How the Role of the Organizational Trainer Has Changed in the Last Ten Years - Essay Example

?Running Head: DISCUSS HOW AND WHY THE ROLE OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRAINER HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST TEN YEARS Discuss how and why the role of the organizational trainer has changed in the last ten years Insert Name Insert Grade Course Insert Tutor’s Name 8 January 2011 Outline Introduction The role of human resource professional in the twenty first century Impact of Globalization Changing Roles through Leadership Changing Roles through Information Technology Conclusion Reference list Discuss How and Why the Role of the Organizational Trainer Has Changed In the Last Ten Years Introduction The duties of a human resource professional have conventionally been attributed to organizational training. Training has been the main role of organizational trainers. However, with the changing times, the role has shifted to development. This works is an in-depth discussion of how and why the role of a human resource professional has been transformed due to and through changing times, globalization, information technology, and leadership. The role of human resource professional in the twenty first century The training and development environment within the context of an organization has changed immensely since the start of the twenty first century. In the conventional sense, organizational trainers were often regarded as instructors. They were specialists in various disciplines that made them to obtain training towards the end of their careers. Apart from accepting their position in organizations, trainers had a strong belief in the value of their training and were eager to invest in it. A trainee’s evolving career depended on the trainer’s finite range of knowledge and skills backed by wide experience. The provision of this early training set a pace for long-term professionalism such that, once people were trained, they were expected to exercise the contents of the training throughout their career lifetime. There was no room for more investment in training. These conventional views have been overtaken by time due to the change that has come with the twenty first century. This change has not only made most organizations to cope with it, but has also caused individuals to affirm the fact that with time, their training becomes obsolete. New technology, changing working practices and a highly competitive business environment has called upon most organizations to hire employees who can handle these (Stwart, et al, 2005, p. 357; Hodson and Sullivan, 2007, p. 221; Holman, 2005, p. 1; Verburg, 2005, p. 50). Some skills, structure of knowledge, and working practices have been termed as irrelevant. Due to the significance that change comes with, there is therefore a great need for organizational trainers to live up to the challenge of helping people to not only unlearn some of the redundant skills, but also to acquire and relearn new ones. This is part of what has made the role of the Human resource Development to change from training to development. Therefore, the role of an organizational trainer (Human Resource Development) has changed in a number of ways. First, there is a rising interest being developed among organizational trainers in labor aspects such as long-term unemployment, inadequate skills, and equivalent opportunities. Secondly, they are faced with the task of raising awareness on the significance of training, and continue with spreading the concept that, in the long run, it is the development of the labor skills and the learning culture that an economy’s long-term competitive performance and its enterprises are based on. Thirdly, the trainer is preoccupied with the role of coming up with nation-wide training techniques that should be determined by people, investors and national competencies. Fourth, there is the establishment of corporate mechanisms that should be determined by core activities leading to the development of non-core services such as instruction and consultancy. Fifth, the trainer should take part in organizational restructuring that include decentralization, empowering senior operating managers, and delayering. Sixth, the role to implement ongoing improvement approaches with an emphasis on teamwork, flexibility, and cultivation of a positive attitude. Seventh, there is a fresh interest in the development of the organization and in the notion of organization learning. Eighth, they are greatly involved in coaching of other staff. Ninth, there is more inclination towards the application and transfer of knowledge rather than merely its acquisition. Tenth, there is a great investment in learning media and resources to empower the organizational human resource due to developments in Information Technology. Moreover, their role is being inclined towards being interested in how different people learn. In addition, there is a rising stress particularly on practicing, trustworthiness and accountability (Darling et al, 1999, p. 12 cited in Stwart, et al, 2005, p. 359). Besides, the organizational trainer has changed from being a training provider to a learning facilitator. This is reflected through the devotion of more effort to informal learning process, buttressing a broader client base and knowledge management practices. The nature of the role of the Human Resource Developer has also changed due to the changing nature of the training market (Stwart, et al, 2005, p. 360). Impact of Globalization Due to the fast pace at which most business organizations are