Role of National Training Awards - Essay Example

Introduction:           One of the important aspects in employee inspiration and retention is the options employees continue to develop job and career improvement skills. In fact, this opportunity to persist to develop through training and development is one of the crucial features in employee motivation (Heathfield, n.d.).          The case study ‘National Training Awards’ published in People Management magazine, September 15, 2005 talks about NTAs analyzing and approval of individuals and organizations that have accomplished really exceptional business and personal achievement through endowment in training. The NTAs accept competitors from all divisions, industries and regions across the UK and provide with an exclusive opportunity to have individual’s training appraised against the best in the UK (National Training Awards, n.d.). Department for Education and Science has established NTA in 1987 which has been independently administered by U.K. Skills and advocated as the training sector’s adaptation of Oscars. This body merged with People’s Training Awards to establish a single display for training eminence (National Training Awards, September 2005). Games of the XXX Olympiad or 2012 Summer Olympic Games, London will watch the high demand in sophisticated mechanical skills. New opportunities will open up and every major sector will require skill.  These new opportunities and skills will help U.K. to compete with the developing economies like India and China (National Training Awards, September 2005). The main issue of this case study is how NTA helps in improving employee development in the current political, economic, social and technical environment. We will be going through the core aspects of NTA and cite examples to show the achievements and benefits of NTA.   Training and development plays a key role:           Recently certain initiatives have been taken by the donors like the European Social Fund (ESF) and the University for Industry (UfI) who has recognized training and development of retail sector as a primary aim in terms of enhancing economic affluence, competitiveness and employment (Byrom, Harris and Parker, 2000). In a case study of Thorn Lighting Limited, the main point of discussion was the Spennymoor enterprise in UK, whose objective was to supply the quality products at a minimum cost provided to satisfy customers’ needs. The enterprise hired above one thousand workforces and since 1989 has gone through changes in organizations and culture allowing doubling its share in market.  Much of this has been achieved by HR and business strategy taken by Thorn Lighting Limited. It included self-managed team working and dispersed line management. The maintained business accomplishment being relished by Thorn Lighting at Spennymoor is a strong indicator of the firm’s capability to build conditions for motivating and arranging individuals behind commercial objectives. In a competitive framework, nearly a decade has been utilized for maturation of such strategies (Oxtoby, McGuinness and Morgan, 2000).          NTA is helping the entrepreneurs how to invest in training. These entrepreneurs are cutting down the training expenses in the times of recession but on the other hand, some of them are continuing their training programs as they think that training will help them to regain their recovery expenses during recession. NTA as well the entrepreneurs are of the opinion that it is very essential to keep on investing on skills and talents of employees and seek help from the government to build talent and encourage competitive potential. Thus, NTA has planned to launce a new program to identify the companies and voluntary institutions that have invested in training during recession. The entrepreneurs can participate in 2009 “Now is the Time” award which has been designed for survival and future growth of the organizations. This award will not only advance and acclaim the organizations of the entrepreneurs but also permit NTA to know about the best possible functionalities and share their accomplishments with the rest of U.K. (Now is the time to win recognition for investment in training, 2009).          Participating into a training program not only improves an enterprise’s standard against the competitors but also provides a golden opportunity to win a prestigious National Training Awards. The plausible advantages of entering into awards are dual in nature. Winning exposes an enterprise to huge marketing. It also lays emphasis on how training can help in meeting the business objectives (Training for Success, 2009). UK NTA winner of 2008, Andrew Clark of Nottinghamshire is more involved in commercial aspect of his life. According to him, the failure of achieving an award has taught him to identify the right and the wrong decisions in his business. He has participated five years back into NTA but in 2008 he has won an award. The four year of consecutive failure is more vital to him than this success. Clark is a trained optometrist who has designed his training program for meeting his clients’ business demands. For this training program he has achieved NTA award in 2008. Because of this training program, the sales and revenue of the organization has gone up by 8 per cent. This program has helped to increase self-esteem and confidence among the optometrists. The job satisfaction increases by participating into training program. Award winning has helped him to gain more customers like he got an eight-week project of an Australian retailer. The large employer winner of 2008 was Kier Group, leading construction company. Executive Leadership Training program of 2004 has allowed them to taste the fruits of success. This program has ensured training of the graduates to become managers of future generation. This training program is based on special “competence framework” skills which every top-level managers should possess. The company has shown tremendous improvement in six months business projects with delegates. A more inclusive style of management has been observed in this kind of program. This program has positive impact on marketing and employer brand (Training for Success, 2009).          