Human Resource Training System

An effective training program benefits employees and the organization as follows:

BENEFITS FOR THE EMPLOYEES	BENEFITS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
Skill Improvement  Self-Development  Stronger Self-Confidence  More Effective Handling of Stress and Conflicts A Sense of Growth	Improved Profitability Through Higher Productivity  Improved Morale  Better Corporate Image  Lower Costs  Stronger Identification with Corporate Goals

Under given chart shows a training systems approach that describes the sequence of events to be followed before training begins:

NEEDS ASSESSMENT is a diagnosis that presents problems and future challenges that can be met through training or development.

TRAINING OBJECTIVES An evaluation of training needs results in the following training objectives:

• the desired behaviour;
•  the conditions under which it is to occur; and
•  the acceptable performance criteria.

THE PROGRAM'S CONTENT is shaped by the Needs Assessment and the Learning Objectives. This content may seek to teach specific skills, provide needed knowledge, or try to influence attitudes. Whatever the content, the program must meet the needs of the organization and the participants.

LEARNING PRINCIPLES are guidelines to the ways in which people learn most effectively. The more they are included in training, the more effective training is likely to be. The principles are participation, repetition, relevance, transference, and feedback.

•  Participation: Learning is usually quicker and more long-lasting when the learner can participate actively. As a result of participation, we learn more quickly and retain that learning longer. For example, once they have learned, most people never forget how to ride a bicycle or drive a car.
•  Repetition: Although it is seldom fun, repetition apparently etches a pattern into our memory. Studying for an examination, for example, involves memorization of key ideas to be recalled during the test. Likewise, most people learned the alphabet and the multiplication tables by repetition.
•  Relevance: Learning is helped when the material to be learned is meaningful. For example, trainers usually explain the overall purpose of a job to trainees before explaining specific tasks. This explanation allows the worker to see the relevance of each task and the importance of following the given procedures.
•  Transference: Transference is the application of training to actual job situations. The closer the demands of the training program match the demands of the job, the faster a person learns to master the job. For example, pilots are usually trained in flight simulators, because the simulators very closely resemble the actual cockpit and flight characteristics of the plane. The close match between the simulator and the plane allows the trainee to transfer quickly the learning in the simulator to actual flight conditions.
•  Feedback: Feedback gives learners information on their progress. With feedback, motivated learners can adjust their behaviour to achieve the quickest possible learning. Without feedback, learners cannot measure their progress and may become discouraged. For example; test grades are feedback on the study habits of test takers.

  In your opinion; is feedback important for an employee in any organization? Why?

Importance of Human Resource Training and Development:

John Thomas Howe quotes, “In today's marketplace, a well-trained workforce is no longer a competitive advantage, it's a competitive necessity.”


Training refers to a planned effort by an organization to make possible the learning of job-related behaviour. The term behaviour is used broadly to include any knowledge and skill acquired by an employee through practice. When management wants to prepare employees for future job responsibilities, this activity is called human resource development. Training prepares people to do their present job. Development prepares them for future jobs.

New employees seldom perform satisfactorily. They must be trained in the duties they are expected to perform. Even experienced employees may need training to reduce poor work habits or to learn new skills that improve their performance. Although training seeks to help employees do their present job, the benefits of training may extend throughout a person's entire career and help develop that person for future responsibilities.

New employees need to know what is expected of them and what their responsibilities are, and they have to be trained properly to carry out these responsibilities effectively. A concerned employer will provide a career path for each employee and will provide the opportunities to develop all employees to their fullest potential. Also, employees need feedback on their performance to experience job satisfaction or to find out where they can improve.

Bill Black, Maritime's past president and CEO, made it very clear what he thought of training and development:

Training and development is a crucial part of our company's strategic plan. If we want to reach our company objectives of customer satisfaction, growth, and quality we have to make sure that our human resource system provides us with the effective managers and motivated employees to reach these goals. We can do this by making better hiring decisions, improving skills, developing leadership, and fairly rewarding superior performance. Training and development is a good investment and for us it pays off in the form of satisfied customers and happy employees. I also believe strongly that the second outcome really causes the first. And happy customers mean higher profits.

