Example research essay topic: Employee Development Employee Training - 1,291 words

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The social-learning model and learning principles tell us training should provide the trainee with a given model to follow, (5) specific goals to achieve, an opportunity to perfect the skill, feedback on how well the trainee is progressing, and praise for transferring the acquired skills to the job. These recommendations should guide the human resource manager in designing, implementing, and operating any employee training development program. Employee development, by design, is more future oriented and more concerned with education than employee training. By education we mean that employee development activities attempt to instill sound reasoning processes to enhance one's ability to understand and interpret knowledge rather than imparting a body of facts or teaching a specific set of motor skills. Development, therefore, focuses more on the employee's personal growth. Successful employees prepared for positions of greater responsibility have analytical, human, conceptual, and specialized skills.

They are able to think and understand. Training, per se, cannot overcome an individual's inability to understand cause-and-effect relationships, to synthesize from experience, to visualize relationships, or to think logically. As a result, we suggest that employee development be predominantly an education process rather than a training process. The words predominantly an education process should be noted. In contrast to what we have said above, certain activities that employees engage in are programmable, and for these training can be helpful. Potential managers need good listening skills, interviewing competence, and the ability to read, analyze, and classify types of employee behavior Training can improve these types of skills.

Unfortunately, effectiveness in jobs of greater magnitude requires considerably more than the acquisition of any specific or specialized skills. It is also important to consider one critical component of employee development; that is, all employees, at no matter what level, can be developed. Historically, development was reserved for potential management personnel. Although it is critical for individuals to be trained in specific skills related to managing like planning, organizing, leading, controlling, and decision making time has taught us that these skills are also needed by non-management personnel. The use of teams, reductions in supervisory roles, allowing workers to participate in the design of their jobs, and even giving employees the right to stop a production line if they see a problem, have changed the way training employees is viewed. Accordingly, organizations now require new employee skills.

Thus, as we go through the next few pages, note that those methods used to develop employees in general are the same as those used to develop managerial personnel. Any effort toward developing employees must begin again by looking at the organization's objectives. The objectives tell us where we are going and provide a framework from which our employee development needs can be determined. The second step is an appraisal of our current resources. Based on information gathered from our strategic human resource planning, we should have available an employee inventory. From the background and qualifications of our employee and a statement of the organization's objectives, we can begin the third step in the development process: ascertaining the development activities necessary to ensure that we have adequate talent to fulfill future organizational needs.

This comparative analysis will bring to our attention the potential obsolescence of some of our employees, the inexperience or shortage of individuals in certain functions, and skill deficiencies relative to our future needs. The next step, then, is to determine individual development needs: skill development, changing attitudes, and knowledge acquisition. We can expect that most of our development work will center on the changing of attitudes and the acquisition of knowledge in specific areas. Once we know our development needs, it is necessary to assess those types of development programs that can best satisfy these needs that is, we will be looking for development activities that can meet the specific needs of each individual. This point cannot be overemphasized, since no development program is adequate for all employees. Instead, programs must be uniquely tailored to the developmental needs of each individual.

Additionally, no one development method is the most effective in all situations. Lectures, role plays, case studies, coaching, or any of the techniques we will present can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the employee, his or her present skills, and future responsibilities. Finally, once employees have participated in development activity, we must to evaluate the process looking for changes in behavior and managerial performance. Just as with employee training programs, only through performing this final step can we fully appraise a program's effectiveness, highlight its weaknesses, and begin to develop information that will help us determine whether the development should be continued or how it can be improved. The employee development process reiterates a number of points that we have expanded on already. Specifically, it depends on knowledge of the organization's objectives, development of management inventories, and evaluation of programs to appraise their effectiveness.

The one issue we have not discussed, and which is obviously the central focus m the development process, is the programs themselves. Let's take a look at various methods for developing our employees. American authors compare senior employees who take an active role in guiding others to baseball coaches, who observe, analyze, and attempt to improve the performance of their athletes; "coaches" on the job can do the same. The effective coach, whether on the diamond or in the corporate hierarchy, gives guidance through direction, advice, criticism, and suggestion in an attempt to aid the employee's growth (6). The technique of senior employees coaching individuals has the advantages that go with learning by doing, particularly the opportunities for high interaction and rapid feedback on performance. Unfortunately, its two strongest disadvantages are: first, its tendencies to perpetuate the current styles and practices in the organization, and, second, its heavy reliance on the coach's ability to be a good teacher.

In the same way that we recognize that all excellent pitchers do not make outstanding pitching coaches, we cannot expect all excellent employees to be effective coaches. An individual can become an excellent performer without necessarily possessing the knack of creating a proper learning environment for others to do the same; thus the effectiveness of this technique relies on the ability of the "coach. " Coaching of employees can occur at any level and can be most effective when the two individuals are outside the hierarchical organizational chain of command. The summer months in an organization are characterized by a particular phenomenon: a rapid rise in the use of understudy assignments to replace vacationing personnel. By understudy assignments, we mean that employees with demonstrated potentials are given the opportunity to relieve an experienced employee of his or her job and act as his or her substitute during the period. This label also describes permanent "assistant to" positions as well as temporary opportunities to assist senior employees in completing their jobs. As a staff assistant to an individual, usually a manager, the understudy gets the opportunity to learn the individual's job.

However, not unusually, this becomes merely the performing of "paper shuffling" chores. Should this be the case, or should the senior employee be threatened by the understudy, the learning experience becomes quite limited. In contrast, in those organizations where senior employees recognize that their own promotion and advancement depends on preparing junior employees to satisfactorily move into their jobs, they are motivated to prepare their understudies for their current jobs. The understudy who is thrown into the job for a short period of time is given the opportunity to see the job in total. While there are opportunities for sizable errors, the technique is used predominantly in situations where major or critical decisions can be delayed until the senior employee returns or can be made in close consultation with the other individuals "next up" the corporate line.

Research essay sample on Employee Development Employee Training