshop based on the identified training needs (Bellman and Kelly, 2000). Workshop of this kind targets adults and the objectives should be articulated in a manner that is appealing to the learners. Strategies should be developed to enable the adult learners buy the idea. The workshop had many objectives, which were clearly stated at the beginning of the session plan; to identify the roles of a HRD professional, to learn various key issues related to human resource development, to identify the challenges in human resource development, to learn the opportunities available for HRD professionals, and to learn group activities and communication. The next step is to determine what is to be covered (the content) and the time frame within which each identified activity is to be performed. These are heavily dependent on the subject matter to be discussed (Steinert and Davis, 1992). An effective workshop design will be characterized by proper time management. Good time management entails developing and adopting an effective sequence of events, which will ensure that participants learn some concepts within the schedule (Downs, 2008, p.20). It is important to go by the schedule in order to ensure the workshop is completed within the stipulated period. The contents of the workshop and sequence of events requires an understanding of the workshop participants. It is essential to consider the readiness, learning styles, and the training needs of the learners. Good learning is enhanced by understanding the learning styles required by the students and integrating them into the learning environment (Marcy, 2001). The workshops mainly target adult participants, who are professionals in some field. Thus, it has to be designed with a focus on, and understanding of, the adult learning style and principles (Thurber, 2003). The theory of adult learning (andragogy) has been of interest to many scholars in the recent past with scholars highlighting its application to adult learning environment. One of the principles of adult learning is that the adult learners, unlike children, are often concerned with the reason as to why they should learn something (Lucas, 2009; Downs, 2008, p.20). Adults are concerned with the proper management of time. While children can have plenty of time to learn (inside or outside classroom and schools), adults have limited time as they have to attend to other social responsibilities in the society (Felder and Soloman, 2000). In order to win their attention towards the workshop, the learners have to understand the benefits associated with the workshop. They need to know the objectives of the workshop and the applications of the information to be obtained to improve their operation at work or general understanding of life processes. A proper design of a workshop will require that the objectives and outcomes are also stated clearly just at the planning stages. The objectives and learning outcomes are often stated ‘’in terms of the knowledge, skills, or behaviors that will be demonstrated at the end of the experience’ (Clifford and Thorpe, 2007, p.20). The achievement of these objectives determines the success of the workshop. Secondly, adult learners, unlike children, often need to have self-control mechanisms; they need to be self-directed in their learning (Felder and Soloman, 2000; Marcy, 2001; Lucas, 2009). Adults would want some independence while making decisions in various situations in life. They have had good life experiences that they can apply to make own decisions. As such, an effective adult workshop should entail problem-solving and decision-making processes where individuals are given roles to play (Lucas, 2009). There is need for small group activities moderated by a group leader and a presentation at the end of such group tasks. Thirdly, it is also important to note that the adults have a wealth of new ideas and skills that they can incorporate into the learning environment (Downs, 2008, p.20; Lucas, 2009). As such, the adults will bring in numerous questions to the workshop environment. A good workshop needs to cultivate and exploit such skills through group formation and assigning different roles as well as presentations. A good workshop requires the trainees to be put into small groups, say of four, to enable them identify the challenges in the learning process and provide feedback (Thaine, 2010, p.15). The workshop was conducted in a group of five people. Different members of the group played different roles, such as during the interview. The workshop was concluded with a presentation, where one acted as group leaders. Similarly, adults will learn more effectively when they experience the need learn and acquire some knowledge or skill: when they develop a feeling that the material to be covered has some relevance to life (Felder and Soloman, 2000; Marcy, 2001). An effective workshop should aim at enhancing the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the learners (Bellman and Kelly, 2000, p.1). Besides, while children will learn with the main aim of passing exams, adults learn to gain knowledge and skills that can be applied to solve life processes. The outcomes of the implementation of the design It is needless to plan and conduct a workshop if the objectives will not be realized. The workshop should also be easy to implement. The materials for training need to be effectively designed in order to facilitate the achievement of the learning outcomes (Brown and Voltz, 2005). Now, the workshop as designed had a mixture of good and bad features. The group understood well the necessity of conducting a needs assessment for training. A questionnaire was developed that would help collect facts on the concept of employee retention in the hotel industry. There was good use of quantitative data collection tool as well good graphical presentation of the data. There is also a set of questions that would obtain much qualitative data concerning employee retention in an organization. Nonetheless, some of the questions included in the questionnaire were either irrelevant or not clear. For instance, Question 2 seeks any idea about five star hotels in China. It is not clear what ideas are implied here and their contribution towards the intended workshop objectives. Besides, some of the questions asked do not conform to the range of responses given (0- 6). In my understanding, questions such as 6 require a simple answer of yes or no. The responses here would be “Yes,” “No,” or “Declined to respond”. In fact, the response given as “Not Applicable”, in my observation, should be “Declined to respond” because none of these questions are not applicable to any participants. This also applies to the questions in the feedback section. Besides, question 6 is trivial in that no reasonable HRD professional while provide a different opinion that employee retention is not important in the hotel industry. In fact, that question is irrelevant in HRD in any