Training and Development - Abu Dhabi Oil Company - Case Study Example

Training and Development as Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Japan) Name Course Tutor Date of Submission Activity: Training and Development as Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Japan) For this activity, Fazul Abdul, staff in the human resource department of the Abu Dhabi Oil Company was interviewed. The information gathered is put into scrutiny from the point of view of a rapidly changing world. Introduction Training and development are meant to improve the output of human resources. Though the terms are used interchangeably, there is a slight differentiation necessary. Training activities are meant to equip workers with the requisite skills to perform the duties given to them. New staff and students in tertiary institutions mainly require training to understand what is required of them in the field. Development on the other hand seeks to improve the quality of those skills as well as foster innovativeness and creativity in the workplace (Laird et al 2003). Training and development is a duty owed to workers by employers and labor unions worldwide clamor for greater provision of these to their members. However, as will be seen in this case, employers already realize its importance. With its roots in Japan, Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Japan) is one of the greatest foreign owned companies in the United Arab Emirates. It has 167 members in its workforce which may sound a little too low given its sales turnover of 70 billion Yen in 2012 alone (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). That translates to around 0.7 billion dollars at current exchange rates. The size of the workforce is mainly attributable to the sort of sophisticated technology in the oil sector today. The top leadership is mainly composed of Japanese nationals but there are UAE nationals in the board too. The company has a rich history since its incorporation in 1968 and there has been significant growth in sales and profits throughout the years. The company has got vast interests in oil and natural gas exploration. The Need for Training and Development The oil sector is such that technologies evolve quickly and being left behind puts the company at a disadvantage compared to competitors (Kelly et al 2003). Companies must therefore try to put themselves abreast not only through research and development but through training of staff as well. Needless to mention, the productivity of human resource is a factor of the training accorded to them. Therefore in order to gain an edge and bring out the best in their human resource, the Abu Dhabi Oil Company undertakes to sponsor their staff, which they regard as an investment, to various activities in order to add value to them (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). For middle level managers, greater roles await them as leaders in bigger positions. As the company continues to grow, the roles to be carried out also evolve thus the need to grow the capacity of managers. Similarly, the challenges facing businesses also change and managers are only able to exchange ideas and solutions at forums such as seminars and conventions. Given that these also afford them a chance to network and grow business, it is a small price to pay for any business. Well groomed staff also paints a good picture of the business (Laird et al., 2003). The human resource role in attracting the best staff is thereby played through such means. Training and Development at Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Japan) Training and development falls squarely on the human resource department. This therefore means the planning; budgeting and implementation of training and department are duties of the head of this department. Most activities classified as training at Abu Dhabi Oil are carried out indoors for cost reasons. For unskilled labour, on the job learning works best with supervisors and more experienced labourers at hand to help. The less skilled training mainly involves how to handle machines which is normally done during induction (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). For middle and upper level management, training and development are both internal and external as the company will need to groom them for bigger roles in the future. Managers are availed chances to attend seminars to sharpen their skills. In addition, allowing them to oversee new projects the company is pursuing is used as a way of cultivating decision making instincts as well as confidence (Kelly et al 2003). The level of self satisfaction achieved from such initiatives is marvelling. One may ask about the company’s perception about training and development activity of the company. Is it a financial constraint that only comes after essential activities have been dealt with? The amounts of investment in the activities indicate otherwise (Kelly et al 2003). Managers get a chance to attend as many activities as they would like and they are selected according to departments. The other staffs receive training according to a plan set out by the HR department, drawn up after comprehensive needs analysis. Integration Programme New workers always have to learn and start practicing the culture they find at a new firm. However, learning takes time which the company cannot afford and therefore takes it upon itself to help them settle as soon as possible. In this regards, since the workforce is not too big, the company easily appoints a person in respective departments to help new staff fit in. The ‘buddy’ basically explains the dos and Don’ts at the office. Additionally, heads of department are required to ensure proper orientation of new members in their work (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). Settling employees quickly is part of building a corporate image of mindfulness and care for the psychological needs of employees- job satisfaction. Safety precautions for new members present another reason for training and development. Accidents and deaths at the workplace would be bad publicity and as such all new workers must undergo a safety training course developed by the company (IPIECA, 2012). In addition, environmental awareness courses must be undertaken by new employees. To emphasize their importance, the two programs must be redone with all after two years to keep in touch with new developments and especially keep in line with provisions of the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) (IPIECA, 2012). Needs Assessment The needs assessment process at any company seeks to come up with specific skills that the human resource is lacking or need retraining. At Abu Dhabi Oil, the human resource department is always appraising the performance of staff and keeping a record of individual as well as team performance (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). At the beginning of each financial year, the HR department presents to the board a report detailing the scope of activities to be undertaken as well as the value they are meant to add to the staff. The report however must also take into account those needs presented to the HR department by the workers themselves. Questionnaires and interviews are the perfect information gathering means suited for this purpose (Kelly et al, 2003). Apart from understanding what the needs are, the HR department also gets to generate a list of objectives to be achieved from the training and development. This list is later used as a checklist while evaluating the success of the entire process (Kelly et al 2003). Companies can