Training Professionals have a Leading Role in Innovation and Change - Essay Example

?Training Professionals have a Leading Role in Innovation and Change The training professionals play a principal function in the generation of innovation and change in the organizations at present. Enormous growth in the prevalent economic conditions, changes in the organizational structures, demanding business scenario among others raise the demands for innovative strategies and change management in organizations. In order to sustain themselves in such a competitive environment, organizations require to train as well as develop their workforce that in turn shall enhance the overall business performance. For bringing about innovative strategies in an organization so as to produce new product and service offerings, the skills and expertise of the employees have to be improved and upgraded continuously. This has transformed and redefined the role of trainers from merely developing programs to holistic assistance and monitoring, as well as motivating the employees to share information and knowledge amid themselves. The essay discusses the roles and responsibilities of training professionals to bring about innovation in the present day’s business. The approach of the training professionals towards the design and delivery of the developmental programs for the training of the employee workforce, have also been discussed. The essay finally compares and contrasts the innovative training and development programs of two Australian organizations. The training professional plays a major role in the 21st century businesses. The significance of the responsibility in relation to the approach of training professionals can be understood from all the positive alterations that occur as a result of training and development programs in an organization. According to Vemic, the approach of training professionals presently acts as the originator of new expertise and knowledge among the employees. Training professionals persuade creativity as well as inventiveness and form the skill base of the complete organization. The skill base and knowledge bestows the organizations with exclusive characteristics and distinguishes it from its peers (Vemic, “Employee Training and Development and the Learning Organization”). Based on the similar context, White & Bruton state that any organization has to realign itself and concentrate on new technologies, new procedures as well as new approaches of performing activities, in order to become innovative. However, no organization can accomplish innovativeness if its employees are not properly trained and possess cognitive skills and knowledge. Thus, the role of training professionals is crucial because they ensure the presence or availability of adequately trained human resources in the organization for its innovative ventures (White & Bruton, “The Management of Technology and Innovation: A Strategic Approach”). Furthermore, Hargreaves & Jarvis stated that in today’s competitive world, innovation and change is a continuous as well as a rapid process. The tasks of training professionals vary depending on the type of innovation the organization is looking forward to. The training professional requires the support of higher management as well as external alignment in instances of radical change. Major reorganization of the company or their product line would require the training professional to develop multi skilled employees, since such kind of changes are strategic in nature and have a wide impact on the organization. On the other hand routine changes for the enhancement of the prevailing arrangement or service, necessitates the training professional to develop necessary skills and coordination amongst the involved team. The training professionals undertake a very complex role in the current scenario. They act as proactive agents of change for the development of innovative strategies in the organization. They also act as ‘providers’ contributing training to the employee workforce designed to enhance and maintain the performance of the company (Hargreaves & Jarvis, “The Human Resource Development Handbook”). One of the vital aspects of training human resources is to enable the employees to become more efficient at their work and to help them to adapt to their particular roles or another role as the employees establish themselves within the company. This entails advanced co-ordination among employee workforce training and development and the variety of other human resources functions, viz. recruitment, performance assessment, reward schemes and staff relations. The training professional has to identify the company’s training requirements, and then design a pertinent training plan. The training professional selects and executes the resultant training program for the employees and then assesses the success of the employed program. Thus, the role of a training professional is an integral part of the human resource process as a whole as well as the innovative change implementation process (SFA National Centre of Excellence, “Training and Development - It’s Role in Achieving Organizational Success”). The training and development of the employee workforce can be considered as an investment for the organization. Therefore, the training professionals approach the design and delivery of such training programs in a very systematic way. They first evaluate the objectives of the training, such as the purpose of the training, its relation to the company’s objectives, and the benefits of the training program among others. The design of the training objectives facilitates the training professional to make decisions pertaining to the training substance and materials, flow of training and method of training. These specifications enable the training professionals to design the training and development program structure. Thus, the major areas of focus while designing any training program are the nature of the employees to be trained, outcome expected from the training, program structure and the instructional strategies, and finally the assessment of the effectiveness gained from the entire program (ZEAL Solutions, “Training Design and Delivery”). The training professionals build and carry out their training program based on the competencies required to be developed amongst the employees. The use of competencies helps the training professionals to align the employees