Developing of an Intellectual Assets - Essay Example

Human Resource Learning and Development and Section # of INTRODUCTION Human Resource isknown as the intellectual assets of the company without whom the business cannot run. Their importance is such that they must be taken care in terms of heath, wealth, motivation and problem resolution. (Keeps, 2002) The situation that is specifically being dealt now is that of the company where intercultural diversity is encouraged. It is the hotel industry that is being focused on. This hotel has managers and employees i.e. the staff who work under these managers. Since the hotel is catering to a number of customers who belong to different nationalities and different cultures, the hotel found it necessary to staff international managers, especially in the post of human resource managers because the hotel planned to employ many intercultural workforces who would be better able to deal with all kinds of customers. But with time, it was seen that many international managers were facing problems in dealing with the employees, there was high turnover, low job satisfaction and the result was that many international managers were returning to their home country. What the company lacked was the fact that it needed to train its cross cultural managers so that it can manage the hotel in the way it wanted. Thus, a training session was organized, which would tell these managers how to deal with cross cultural customers in a country which is foreign for them as well. This training was done for those international managers who plan to make their careers in any of the three Middle East countries i.e. Saudi Arabia, U.A.E and Egypt. Prior to the workshop, the managers were asked interviewed as to their knowledge of the Middle East countries. The result was that they knew very little about these countries, their working style or their cultures, even though they were well aware of what their job demands of them. Moreover, the survey was also done which reinforced this point. (Lucas, 1994) THEORIES OF TRAINING Before discussing the specificities of the training program that the international managers will go through, it is necessary to discuss the theories of training that have been presented so that this case can be fit into these theories and it can be said that the literature which has been written on the subject of training is being thoroughly considered before starting a training session of its own. The content theories of training stresses on the vitality of such training which makes the trainee learn things based on the experience of the previous learners and the context in which they have worked. Obviously the context in which various trainees are trained is entirely different. Therefore, the context of the previous learners will not be taken into consideration. Only their knowledge and the experience that they share by the type of training they went through will be important and it will be applied to the new context of the new trainees. (Blake, 2003) The learner will be facilitated in a way which will help him relate the new knowledge being given by the knowledge that is already in his mind and then to have the process of unchanging by processing the old knowledge to become new knowledge and to be stored as such in the memory. There will even be material that the trainee can use even after the training is over and therefore, this will reinforce the learning habits which were taught in the training session and will stay with the trainee for a long time. (Keeps, 2002) The cognitive system that is studied under the content theories of training emphasizes on three factors which should be taken into consideration when a trainee is being trained. Firstly, the individual should be equipped with long term memory about a certain subject that is, he should be able to have a perfect understanding in the long term for a particular subject, in our case, it is slicing films and dealing with films in the projection room. Secondly, the processing skills of each individual, that is the extent to which they can use learning strategies to cope up with what they are being taught and to use the problem solving skills to apply them to specific problems that they face at work. In this case, they must know how to deal with the different kinds of films that they encounter. And thirdly, they should be able to make full and good use of the information that they learn in the training session. (Lucas, 1994) Thirdly, there are the process theories of training which are way more complex than the content theories and therefore, their use needs special training for the supervisor and he/she must be aware of the fact that process theories underlie many human needs and wants which should be thoroughly studied if training has to be successfully done using them. The process theories of training have more potential of actually motivating the individuals to learn what is being taught to them in the training session. The three basic process theories are expectancy theories, equity theories and goal setting theories. All these theories deal with the underlying needs of the human resources to be treated equally to each other, to be able to do a certain job because they expect they have the skills, knowledge and abilities and to be able to see a certain path and destination which will make things clearer for them. (Kirkpatrick, 1998) EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE DESIGN AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION The workshop that was designed for the international managers, who aspire to someday work in the Middle East, consisted of starting with the trainers asking questions to the managers over their general knowledge about the Middle East countries. Questions such as its capital city, important landmarks and information that they possess about the country and culture were asked. The result showed that the managers had little awareness about these questions. After this, we made them realize that this information was more than necessary for any manager to possess if he/she wishes to work in these countries. Following this, an over head presentation was given in which the general idea about what culture is and what factors constitute the difference in cultures across countries were taught. This was very effective as it laid the groundwork for the managers in understanding what we meant when we said that cultures matters and that it can differ in a variety of ways. This was followed by a video clip of the Middle East, which gave the managers a practical view of what Middle East was all about, what was it culture, its working style, the daily business activities etc. this was very effective as well because this gave the managers prior understanding of how they should work there and what is "normal" in the Middle East. It was an eye opener and the managers later felt more confident about going and working there. (Lucas, 1994) After this, the overhead presentation contained pointers about each of the three countries in detail, their cultures, the norms about relationships, weddings, gifts, eating habits that exist there, their working style and this was presented by one of the trainers. The presentation was very effective in clearing up the theoretical part with the managers as it explained to them in detail the dos and don'ts of dealing with an international company and intercultural subordinates and customers. (Mischler, 1965) To enhance the effectiveness of the whole training session and the workshop, a case study was given to the managers to solve, which consisted of information about this European company which established its branches in all three of these Middle Eastern countries and then hired international managers. The case study related the problems that were faced by the international managers and how two of them quit in the end. Each manager in