Importance Of Training And Development In Organizations And Environmental Forces Impacting Learning Process

Ten Environmental Forces Impacting Learning Processes in Australian Firms

The present report elucidates on the importance of training and development in the organization. Training and development has been considered as indispensable function in the fast paced and ever changing corporate world. Enterprises invests huge amount in training and development because of some specific reasons that involves – new hire orientation, improving employees performance, increasing productivity and tackling shortcomings (Nda & Fard, 2013). The present study highlights on the ten forces that might impact on the learning process of the enterprise. The environmental forces impacting the Australian firms and their adoption of strategic training responses are also analyzed in this report. The study also reflects on the specific environmental force that is considered to be important in my current workplace. The particular area that the organization must focus on for the training development program is also discussed in this paper. The last part of this study focuses on the plan for evaluation of training process.

Training and development refers to systematic restructuring of employee’s attitude, skills and behavior through instruction and learning-education. The cardinal objective of training and development is to assists the enterprise achieve their short as well as long term target by enhancing value to their human capital. Ford (2014) opines that training is considered as one of the vital tools for the enterprise to operate in the challenging and competitive corporate world. Noe & Winkler (2012) has found out that there are near about ten environmental forces that might impact on the working as well as learning procedure of the enterprise. These forces are explained below:

• Globalization-This relates to offshoring which means the procedure of job movement from one nation to another across the globe. Although it benefits the enterprise by reducing labor cost, this adversely affects the organization since few workers lack necessary skills to perform their job.  
• Consumer service and emphasis on quality-This involves six sigma procedure and the total quality management (TQM) involving workers receiving training in quality (Goetsch & Davis 2014). These processes however impacts on learning procedure of enterprise.
• Sustainability- This refers to green business that highlights on the enterprise that has less affect on the global society. Sustainability impacts the learning process of employees since the enterprise take part in certain environment friendly activities for attaining higher profitability.
• Attraction and retention of talent- As competition for the workers increases, attraction and retention of talent becomes a huge challenge to enterprise. Since the enterprise tries to adopt various methods for retaining their employees, this influences their learning process.
• Advancement of technology-This force influences working and learning process in workplace as it increases flexibility of time, provides higher accessibility and creates learning environment.
• Changing demographics and diversity of workforce-The enterprise provides training to managers as well as workers for managing workforce diversity. This influences their learning procedure of allowing workers to be creative and responding to differences in generation (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013).
• Changes in economy- Political as well as social changes in the economy affect the investment of enterprise in learning process.
• High performance framework of work system- The enterprise adopting this model involves cross- training, team work and virtual teamwork, which in turn influences the learning of the enterprise.
• Increased value kept on intangible assets and human capital- Intangible assets involves social, customer and intellectual capital while human capital refers to workers knowledge, inventiveness and attributes (Kapp, 2012). The enterprises place huge value on both intangible assets as well as human capital since these have huge effect on workers engagement in work and implementation of innovative idea.
• Focusing on organization strategy-The strategy implemented by the organization also influences their learning and working process. However, the enterprise should link their strategy to training needed for current job, extent of training customization and design of training program. 

Environmental forces influence the Australian enterprise both positively by enhancing sales and negatively by enhancing the product cost or business overhead.  There are some environmental forces that are outside the Australian enterprise control, but still it succeeds if potential effects of these forces are identified and planned has been put into place. These forces are basically the policies adopted by the Australian government that includes- taxes, sanctions, public service provision and subsidies. The Australian enterprise adopts strategic training for mitigating with these forces and enhancing productivity. The strategic training procedure includes in-basket training, interships, e- learning, virtual reality etc. Moreover, the strategic training responses are generally placed by the Australian firms at various business process stages based on their workplace needs.