According to Peter Cresswell, general manager for consulting services at Siemens, it is becoming increasingly tough to select from a wide range of exceptional achievement. Take-over of Safeway by Wm Morrisons Supermarket and its program is dependent on continuous inflow of trained management and employees. Attending this training program has benefited Morrisons to a certain extent. As viewed by Scouler-Davison, former retail manager of Safeway, the entrants who fail to win receive feedback from this training program to overcome their weaknesses. Chicken restaurant chain Nando had achieved 2 NTA awards. Their program allowed the company to grow rapidly and improve its standards (National Training Awards, September 2005).   Satisfaction of the interested individuals:           The effectiveness can be evaluated on the basis of the degree to which the organizations are fulfilling the expectations of the associations whose co-operation is vital. The assessment can be done keeping in mind the following conditions - customer complaints, customer relation surveys, on-time deliveries, product or service quality, awareness of customer problems etc. Considering the case study of Robinwood (NTA, 2001), we find that training of the employees was initiated so as to make them multi-skilled and to allow them to play major role in customer groups. Hence, investment was made to train the staffs. Before the introduction of training, only 30 per cent of the staffs were able to take their groups for all activities and post-training it was found that 80 per cent were able to do so. Hence, level of customer satisfaction, retention level and number of re-enrollment have increased by 20 per cent (Bramley, 2003).           Another instance of enhancing efficacy by increasing client adherence is the case study of Co-operative Bank Financial Advisors (NTA, 2001). The performance of Co-operative Bank Financial Advisors was not up to the mark. It was not able to attract more clients and the client loyalty level was also found to be low. The sales group was made to attend workshops for four days which included lectures and case studies. Consequently, the sales advisors were trained and a remarkable change was noticed within their business. The client loyalty level was increased by 20 per cent. The average sales value grew by 37 per cent. Expense/earnings ratio and advisor employee turnover declined by 20 per cent and 75 per cent respectively. The sales force increased by 89 per cent (Bramley, 2003).          The case study of Lancashire Ambulance service (NTA, 2001) showed increasing efficacy. The employees of Lancashire Ambulance service serve 7 health organizations and a population of 1.4 million most of them resided in rural areas. The death rate of heart patients was high. There was no simple way to provide ambulances to all the emergency patients. In order to bring about a decline in death rate, training-cum-investment program was set up in rural areas in mid 2001. Nearly 139 individuals were trained to provide 24x7 services to the customers. The average time to reach an ambulance to a patient was reduced from 15.38 minutes to 5.58 minutes saving many lives (Bramley, 2003).          An interview survey of thirty-five enterprises who had achieved National Training Awards validates the enduring impact of business-induced, high-profile modification training programs and producing training plans. Business-induced programs resulted in direct performance advantages that engage the line managers. Through this process, the planning gap is reduced and the training ensures functionalities of new working system (Hendry, 1995). Another archetype of National training Awards is the benefit received by Queensmith school in Hammersmith, London which is a school for children of autism. By observing the under performance of the school, the head teacher of the school went for training the students and the staffs of the school (NTA Latest News, 2009).    Conclusion:           Thus we can conclude that in coming years the role of national training awards will go on increasing. For instance, National training Awards, 2009 has the certain categories- small employer award, medium employer award, large employer award, partnership and collaboration award, providing education and training award and individual award (2009 categories).          Thus, training of personnel is very important for client satisfaction as well to increase sales revenue of the organization. However, training incurs lots of expenses. Hence, proper evaluation of training is required. Good training analysis provides with information and figures and shows where to improve the efforts of any organization. In every stage of training, evaluation of training needs to be built. Thus training is crucial in every phase irrespective of survival in short or long term in the market (Bramley, 2003).                   References:  1. Bramley, P, 2003. Evaluating training. CIPD Publishing, London, U.K. 2. Byrom, J, Harris, J, Parker, C, 2000. Training the independent retailer: an audit of training needs, materials and systems. Journal for European Industrial training, 24(7), pg. 366-374. 3. Heathfield, S.M., n.d. “Training and Development for Employee Motivation and Retention”. About.com. available at: http://humanresources.about.com/od/training/a/training_dev.htm (Accessed on July 7, 2009). 4. Hendry, C, 1995. Human resource management: a strategic approach to employment, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, UK. 5. “National Training Awards”, n.d. available at:  http://www.nationaltrainingawards.com/ (Accessed on July 7, 2009). 6. “National Training Awards”, September 15, 2005. People Management magazine. 7. “Now is the time to win recognition for investment in training.” March, 2009.  National Training Awards, available at: http://www.nationaltrainingawards.com/assets/uploads/file/UKCES_Nowisthetimer_NTA.pdf (Accessed on July 7, 2009). 8. “NTA Latest News”, February, 2009. National Training Awards, available at: http://www.nationaltrainingawards.com/view_news.cfm?newsID=7 (Accessed on July 7, 2009). 9. Oxtoby, B, McGuinness, T, Morgan, R.E., 2000. The why and how of effective strategy change: reflections on Thorn Lighting. Journal for European Industrial training, 24(9), pg. 513-522. 10. “Training for Success.” March, 2009. National Training Awards, available at: http://www.nationaltrainingawards.com/assets/uploads/file/UKSkill_ObsBus.pdf (Accessed on July 7, 2009). 11. “2009 categories”, n.d. Employment and Learning. Available at: http://www.delni.gov.uk/index/iip-nta/nta-new/2008_categories.htm (Accessed on July 7, 2009) Read More