compare their objectives with the industry trends and tell whether they are at par with peers. A company whose objectives are mainly basic training activities reflects that a low level of skills for workers. Staff who only requires development courses to improve the quality they already possess reflects well with the company. Only the board has the mandate to give the activities a nod. However, realising the importance of the activities, adjustments are mainly made to improve the quality of training rather than to trim the budget (Kelly et al 2003). In some cases, the board may make adjustments with a view or realigning the activities with the goals of the organization. What are the benefits of Training and Development? More often than not, the successes of any Training and Development program is gauged by the monetary benefits brought to the company. At Abu Dhabi Oil Company, dividends are reaped since a highly trained workforce will bring more effectiveness in the production process (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). For one, proper training reduces wastefulness of resources in the production process. Secondly, effective training will increase the output per worker translating into greater sales revenue. Given that the sales and marketing team are also well trained, the numbers also reflect this. The non pecuniary benefits are more far reaching. First, the staff members appreciate the efforts being management in growing their career (Kelly et al 2003). This feeling breeds loyalty from employees and thus a positive attitude towards the job. This is often reflected in greater efforts and is actually thought to be more effective than monetary compensation. The Middle East if filled with numerous multibillion dollar oil companies. Employees who feel that Abu Dhabi Oil (Japan) does not guarantee a worthwhile career can easily leave for these other suitors (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). However, the Training and Development at Abu Dhabi Oil has done well to fight the competitors off and maintain a low staff turnover. The company has combined this well together with a flexible remuneration scheme which reflects the training the personnel have undertaken. Gauging the success Evaluation of the training and development process is always critical for purposes of improvement of the process. The feedback at this point is sourced from learners themselves, supervisors and sometimes external sources who may add insight to the assessment (Kelly et al 2003). First of all, through questionnaires, trainees are asked for their thoughts and suggestions on the training process’ effectiveness or otherwise. Their overseers then assess their performance in order to recognise improvements and areas that still need improvements. It can be said that the assessment here is target based where if certain objectives were not met then it reflects a weakness in the training process. Engaging the services of external parties helps put the whole training and development process into scrutiny by comparing it with practices worldwide (Laird et al., 2003). Again the abilities and shortcomings of staff are weighed in the same manner. The external body thereafter makes the appropriate recommendations which the human resource body incorporates in its future training and development efforts. At Abu Dhabi Oil (Japan), there are few adult learners. The learning outcomes applied for them are slightly different given that their role is not too much core to the future prospects of the company (Laird et al., 2003). Adult learners are mainly handed internal training mainly by supervisors and their assessment carried out by the same. Too much training for adult learners may be seen as uneconomical given that most roles given to them are clerical and manual jobs which are repetitive in nature. What are the challenges faced in the Implementation Whereas the benefits of training and development are many, the road to their achievement can be bumpy. HR managers need to awaken to the reality that results cannot be realising immediately but it is rather a continuous process of improving the quality of labour (Laird et al., 2003). The constant innovations and changes in practices in the sector do not help the situation. This obviously calls for sustained investment in training and development and Abu Dhabi Oil feels the heat here. Not all shareholders may be willing to pursue this route of investing in staff. Secondly, staffs in different departments and at different ranks have assorted training needs all which must be attended to. This makes it hard for the human resource team to plan as well as decide on which training activities to prioritise and so on. As earlier indicated, there are both internal and external programmes in the training and development process. Internal programmes may sometimes interfere with operations and therefore employees receive them in batches which further increase the training costs (Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd, 2013). Finally, while companies are at liberty to employ any means to gauge the success of their training and development programme, there is no standard measure. Abu Dhabi uses employee satisfaction, employee turnover, sales revenue and other mentioned measures to evaluate this success. However they cannot comprehensively calculate their return on investment (Laird et al., 2003). Recommendations Despite the great efforts the company has made so far in training and development efforts, there are a number of costs saving measures pursuable. For instance, if the company were to align its training and development calendar with that of peer companies, it would not only save on costs through sharing but also gain from exchanging of ideas between staffs and supervisors alike (Laird et al., 2003). Conclusion Companies in the world must continue regarding employees as a resource rather than just labourers. This means that in order for the resource to gain value and to produce more value, further investments must be carried out on it. Training programs such as those adopted by Abu Dhabi are not only beneficial to the employees but to the employer as seen. Further, it is a fulfilment of the company’s corporate social responsibility it owes the society around it (Laird et al. 2003). Being a foreign owned company, the company has a duty to play by adding value to the people around them. Again, taking their employees through programmes on environmental friendliness is part of that duty. All in all, the managers of big companies such as Abu Dhabi need to balance their role as protectors of interests of owners as well as fulfil the company’s responsibility towards staff. As professionals, they are in a better position to understand the long term benefits of that sacrifice. REFERENCES Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd. (2013). Company Profile Abu Dhabi Oil Co. Ltd. (Online). Available from http://adocauh.cts-co.net/company/ [Accessed 8 May 2013] IPIECA-The global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues. (2012). IPIECA 2012 Annual Review. [Online]. Available from http://www.ipieca.org/news/20130430/ipieca-releases-2012-annual-review [Accessed 8 May 2013] Kelly, A et al. (2003). Linking organisational training and development practices with new forms of career structure : a cross-national exploration. Journal of European Industrial Training. 27(2), p. 160-168. Laird, D., Naquin, S. & Holton, E. (2003). Approaches to training and development. Cambridge, Mass, Perseus Books Group. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk &AN=100760. Read More