UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUE OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

A wide range of knowledge on the issue of training and development in human resource management has been exploring and analyzing analytically in indicating the contemporary issue on the implications of training and development in an organization. Some results of researches in relation to those issues are also explored comprehensively. Based on these findings, it is concluded that training and development are becoming more important and necessary because of rapid changes in technology and the growth of an organization from time to time. This notion is reasonable since training and development are one of the key factors to increase the employees’ performance and productivity.

Introduction
The discourse of training and development in human resource management has been widely discussed since both training and development and human resource management cannot be separated. The dynamics of rapid change, heightened global competition and advancing technology mean that organizational success will be increasingly dependent on learning. The rapidly changes in technology and an organization increase the potential obsolescence of employees from time to time.
This essay will discuss the issue of training and development to improve human resource management in an organization. The writer is interested in this issue in relation to the philosophy of exercising training and development in the organization. The first part will shed light on the concept induction and orientation as the initial part of training, development, education and learning organization. Then it will explore the reasons for conducting training and a systematic approach to training. Finally, this essay will analyze the impacts of training and development and the responsibility for conducting training in an organization.

Induction and Orientation
According to Nankervis et al (1993 p. 238), “induction is the formal process of familiarising new employees, their job, and their work unit.” There are several reasons for conducting induction: decreasing turnover, rising productivity, improving employee morale, decreasing recruiting and training costs, facilitating learning, and reducing the anxiety of new employee.
Orientation is defined as “familiarization with and adaptation to a situation or an environment” (Cascio, 1995 p.239). In almost similar way, Helen (2003) suggested that orientation involves familiarizing new employees with company rules, policies and procedures. It means orientation is the way to ease new employees’ transition into the organizational environment by sharing information in an effort to make the new employees comfortable in their new positions with the organization.
Based on the notions above, the writer concluded induction and orientation are the ways of giving new employees information about the organization and their jobs. This implies that there are some purposes of induction and orientation: to introduce new employee to the job and the workplace to explain company history, to make the employee feel welcome, to ensure that the employee knows what to do and who to ask when unsure, to demonstrate each task in the job, to create positive employee attitudes toward the company and the job. Therefore, effective orientation should involve the serious involvement of employees and the support from peers, senior coworkers and managers. As Helen (2003) posited some characteristics of effective orientation programs as: giving the encouragement for employees to ask questions, giving programs containing information on both technical and social aspects of the job, orientation is the responsibility of manager of the new employees’, avoiding abasement and embassment, creating formal and informal interaction among new employees, peers and managers, giving information about relocation help, and providing information about the company’s services, products and customers.

Training, Development, Education and Learning Organization
Training, development, and education
According to Dessler et al (2004 p. 300), “training is the process of providing employees with the appropriate knowledge, skills, attitudes to help them to perform their current job.” Similarly, Nankervis et al (1993) defined training as any procedure proposed by an organization to create learning among employees. Based on those two ideas, the writer posits that the core idea of training is to change people’s way of behaving on the job in some fashion. This implies training is not just learning, it is also behavior change. After the training is conducted, new employees should do something differently than they did before relating to their daily job.
On the other hand, “development is more general and goes beyond educating employees for a specific position whether present or future” (Nankervis et al, 1993 p.242 ). Kramar (1994) defined development as the use of a variety of programs to prepare employees for more senior position. Thus, development has more long term purpose. It is the process of imparting knowledge, skills and abilities for future career advancement opportunities. This means employee development is very critical for the success of organization to achieve its goals. As Cooper and Kurland (2002) argued employee development activities are critical for organizations to effectively adapt and compete in turbulent environments.
Another aspect of learning is education. According to Kramar (1994) education can improve knowledge, skills, moral values and understanding of new employees. Education relates to the acquisition of skills that are critical for learning and development as person. It has broad application beyond the activities of a job and makes the new employees capable of coping with change and turbulent in organization.
Based on the discussion above, it can be concluded that training focuses more on improving employees’ performance on current job while development focuses more on preparing for future jobs or changes in the organization but both training and development have the same the purposes. As Heneman and Schwab (1978) claimed that the purpose of both training and development is to provide learning experiences.
Learning organization
Senge (1990) defined a learning organization as “organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together”. Rowly (2006 p. 237) posited that “a learning organization is one that has strong sense of direction, a focus on individual performance and encourages development of staff”.
Based on these notions, it can be synthesized that learning organization is an organization in which everyone is encouraged to identify and solve problems, to enable the organization to continuously experiment, improve, and increase its capability. This means that learning organizations are supposed to allow not only for continuous improvement but major change as well and transformation from the learning developed.
Senge (1990) identified five components of disciplines that are the foundation for building a learning organization. These five disciplines are shared vision, personal mastery, mental models, team learning and system thinking. Shared vision means sharing an image of the future people want to realize together, personal mastery relates to a process of personal commitment to vision, excellence, and lifelong learning, mental models ingrains assumption that affect personal and organizational views and behaviors, team learning implies the process of learning collectively, and system thinking is conceptual framework concerning all parts as interrelated and affecting each other.