context. Similarly, the graphical presentations do not provide sufficient information on the data presented. A graphical presentation is often accompanied by facts such as the description of data presented and the number participants. Now, the workshop design was relatively difficult to implement. The overall session plan was chaotic as there was no clear description of the contents to be covered at a given time. Steinert and Davis (1992) caution that the success of the workshop requires thorough planning; one should never to leave anything to chance. A time schedule was given from the time of the formation of the group to the presentation but it does not define the individual activities performed- the timing is very arbitrary. Consequently, the workshop took longer than the participants had anticipated. The room setup is also not described clearly here. Nonetheless, facilitator had a powerful PowerPoint presentation touching on various key issues in the retention of employees with particular emphasis on the hotel industry. As such, the workshop succeeded somehow in helping the learners to gain insights into the key aspects of human resource development in an organization. Besides, a workshop is evaluated through some feedback form. A good tool was developed containing qualitative and quantitative questions to help understand if the objectives of the workshops were achieved. Feedback from the participants indicates that some of the objectives were met whereas some objectives were not realized; some of the participants benefitted from the training while others did not gain any life changing experience. When asked if the session covered what they had expected, 22% strongly agreed, 45% agreed, 11% were neutral while another 22% disagreed with the statement. Similar results were obtained in the contribution of the session towards the career development. In this case, 11% strongly agreed, 67% agreed, 11% were neutral, while another 11% or one person out of nine strongly disagreed. The participants also generally reported that the objectives had been clearly stated at the start of the session but gave mixed reactions as to whether all the objectives had been achieved. The partakers were also requested to reply to the claim that the facilitator was effective. In this case, a larger proportion was of the opinion that the facilitator was effective; Strongly Agree (22%), Agree (33%), Neither Agree nor Disagree (33%), and disagree (11%). Similarly, the participants reported that the level of interactivity was generally appropriate for the session. There were mixed reactions as to whether or not the materials used in the workshop were sufficient and useful to the participants. The poor timing had negative implication on the overall outcome of the workshop. In their feedback, 67% of the participants indicated that the duration of the session was not right for them stating that it was just too long. However, only small proportion (22%) of the participants reported that the pace of the activity was slow. This suggests that schedule of activities was inappropriate. The improvements that should be imposed on the workshop design include identification of key discussion activities and developing a good structure breakdown. Issues that may not be very relevant to the topic of discussion should be limited within the presentation. The structure should be developed such that related contents follow each other in the presentation; an aspect of the discussion naturally transitions to the other. There is need to keep focus on the topic of discussion- the retention of employees, and all other inputs should revolve around this area. Similarly, a good presentation requires that the participants have enough and relevant materials to enable them follow what the presenter is driving at. Conclusion Human resource development is an essential role in any organization as it enables the employees gain new skills and knowledge applicable in their careers. One way of facilitating HRD is through workshops. A workshop needs to be effective and easy to implement. It is important that the objectives of a workshop are stated clearly at the beginning in order to appeal to the participants with an attention to the targeted participants. The targets of workshops are often adults who have had significant differences with the children. The adults have to understand why they have to participate in a given training session- the benefits they will get from such an activity. They also have varied life experiences, which will influence the design and conduct of the workshop. The development of the objectives should apply the learning theories for adult. An effective needs analysis should be carried out before planning a workshop to identify what will be covered: the aspects of the human resource development that needs to be improved. Workshops should take appropriate time neither too short nor too long. It should not be too short to limit discussion of key issues and neither should it be too long to create boredom among the participants. The facilitators should ensure that they follow the stipulated schedule. Similarly, there needs to be sufficient resources to facilitate the presentation process in the workshop. References Bellman, G and Kelly, L. (2000). Create Effective Workshops. American Society for Training and Development Brown, A and Voltz, B. (2005). Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 6(1). Clifford, J & Thorpe, S. (2007). Workplace Learning and Development: Delivering Competitive Advantage for your organization. London: Kogan Page Limited Downs, L. (2008).Time Management Training. Baltimore, Maryland: American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Press Felder, R and Soloman, B. (2000). Learning styles and strategies. Instructional Design Handouts. Retrieved from http://152.27.13.226/uploads/SSC/20090925-InstructionalDesign_Handouts.pdf Marcy. V. (2001), “ Adult Learning Styles: How the VARK © learning style inventory can be used to improve student learning. ”Perspective on Physician Assistant Education, Journal of the Association of Physician Assistant Programs Vol 12, No 2, Spring 2001 Lucas, R. (2009). Training Workshop Essentials: Designing, Developing, and Delivering Learning Events that Get Results. New York: John Wiley & Sons Sadler-Smith, E and Evans, C, (Eds). (2006). Learning styles in education and training. Education + Training, 48(2/3). Steinert, Y and Davis, M. (1992). Twelve Tips for Conducting Effective Workshops. Parent Academy. Retrieved from http://www.kapaa.k12.hi.us/Parent%20Academy/10_11/tipsconductingwkshps.pdf Thaine, C. (2010). Teacher Training Essentials: Workshops for Professional Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Thurber, J. (2003). Adult Learning Styles, National Property Management Association, 15(1), pp.17-18 Werner, J and DeSimone, R. (2011). Human Resource Development. 6th ed. 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