“If employees are properly selected, there should be no need for an orientation program or training.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Role of Human Resource Department in Today’s Businesses:

While the role of human resource departments (HRD) shows considerable variation across organizations, almost all HRDs carry out several common activities, including the following:

•   assist the organization to attract the right quality and number of employees;
• orient new employees to the organization and place them in their job positions;
•  develop, disseminate and use job descriptions, performance standards and evaluation criteria;
•  help establish adequate compensation systems and administer them in an efficient and timely manner;
•  foster a safe, healthy and productive work environment;
• ensure compliance with all legal requirements in so far as they relate to management of workforce;
•    help maintain a harmonious working relationship with employees and unions where present;
•   foster a work environment that facilitates high employee performance; and
•  establish disciplinary and counselling procedures.

To meet these ever-increasing challenges such as economical, technological, political, social, demographic, legal, and cultural, human resource managers are expected to possess a number of competencies, including the following:

Business Mastery: HR professionals must know the business of their organization thoroughly and recognize and incorporate financial and economic realities into their analyses and decisions. They should understand and foster customer orientation and be familiar with external realities and challenges facing the organization and the larger industry.

Mastery of Human Resource Management Tools: As professionals, they should be familiar with state-of-the-art tools in areas such as staffing, training, compensation planning, performance appraisal and planning, employee relations and communication, and organizational change interventions.

Change Mastery: Not only should HR professionals possess an abundance of problem-solving, critical thinking, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, they should also be well versed in using these to bring about changes in the organization and its various subsystems. Strong communication skills combined with strong networking skills facilitate HR managers' attempts to influence others; reputation as a team player is a necessary prerequisite in most settings for successful change initiatives.

Personal Credibility: The HR professional should project an image of a trustworthy, ethical, socially responsive, courageous leader who can build relationships and inspire others to work for larger causes.

In your views what should be the role of the HR department in creating the company's work environment beneficial for employees?

Strategic Importance of Human Resource Management in Today’s Businesses

Current and future challenges faced by today’s businesses point to the need for better management of human resources if continued growth is needed. These challenges could be economical (e.g., recession), technological (e.g., computerization), political (e.g., new government policies), social (e.g., concern for our environment), demographic (e.g., changing composition of our workforce), legal (e.g., changes in minimum wage laws), cultural (e.g., ethnic diversity), or otherwise in nature.

For example, as an economic argument, today, Canadian business faces three critical economic challenges: survival during a recessionary cycle, meeting the global trade challenge and the challenge of productivity improvement. All Canadian businesses, will be coping for a while with the current recessionary cycle, and smaller Canadian organizations cannot ignore the many implications of international trade.

In addition, the need for increased productivity forces our businesses for creating a human resources department, as in a business environment, productivity improvement is essential for long-run success. Through gains in productivity, managers can reduce costs, save scarce resources, and enhance profits. In turn, improved profits allow an organization to provide better pay, benefits, and working conditions. The result can be a higher quality of work life for employees, who are more likely to be motivated toward further improvements in productivity. Human resource managers contribute to improved productivity directly by finding better, more efficient ways to meet organizations’ objectives and indirectly by improving the quality of work life for employees.

A strategic human resources department adds value to the company's existing and future strategic plans. Improving the contribution of human resources is so ambitious and important that all organizations must create specialized human resource departments to enhance the contributions of people.  It is ambitious because human resource departments do not control many of the factors that shape the employee's contribution, such as capital, materials, and technology. The department decides neither strategy nor the supervisor's treatment of employees, although it strongly influences both. Nevertheless, the role of human resource management is critical to the success; indeed, even the very survival of the organization. Without a motivated and skilled workforce, and devoid of gains in employee productivity, organizations eventually stagnate and fail.

Services could be offered by human resources professionals that aren't already looked after by supervisors or managers at various organizations are:

Outlining these job responsibilities will free up time for Line Managers to carry out their functional roles more effectively. It also illustrates how the HR function adds value to the organization as both a support role, and through proactive actions such as conducting employee surveys to assess satisfaction with organizational policies. Such proactive strategies on the part of HR help fend off expensive problems the organization might otherwise encounter. 

What would you measure to determine whether the HR department was doing an effective job for the company?

Today’s Business World and Human Resource

In this economic globalization and technological revolution it is nothing but a marvel to have tens of thousands of people with highly individualized backgrounds, skills, and interests coordinated in various enterprises to pursue common institutionalized goals.