Importance of Training and Development
Garrat (1999) stated that since the world becomes more complex and uncertain, it is important that the capability of both individuals and organizations to learn regularly and rigorously from their work is supported. Thus, they may adapt rapidly and continuously to their changing environment. In addition, Giesecke and McNeil (2004), the concept of learning can provide leaders, managers, and staff with the tools they need to develop organizations that can succeed in turbulent times.
Hoffman (cited from Schuler, 1992) claimed the major purpose of training and development is to remove performance deficiencies which are the outcomes of inability of employees to perform at desired level and to encourage them to be more productive. Training is important for the organization with stagnant or declining rates of productivity training is also crucial for the organization that are rapidly incorporating new technologies and consequently raising the possibility of employee obsolescence.
Concerning the idea above, the writer analyzes training and developments are important for several main reasons: (1) performance problems and skill deficiencies, (2) change in program, product or service and technology, (3) needs of organization or personnel, (4) cost effectiveness, and (5) employee promotion and advancement. This implies that when good training is absent there is likely to be an atmosphere of tension, crisis, and conflict in an organization since nobody knows what to do.

Systematic Approach to Training Process
There are some phases of conducting training in an organization: assessment phase, training and development phase and evaluation phase (Goldstein 1986, Schuler 1992). Assessment phase works best with three types of analyses: organization analysis relates to question where training is needed in an organization, task analysis answers question of what an employee must be taught in order to perform effectively and person analysis is a process for determining individuals’ needs and readiness for training. Person analysis is critical when training is considered in response to a performance problem. In conducting evaluation, some aspects should be evaluated are employee reaction, amount of learning, behavior changes and outcomes.
Based on the idea above, the writer formulates systematic training process as the following:
1. Identifying training needs
Training needs are identified at three level analyses: organization, job and employee. Needs assessment or needs analysis is the process of determining the organization’s training needs and seeks to answer the question of whether the organization’s needs, objectives, and problems can be met or addressed by training (Arthur et al, 2003). Thus, need analysis is a process of determining whether a true need for improving performance exists, and if it does, identifying its nature and extent.
In the writer’s point, there are some outcomes expected from this stage such as providing evidence of inadequate performance, collecting data, obtaining management commitment, providing baseline data for evaluation and determining value of training. As Sleezer (1993) argued conducting a systematic needs assessment is a crucial initial step to training and development and can substantially influence the overall effectiveness of training programs.
2. Setting training objectives
After conducting need analysis in terms of organization, task and person analysis, desired and results of training can be established. In this case, clear and concise objectives must be formulated, objectives should relate specifically to each of the skills or areas of knowledge identified, and objectives should be stated as concrete as possible. As Porter (1999) argued one of key factors to designing training with positive impact is aligning training to organizational goals and objectives, and tailoring the training to meet those needs.
3. Choosing training methods
After the needs of training and development and its specific objectives is identified and determined, the next stage is selecting the instructional methods to deliver the training. According to Helen (2003), a number of different methods can be used to help new employees acquire new knowledge, expertise and behaviors. Cascio (1995) classified training methods into three ways: (1) information presentation techniques include activities such as lecturers, conferences, reading lists, sensitivity training, programmed instruction, (2) simulation methods include activities such as case method and role playing, and (3) on-the-job training methods include activities such as on-the-job training, job rotation, internships, apprenticeship training, on-the-job coaching.
Concerning some methods of presenting training, the writer argues none of the methods are the best among others. The decision of choosing which method is used depends much on the content and situation of training. As Cascio (1995) claimed what is to be taught must be analyzed carefully to decide which training methods are used. This in turn shows the importance of assessment phase.
4. Implementing training
According to Clark (1992), training can be conducted in a variety of forms. It can be done in the form of on-the-job training, learning from experience, attendance of courses, or educational programs. Cooper and Kurland (2002) also explained that the implementation of training and development can be formal or informal. Informal developmental activities occur during employees’ day-to-day experiences on the job and can actually be more critical to employee development than formal developmental activities such as workshops and training. According to them, three types of developmental activities include interpersonal networking with colleagues in the organization, informal learning that enhances work-related skills and information distribution.
5. Evaluating Training
This stage is critical since it is the way of knowing whether the training was successful. There are some different approaches to training evaluation that have been suggested. Odiorne (cited from Clark, 1992) suggested a four level approach. They are opinion survey in which the impression and the opinion of the participants are collected on the basis of usefulness, practicality and enjoyment, objective measures of post-training performance which include the aspects such as outcomes, staff appraisal which measures the implication of the training on the trainees, and overall appraisal of aggregate growth which measure the effect of training on all participants and on their organizations.
In slightly different way, Nankervis et al (2003) suggested four approaches to evaluation: end-of-session evaluation form, evaluation is to test whether anything was actually learnt, trainers can look for feedback at the end of session whether employees’ on-the-job behaviors are varied, and determine the outcomes of the behavior change. Based on these ideas, the writer analyzes that to achieve the aims of evaluation, it should involve measurement of several items acquired from learning such as reactions, knowledge, behavior, attitudes, performance, and productivity.