with the company’s strategies. It aids them to select, train and develop employees as per the required competencies. This approach is valuable to assess whether the company is equipped and prepared for bringing about an innovative change, by verifying if the required set of competencies are possible to attain. The training professionals determine the prevailing competencies amongst the employees and the improvement required to prepare them for upcoming responsibilities (Little, “Competency Capers”). Training and development of employee is a very important HR practice, which has a major significance during the implementation of technological as well as non-technological innovations. For technological innovations, the training professionals train and empower the employees about the technological requirements. The presence of a trainer who is well-informed about the technology requirements provides incessant support to the innovation process (Bondarouk & Looise, “HR Contribution to IT Innovation Implementation: Results of Three Case Studies”). Every organization has its own exclusive training and development program for its workforce. For instance, let us consider two large retail companies in Australia, viz. Woolworths and Coles Group. Woolworths made an investment of more than $63 million in 2010 for their learning and development schemes. Their learning and development plans included the core or the central training programs, training for fresh recruits as well as leadership programs for the higher level managers and executives. Woolworths realizes that the development of the higher management and executives is very vital with the purpose of developing leadership competence for the future. Hence, they have a variety of programs and workshops efficient in preparing employees for upcoming complex roles. These workshops aim at providing an apparent understanding of the organization’s expected behaviors from its people and also enhancing the leadership qualities embedded in Woolworths. The company also conducts a business oriented induction program for the new employees coming on-board. They also offer apprenticeships through an amalgamation of on-job guidance at their stores and off-job education at the TAFE colleges. Woolworths caters fresh food in the Australian market. Thus, in order to enhance the customer service, they provided their employees with in-depth knowledge and understanding about the fresh food offerings through a training project. This large training project undertaken by Woolworths consisted of more than 3000 workshops for above 75,000 employees all over Australia. In addition, they also offer Graduate programs to provide career opportunities to young educated Australians (Woolworths, “Training and Development”). Thus, the training and development programs are designed in view of the future objectives of the company in general. In the similar context, the Coles Group had considerably modified and improved their Equal Opportunity Program and incorporated the program with their diversity strategy in the recent years. The Coles Group initiated and conducted various unique training and education programs such as the online ‘Diversity and Equal Opportunity’ training for managers, leadership programs for female employees, and ‘Preparing for Parenthood’ programs among others (Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, “Coles Group case Study”). These programs of Cole Group mainly focused on providing equal opportunity to all, empowerment of women in terms of leadership and networking ability and the development of strategies for balancing work life and family life in addition to preparing the employees for their future roles. Similar to the Woolworths Company, the Coles Group also offers graduate programs, providing dynamic career opportunities to eligible young Australians. The Group is at present going through transformation and hence they have implemented many training programs to develop and prepare their employees to help the organization to move to the higher level (Coles, “About the Program”). The training professionals play a significant part in the business organizations’ innovative strategies. The various training as well as development programs designed by the training professionals not only develop and train the employees for their future complex responsibilities but also help the organization to build necessary skills in their employees in case of execution of radical changes. The training professional designs and develops training programs focusing on the objective of the program, benefits of the program and its association with the company’s objectives, in addition to the characteristics of the employees to be trained. Different organizations have different forms of innovative training and development programs for their people, depending on their core objectives and strategies. Thus, one can conclude that with the development and growth of economic opportunities available to various business organizations, in order to sustain their business in the long run, the necessity to train and upgrade their employees have also increased significantly. Hence, the role of training professionals have become crucial in bringing about innovation and change in the organizations. Works Cited Bondarouk, Tanya & Looise, Jan Kees. “HR Contribution to IT Innovation Implementation: Results of Three Case Studies”. (2005), Creativity and Innovation Management, 14(2). Coles, “About the Program”. September 07, 2011. Graduates, 2011. Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, “Coles Group case Study”. September 07, 2011. Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, 2006. Hargreaves, Pat & Jarvis, Peter. The Human Resource Development Handbook Kogan Page Publishers, 2000. SFA National Centre of Excellence, “Training and Development - It’s Role in Achieving Organizational Success”. September 07, 2011. Centre of Excellence, 2010. Little, Bob, “Competency Capers”. (2010). Training Journal. Vemic, Jelena. “Employee Training and Development and the Learning Organization”. (2007), Economics and Organization, 4(2), 209-216. White, Margaret. A. & Bruton, Garry. D. The Management of Technology and Innovation: A Strategic Approach Cengage Learning, 2010. Woolworths, “Training and Development”. September 07, 2011. About Us, 2011. ZEAL Solutions, “Training Design and Delivery”. September 07, 2011. Factsheets, 2011. Read More