globalizing, the role of the organizational trainer is dramatically changing. Organizational structures and business are being changed due to the ongoing advancements in Information Technology. Due to this, both geographical and organizational boundaries are being broken. Competition is really at a fast rate among both small and great businesses because of numerous competitors getting into conventional markets by means of Information Technology, which was at sometime assumed to be relevant and useful to only national companies. This has led most business to acknowledge the significance of foreign markets and rivalry towards their success and survival (Sparrow, Brewster, and Harris, 2004, p. 1; Benetti, 2003, p. 21; Allen, 2006, p. 25). From the beginning of the twenty first century, the advent of the internet and e-commerce has been increasing at a rather fast rate. This has further contributed to a rise in the international flow of commodities and hence affecting greatly on the speed at which internationalization is affecting the role of the role of the human resource managers. Growth of the web has really affected has led to significant changes in business structures, business processes and global trade patterns. There are anticipations among most people that the e-commerce is likely to impact of e-commerce will be revolutionary in the twenty first century the way creation of mass production strategies was in the twentieth century (Sparrow, Brewster, and Harris, 2004, p. 1). In such a context, the organizational trainer in the mobile telephone industry is not bothered about managing mobile employees who are internationally based. The actions of several leading local and multinational corporations vividly depict the shift in global thinking regarding. Markets that are being shaken up by contraction, new entrants, and rivalry are causing majority to resort to innovation in order to survive. Integrated programs meant to connect work practices to their need to offer radical cost adjustments in line with introducing initiatives that are aimed at enhancing short term, functional or fiscal flexibility. The identification and sense of involvement for employees have been changed due to increased flexibility. The changed identity on the other hand goes beyond borders. Most nations are therefore forming new regional blogs to help enhance partnership in employee relations. As such, the skills and competencies of the Human Resource Development Managers are changing to match an international profile (Sparrow, Brewster, and Harris, 2004, p. 2). Changing Roles through Leadership The contemporary leading companies acknowledge their need for superb leadership in their business operations than during any other time in history. This can be attributed to the rapidly emerging intricacy, enhanced worldwide rivalry and unexpected uncertainty (Dotlich, Cairo and Rhinesmith, 2009, p. 9). When corporations grow globally, there is always rivalry for employees between them and the organizations whose operations are based in the nation of business. Therefore, the human resource managers become charged with the responsibility of devising programs that will enable them recognize the leadership of potential employees and be committed to creating opportunities that will facilitate the fulfillment of these potential after they have employed them. Global talent management has this as one of its major objectives. For the last ten years, performance management has been adopted by Non Americans (Kamermans, Leusen and Verhagen, 2010, p. 89; Shields, 2007, p. 138). This refers several human resource policies like performance evaluation and performance feedback. It is a believe among most American companies that supervisors have a better understanding than all other people regarding how well subordinates perform their duties. Therefore, supervisors are granted full mandate to measure both employee performance and give necessary feedback (Shah, 2010, p. 124). The performance judgment of employees done by supervisors is therefore regarded as more dependable than that from other sources due to them being conversant with how employees perform. Nonetheless, it is a fact to many American employers that several perspectives are supposed to be looked into before arriving at decisions on employment. In a bid to overcome the shortcomings of collecting data from only one source, most enterprises would prefer to obtain it from several sources. This is taken positively by employees who view it as being fair and as a way of buttressing the super-subordinate relationship within the organization. Both the employees’ satisfaction and commitment to the organization are enhanced by the use of self-appraisals. In organizations where peer appraisals are used such as team-based organizations, there are increased benefits such as group communication, team cohesion, group accountability, and group fulfillment. A recent research among mangers in one thousand United States companies indicated that most managers supported the idea that employees ought to take part in the formal assessment of managers. Upward appraisal can suit managers who are not performing satisfactorily. A given study was carried out among mangers for five years to monitor their performance followed by upward appraisal and feedback. The outcome revealed that managers who had slackened in their performance improved immensely after the upward appraisal. Those managers who met with their direct reports to deliberate over their performance feedback were reported to be the ones who showed great