Trends in Training
Polson (cited from Nankervis et al, 2003) has proposed a number of trends in terms of social workplace and their effort to predict their impact on the training. He posited trends in training as the following:
• The gearing of generic learning to offer fundamental competencies
• Addressing specific needs of the organization through operational learning
• The emphasis on ‘action learning’
• A range of different training delivery
• The greater use of CD-ROM which allows the employees play and learn simultaneously
• The use of drop-in centers in which videos, audio tapes, workbooks are all available for a range of different application
• Downsizing of large training departments.

Those aspects above show some main aspects of training trends. Firstly, the trends in training focus more on encouraging employees to be independent learner through the greater use of CD-ROM. This gives more opportunity for the learners to be independent in their learning. Secondly, forms of training delivery are various. It allows people in an organization to choose which method is suitable with the condition and atmosphere of their organization. Thirdly, the trends also show the various kinds of learning such as generic learning, operational learning and action learning. In the writer’s point, others trend in training are the use of computerized systems to manage and deliver training programs which requires computer skills, rapid development and deployment, and performance measurement in evaluation.

The impact of Training and Development
According to Hoffman (cited from Schuler, 1992) there are several main aims of training and development for example: to increase employees’ performance and productivity, to make the current employee more flexible and adaptable which in turn increase the adaptability of the organization, to increase the potential of the organization for survival and profitability, to increase the level of commitment of employees to the organization and their perception that it is a good place to work, to decrease turnover and absenteeism.
Considering the idea above, the writer posits several impact of conducting training and development. They are increasing quality and quantity of work performance, decreasing job mistakes and decreasing work related injuries, increasing knowledge and skills attitudes, decreasing costs of management, decreasing absenteeism, turnover and tension rates, and increasing job satisfaction. In short, through training and development, supervisor may get more time to manage, less absenteeism, less turnover, reduced tension, lower costs, more customers, better service. For employees, and training and development may give them confidence to do their jobs, reduce tension, boost morale and job satisfaction, reduce work related injuries, and give them a chance to advance.

Whose Responsibility of conducting Training and Development is
Since it has been proved from the discussion above that training and development is very important in an organization, it is necessary that training and development are conducted effectively and systematically. This implies that certain people should be responsible for it. Helen (2003) argued the responsibility of conducting training in the form of orientation is the new employee’s manager. In more comprehensive way, Schuler (1992) suggested there are certain people who are responsible for conducting training and development. Top manager have traditionally been able to exercise the most initiative in his or her own training. Line manager is responsible for developing and utilizing his human resources to get the result for which he is held directly accountable. Staff specialist or the personnel department should also assist line manager on this by conducting interviews for collecting performance data, analyzing performance requirements, recommending designing training and development programs, and conducting training and development programs where appropriate.
In addition, Schuler also considered the importance of active participation of new employees in their own training. However, this does not imply that all individual should be fully responsible for their training. Individual responsibility should be limited by the extent to which an employee able to take a lead in the training and development effort. Based on these ideas, the writer analyzes the responsibility of conducting training and development in an organization is on manager as the main initiator and coordinator, certain specialist staffs or personnel department as the assistants of manager, and employees themselves as the participants of training and development programs. Those people should totally and actively participate to accomplish successful training and development programs.

Conclusion
Training and development activities conducted in a wide range of forms are one of the key factors for the organization to succeed. These activities are becoming more important and necessary because of rapid changes in technology and the growth of an organization. As Cooper and Kurland (2002) argued employee development activities are critical for organizations to effectively adapt and compete in turbulent environments.
Considering the application of training and development, training focuses more on improving employees’ performance on current job while development focuses more on preparing for future jobs or changes in the organization. However, both training and development have the same purposes of improving the quality of human resources in the organization. Training and development will be one way of creating learning organization in which everyone is encouraged to identify and solve problems, to enable the organization to continuously experiment, improve, and increase its capability.
The importance of learning through training and development cannot be neglected because it prepares members of the organization to cope with problems and changes. Therefore, training and development should be conducted in a systematic ways. Three main approaches to develop training and development are assessment phase, development of training design which involves setting objectives and selecting method and evaluation phase. The main aims of training and development are to increase employees’ quality for performance and productivity and to make them more adaptable. To achieve these objectives, certain people should take in charge of it including manager as initiator and coordinator, personnel department or specialist staffs as manager’s assistants, and new employees themselves as participants.

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