Introduction
Predominance of competition in the contemporary business environment conditions new patterns of behavior for the companies operating in the market. Nowadays, almost every company has access to high technologies, innovations and high-production equipment, thus, in order to attract new customers it is necessary to implement certain changes in personnel by using training and developing programs for employees. The main purpose behind any of such programs is to increase employees’ performance by making them more skilled and highly qualified. Being one of the essential elements of interrelation between employers and employees, training appears to be an effective tool not only in developing an employee professionally, but also morally, by making him/her more confident about the job that needs to be fulfilled. Training and developing of employees is not an easy process, which involves a lot of time, money and effort, however, very often the results, which may be outstanding, completely pay off the costs. Thus, the importance of it cannot be underestimated.
Training and Developing Employees
There is no doubt that owners of large business are interested in increasing company’s profitability in the first place. In their turn, economists offer a wide range of methods allowing to increase productivity and profitability of the company, among which are: implementation of new technologies and modern machinery and equipment, decrease of downtime of the equipment, implementation of certain incentives for employees and improvement of labor organization, creation of favorable working conditions and raising the level of employees’ skills. Thus, in order to raise employees’ skills, employer needs to develop certain training programs, keeping in mind certain constraints, which include “restrictions on time, personnel and spending; lack of training facilities, materials or equipment; and the attitude of senior management” [Wentland, 23-24].
There are several reasons which make employees think about training and developing employees. The first and the most essential reason is to increase employees’ performance by teaching them more modern and more productive ways of working. Such training will make employees more efficient without making them learning something absolutely new, as it may be based on the skills employees already have, but introduce new methods of using their skills. Another important reason influencing employer’s decision to conduct employees training is the purchase and implementation of new equipment, which employees may be unaware how to use. For this reason, to organize certain training courses is of key importance, otherwise, the purchase of new equipment will be of no use, as the workers do not know how to operate it. Employee training is very affective when it comes to corporate reconstruction, which includes: “acquisitions, mergers, buyouts, and downsizing – common occurrences in today’s marketplace” [Davis, 2].
According to Byars, training and developing employees is very important when it comes to reduction of the number of people working at a company [Byars 54-56]. When a company’s owner is planning to dismiss some employees, he/she should consider a fact that the rest of employees would need to work more effectively in order not to slow down the pace of production. Also, when employees see that some of their colleagues have been dismissed, they may start to fear that the same can happen to them, thus, an employer need to think about the ways how to re-establish confidential relationship with the employees, so they feel confident about continuing to work at a company. The following reason emphasising the importance of training and developing employees is team building. Specialization and division of labour have impacted large masses of workers, who have become disaccustomed to cooperating and working as a team. However, certain actions require participation of more than one person, thus, the necessity to create a team appears. It is possible to divide employees into small groups, but the group won’t be working effectively if its members do not know how to work with each other. The main difference between group and team is the following: a group is a number of people (members) that are treated as one unit, while a team is a group of people who work together with a common goal and perform certain functions for the benefit of every member. So, in order to create a team inside a company, it is necessary to teach employees how to work as a team, which can be done by means of training and developing. Though, the development of a team is a rather time-consuming process, it does bring significant results once it is achieved.
There is no doubt that “all organizations, both public and private, desire high levels of performance out of their employees, but face the problem of determining just how to achieve this result” [Lowery, Petty, Thompson, 6-7]. The majority of employers pay much attention to a performance-based pay system, forgetting about training and developing of employees. Of course, a performance-based pay system will motivate employees, who wishing to have higher payments will work more effectively; however, they are limited by their skills, which are not always enough to increase the performance.
It is well-known that a person is learning and developing daily by fulfilling his or her duties at work or at home. When a person is learning something at work, it happens rather spontaneously, as a person is going through the day doing what he/she is paid for. Employee training and development is somewhat different from self-training as it includes direct interaction of employers and employees, because both employee and company’s manager are responsible for individual employee development. Employee has to do his best absorbing new attainments, while “responsibility of management is to provide the right resources and an environment that supports the growth and development needs of the individual employee” [5].
Thus, the main functions of management of organization at this point are to provide an employee with all necessary material for further learning, to announce a goal an employee should reach after completing a training program and to supervise the whole process of training by “looking of learning opportunities in every-day activity” and “explaining the employee development process and encouraging staff to develop individual development plans” [5].
Companies that are widely using employee training as the main method of improving performance are Netscape, Cisco, and Yahoo [6].
Conclusion
Having spoken about training and developing employees it is necessary to make a conclusion and emphasize the importance of the process of personal and group training and developing of employees at organizations of all types. Thus, all company owners should think about developing certain programs which would allow their employees to become more skilled and increase their performance, which would benefit an organization as a whole.
Bibliography
Byars, L.L., Rue, L.W. “Human Resource
Management” Mc Graw. Hills International Edition. 2006.
Davis, G.L. “Human Resource Interventions and Training in Downsized
Organizations to Assist Remaining Employees”. 20 Nov. 2006. www. lib.ncsu.edu
Lowery, C.M., Petty, M.M., Thompson, J.W. “Employee Perceptions of the
Effectiveness of a Performance-Based Pay Program in a Large Public Utility”. Public Personnel
Management, Vol. 25, 1995.
Wentland, D. “The Strategic Training of Employees Model: Balancing
Organizational Constraints and Training Content”. SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 68,
2003.
“Implementing an Employee Training & Development Program”. 20
Nov.2006. http://www.hrcouncil.ca/training/pg005_e.cfm
“Hire Great People Fast” 20 Nov.2006.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/hire.html
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