At my current workplace, one of the above ten forces that is considered to be extremely important is advancement of technology. Implementation of new technology has facilitated our enterprise to position applications of training as practical instrument for addressing the huge demand. At present, high –end technology adopted by my enterprise also offers with larger bandwidth, which indicates that these programs transmits more information as well as immerse our trainees in fidelity training worlds. Furthermore, advancement in communication media also creates higher opportunity for the trainees in our workplace, which thereby opens the door to tea-based learning. However, our enterprise increasingly uses new technology- based training for responding to their workers development requirements. This in turn enhances their efficiency level and also improves their performance (Tabassi,  Ramli & Bakar, 2012). In addition, it also enhances the total productivity and improves the workplace environment of our enterprise. 

The Role of Technology in Facilitating Effective Training Programs

The particular area that every enterprise should focus on for training development program is development of leadership skills.  It has been opined by Baron & Parent (2015) that, development of leadership skills is extremely important for the training development program since the training managers are the ones who administer the training program. Each company should concentrate in this section as it facilitates the training managers to develop skills and knowledge and also make the workplace attractive mainly for high achieving employees. According to Ladyshewsky & Flavell, (2012), leadership development skills also aids the training managers to improve their ability to inspire and encourage their employees to participate in the training program. In addition, focusing on this area will also help the managers engage their workers more in their job and tackle conflicts arising during the training procedure. Apart from this, this will also help the mangers make good strategic decisions relating to the development programs of training. 

Training design also known as instructional design refers to the method of innovating blueprint basically for the training development program. The design stage of training development involves establishment of learning purpose, planning steps for attaining these objectives, structuring as well as sequencing steps that is to be involved and determination of assessment procedures (Wilson, 2014). The training design method mainly includes-

• Assessment conduction including analysis of task
• Assuring workers readiness
• Creating learning environment
• Assuring transfer of training
• Developing assessment plan
• Assortment of training process
• Monitoring training program

Project planning is mainly utilized for assessment of training programs, which is illustrated below:

• Reaction of workers facilitates the enterprise management to comprehend impact of these training program
• Acquisition of knowledge- Valid test is taken by the organization in order to assess whether the workers acquire appropriate skills from training program (Towler, Watson & A., 2014)
• Behavioral application- This includes evaluation of behavior, attitude and skills of employees attaining training program
• Return on training investment-This total amount of money gained from investment in training program also facilitates the training managers to assess the training programs
• Enhancement in business performance- Lastly, higher growth in business also reflects improvement in performance of business. 

Conclusion

The conclusions that can be drawn from the above study that training and development highly influences both the enterprise as well as employees. Training and development program bring all the workers to high level by enhancing their knowledge as well as skills. On the contrary, these programs might negatively impact the enterprise as some workers might avoid training due to loss of time. But still enterprises makes investment in training programs for improving their financial performance. They should also concentrate on development of leadership skills in order to develop the skills of the training managers so that they can tackle these programs effectively. 

References

Baron, L., & Parent, É. (2015). Developing authentic leadership within a training context: Three phenomena supporting the individual development process. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 22(1), 37-53.

Ford, J. K. (2014). Improving training effectiveness in work organizations. Psychology Press.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Jehanzeb, K., & Bashir, N. A. (2013). Training and development program and its benefits to employee and organization: A conceptual study. European Journal of business and management, 5(2).

Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: game-based methods and strategies for training and education. John Wiley & Sons.

Ladyshewsky, R. K., & Flavell, H. (2012). Transfer of training in an academic leadership development program for program coordinators. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(1), 127-147.

Nda, M. M., & Fard, R. Y. (2013). The impact of employee training and development on employee productivity. Global Journal of Commerce and Management Perspective, 2(6), 91-93.

Noe, R., & Winkler, C. (2012). Training and Development: Learning for Sustainable Management (2^nd ed). North Ryde: Mc Graw Hill.

Punia, B. K., & Kant, S. (2013). A review of factors affecting training effectiveness vis-à-vis managerial implications and future research directions. International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, 2(1), 151-164.

Tabassi, A. A., Ramli, M., & Bakar, A. H. A. (2012). Effects of training and motivation practices on teamwork improvement and task efficiency: The case of construction firms. International Journal of Project Management, 30(2), 213-224.

Wilson, J. P. (2014). International human resource development: Learning, education and training for individuals and organisations. Development and Learning in Organizations, 28(2).