Our future achievements may be limited only by our imagination, indeed, the possibilities are immense. There’s no doubt; the next millennium abruptly demands from us:

• Routine travel to distant planets
• Human longevity unimaginable in the past
• Working and shopping without ever stepping out of our homes?
• Growing our own food in our kitchen
• Flying to any destination of our choice in automatically piloted flying cars
• Living in undersea settlements

People are the common element in all social organizations. They create the objectives, the innovations, and the accomplishments for which organizations are praised. When looked at from the perspective of the organization, people are resources. They are not inanimate resources, such as land and capital; instead, they are human resources. Without them, organizations would not exist.

In today’s business world increasing integration of trade and financial flows through advanced technology & modern communication approaches, brings a number of necessary strategies for Human Resource development, including:

• Cross-cultural training
• Study languages
• Develop relationships
• Value diversity
• Polish curiosity, pro activity, creativity, and sensitivity

The field of Human Resource extents several function through the organization starting with employee recruitment and training, appraisals and payroll and encompassing to the recreational and motivational features of employee development. Human resource department now surely has to focus on ensuring that employees are delighted with the working conditions and perform their jobs according to their hidden potential which is brought to the front. More and more top managers are beginning to recognize that organizational success depends upon careful attention to human resources. Some of the best-managed and most successful Canadian organizations are those that effectively make employees meet organizational challenges creatively.

Thinking back over your college years and your job experiences, have you ever helped to initiate a change? What was the change? What was your role in making the change happen?

Let Me Begin With Laughters!

The subject of my blog is “Human Resource Development”. While writing this blog, I would discuss with you the following episodes:

1.  Today’s Business World and Human Resource
2. Strategic Importance of Human Resource Management in Today’s Businesses
3. Role of Human Resource Department in Today’s Businesses 
4. What is Human Resource Training and Development and why it is important
5.  Human Resource Training System
6. Human Resource Training Techniques
7. Strategic Human Resource Development
8. Evaluation of HR Training and Development
9. Human Resource Career Planning

So give me permission to begin this blog with an HR laughter for all of you.

An HR manager was knocked down (tragically) by a bus and was killed. Her soul arrived at the Pearly Gates, where St. Peter welcomed her. “Before you get settled in” he said, “We have a little problem…you see, we’ve never had a HR manager make it this far before and we’re not really sure what to do with you.”

“Oh, I see,” said the woman, “can’t you just let me in?”

“Well, I’d like to,” said St Peter, “But I have higher orders. We’re instructed to let you have a day in hell and a day in heaven, and then you are to choose where you’d like to go for all eternity.”

“Actually, I think I’d prefer heaven”, said the woman. “Sorry, we have rules…” at which St. Peter put the HR manager into the downward bound elevator.

As the doors opened in Hell she stepped out onto a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club; around her were many friends, past fellow executives, all smartly dressed, happy, and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks, and they talked about old times.

They played a perfect round of golf and afterwards went to the country club where she enjoyed a superb steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil (who was actually rather nice) and she had a wonderful night telling jokes and dancing.

Before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everyone shook her hand and waved goodbye as she stepped into the elevator. The elevator went back up to heaven where St. Peter was waiting for her. “Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven,” he said.

So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds, playing the harp and singing; which was almost as enjoyable as her day in Hell. At the day’s end St. Peter returned. “So,” he said, “You’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent a day in heaven”. “You must choose between the two.”

The woman thought for a second and replied: “Well, heaven is certainly lovely, but I actually had a better time in hell. I choose Hell.”

Accordingly, St. Peter took her to the elevator again and she went back down to hell. When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends dressed in rags, picking up rubbish and putting it in old sacks. The Devil approached and put his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” stuttered the HR manager, “The other day I was here, and there was a golf course, and a country club. We ate lobster, and we danced and had a wonderful happy time. Now all there is, just dirty wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable.”

The Devil simply looked at her and smiled, “Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you’re staff.”

If any of you read, heard or practically experienced any joke related HR, please do share with all of us, so that we’ll continue laughing till the next entry of this blog.

Wish you all; an incredible success in your present aspirations and future endeavours.  Do stay with me and enjoy my blog.