the workshop was required to answer two questions after reading the case study. Their answers reflected how much they have learned in the workshop. And it was effective in gauging the success of the whole workshop in general. (Kolb, 1984) After the managers solved the case study, they were required to fill in an evaluation sheet of the workshop, which consisted of 9 questions, some open ended and some closed ended. These questionnaires would be the real and direct feedback that the trainers would get from their trainees as to how much they appreciated and learnt from the workshop. (Caudron, 1991) IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE WORKSHOP There can be many more improvements that could be added to the workshop. The first improvement is that the international managers can be given the role playing session, where they will be given certain situations in which different wrong doings happen in the company and then they will be asked to deal with them. This will be an independent exercise and it will greatly enhance the confidence of the individual managers as now he will feel equipped with all the tools (knowledge, skills and abilities) that he needs to deal with any situations that he faces. The international managers, as judged by the face to face interview, were already so motivated and thus these role playing activities will further motivate them and drive them to perform better and better in the international company as the trainers have now taken care to remove their uncertainties' of working in an international environment. (Pike, 2002) Another improvement that I suggest is that the international managers should be taught how to work in teams. Working with confidence individually is another thing whereas working in teams gives a better sense of accomplishment when every individual in the team brings his strengths to a single task and eliminates his weakness from it. The task is done in a great manner and a training ground is formed within the team where those international managers who could not grasp the concepts given in the training workshop could receive on job training by those who understood it very quickly. (Pryor, 2002) Moreover, another improvement that I feel will be very effective in raising the bar of this workshop is to use peer feedback in analyzing each individual's dealing with the film. In the second part of the workshop where each international managers will be asked to solve the case study, a small peer feedback session after that will help the individual gather critical and encouraging comments from its own colleagues, which they might take more seriously than that of the experts or the trainers. Other factors could be the thorough encouragement of questions and queries from each international managers. They must be made to feel comfortable at the beginning of the workshop and should be persuaded to ask any questions and even fill in any complaints that they have against working in the international scenario. This will help the trainers to gauge what is being troubling them. The trainers should first try to build a repo with the international managers in this workshop and then they can be sure of the fact that the questions they ask from them will be the ones which are really bothering them. GENERALIZATIONS OF EFFECTIVE WORKSHOP DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION This workshop design was specifically for the training session of the international managers who inspire to work in international companies and who have to deal with delicate and sensitive situations and relationships on a daily basis. But having an effective workshop means that it should be designed in an efficient manner and it should be looked after till its implementation stage so that no loopholes are left open and the workshop reaches its aims and works to help the human resources learn in whatever aspects they have problems. (Thorne, 2000) An effective workshop should be designed in such a way so that it is seen and taken care of the fact that no sort of barriers are coming in the whole communication process of the trainer and the trainee. It is the job of the workshop designing head to take care of all these barriers and to make sure they are eliminated before the workshop starts. (Pike, 2002) And what I believe an effective workshop is where training continues even after the workshop has ended. Thus, each international managers should be gifted with a kit which will help him in dealing with an international environment, specifically that of the three countries in the Middle East in a better manner. It should have an instructions manual plus a video which will assist them after the training is over. IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANISATIONAL TRAINING Organizational training is a very important aspect for the development and growth of organizations in general. This is because times are changing so rapidly, new technologies will continue to evolve and the trends will keep on changing. In such a dynamic environment, it is necessary for the organizations to adapt to the environment at present or else they might lose the competitive edge to some other company who is careful about the environment and its changes. When such changes have to be brought, effective change management has to be performed in order for the human resources to be made to feel at ease even after the change is brought. Therefore, old knowledge will have to be unlearned and new knowledge will have to be taught. This is especially true for a human resource that is new to the whole environment in which he is working. In that case, they will have to be trained and taught how to behave in the new culture. It cannot be expected that they will be already aware of these factors. (Kirkpatrick, 1998) CONCLUSION The human resources of any company are its major assets. And any sort of investment in them is never wasted. When a company has to develop, it needs to make sure that its human resource is developing as well and this can be done through effective change management. It is the nature of every human to fear change and resist it. But companies should make employees realize that change is good for them as well and then try to encourage them through efforts like organizing workshops which will inculcate new required skills in the employees or polish old ones. (Forster, 2000) Works Cited 1. Blake, Daniel. 2003. Training That Works: Lessons from California's Employment Training Panel Program. 2003 2. Pryor, Karen. 2002. Don't Shoot the Dog: the New Art of Teaching and Training. 2002 3. Thorne, Kaye. 2000. World Class Training: Providing Training Excellence. 2000 4. Pike, Robert. 2002. Creative Training Techniques Handbook. 2002 5. Kroehnert, Gary. 1994. 100 Training Games. 1994 6. Kirkpatrick, Donald. 1998. Evaluating Training Programs. 1998 7. Lucas, Robert. 1994. Training Skills for Supervisors. 1994 8. Keeps, Erica. 2002. Telling Aint Training. 2002 9. Functional Content Theory [Internet]. Available from [Accessed 6th June 2008] 10. Alder, N. J. (1986). International Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour. 11. Baumgarten, K. (1995). Training and development of international staff. 12. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. 13. Brewster, C. (1995). Effective expatriate training. 14. Caudron, S. (1991). Training ensures success overseas. 15. Forster, N. (2000). Expatriates and the impact of cross-cultural training. 16. Hoeckiln, L. (1995). Managing Cultural Differences: Stragies for Competitive Advantage. 17. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture Consequnces: International Differences in Work-related Values. 18. Hofstede, G. (1983). National culture revisited. Behavior Science Research. 19. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, 20. Mishler, A. L. (1965). Personal contact in international exchanges. Read More