improvement. Suggestions on how to improve accompanying upward feedback makes that latter more effective. Performance based pay is also an issue that is common in several organizations. Its purpose is to act as a connection between an individual’s duties and the strategic goals within the organization (Blanpain, p. 128). It is based on the assumption that performance is motivated by money and exceptional; performance can be attained in this manner. When putting such a program in place, it is imperative to ensure that there is a proper alignment of the incentives and bonuses that enhance excellent performance with the objects that really motivate the members of that society and should be lawful. There is a constant change in external environment of most organizations. Being sustained in such an environment calls for development of proper management abilities, key among these being effective knowledge management. For effective knowledge management to be effected, it calls for an adoption of a human resource management structure that ensures that the organization can both gain and utilize the knowledge resources that are at its disposal (Blanpain, p. 131). Due to the changing competitiveness in the human resource development means that some aspects regarding the current knowledge in human resource management is not only getting outdated, but also requires proper updating. Many of the issues faced by organizations are not effectively addressed by the research that has been conducted to address organizational needs due to competition. Therefore, managers are left to find their own criteria in the contemporary knowledge based competitive business environment. To come up with a Human Resource strategy that will enhance efficient knowledge-based rivalry, it is first procedural to find out the behaviors desired in organizations that are in pursuit of knowledge related methods. Although empirical research is needed to ascertain that certain employee behavior is mandatory for knowledge-based competition to be achieved, there is an agreement regarding two categories of demeanors that are relevant for knowledge-intensive rivalry. These are generic and firm-based knowledge management behavior. After specifying the kinds of behavior that are suitable for excelling in a knowledge-intensive environment, organizations are then faced with the duty of coming up with policies and practices that will enable employees to be engaged in these behaviors. This requires the human resource manager to be engaged in designing of tasks and then moving on to how effectively he can recruit, select, and retain employees (Blanpain, 2010, p. 131; Swanburg, 2002, p. 46; Dale, 2006, p. 236). Changing Roles through Information Technology Just like other technological innovations, Information technology has altered the rules of running business and generally transformed the duties of a human resource professional. This shift in paradigm has provided human resource professionals with a chance to prove that they can improve the organizational value in a new and unique way. Information Technology has boosted the operational efficacy of the human resource duty. Having a strong administrative aspect, it qualifies for automation. Most Information Technology functions tend to focus on the internal roles of the Human Resource, and as such, it aims at meeting the main goals of the Human resource: increased productivity and reduced costs (Heneman, 2002, p. 85; Burke and Cooper, 2005, p. 17; Bohlander and Snell, 2009, p. 9). Introduction of Information and Technology has been seen as a step to replace labor with capital. Its basics aim at dealing with issues such as some computational activities like payroll. There are systems that have been put in place to make simple processing of transactions that apparently increases the amount of work that can be performed by one individual. Organizational overhead has been minimized through using Information Technology to eliminate routine clerical tasks like data entry and other control roles (Stair, 2002, p. 2; Stair, 2005, p. 40). Additionally, personnel files that used be stored in hard copy can now be saved in online database and the information accessed. Apart from storage and information handling roles, organizational databases can be manipulated for other administrative roles as well (Ferris, Rosen and Barnum, 2005, p. 161). Organizations can develop diverse databases for employees that may contain details such as their education, job history, salary history, emergency contacts, among others. This makes it easy for the human resource professional to access relevant information quickly and efficiently. This saves time since computers process information within a short time. Space that could have been created in the office for paper work can also still be utilized for other organizational duties. Conclusion An organizational trainer is a human resource professional. In the past, they were expected to acquire training that could help them throughout their career lives. There were to pass this knowledge and skills to other trainees who could rely on it and never have a chance to invest in further training. However, changes have been experienced in the last ten years, which have totally led to a change in their roles. Such changes have come mainly with the advancement in Information Technology, globalization, and the changing perspective regarding business leadership. Reference List Allen, M.E., 2006. How to Promote and Advertise. New Delhi: Lotus Press. Benetti, R., 2003. 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