Introduction
The human resource management field is very complex and diverse. The department is critical in addressing labor management, review of performance, compensation, recruitment, selection, and employee training. The aspect of employee training in an organization involves complete and continuous coaching of workers on the right performance skills to guarantee optimal and sustainable performance. Training of employees is a prerequisite for retention and motivation to achieve personal and organizational growth in the short and long term. As part of the human resources management, training in an organization is a duty executed by the human resource team to fulfill direct and indirect labor roles.
Despite the apparent significance of employee training to motivate optimal performance, there are several challenges that organizations face in sustaining a high level of skills among employees. The challenges often occur as a result of an imbalance in the training module, irregular training sessions, complex training schedules, and disjointed training teams that might not integrate the skills into the different organizational cultures. As a result of such challenges, it is very difficult to track feedback from the training. Therefore, this research paper presents a complete training management strategy to ensure that organizations perform optimally and guarantee employee satisfaction. The paper identifies challenges in training, literature, and suggests solutions to reverse the negative trend.
Literature Review
Organizations across the globe have been proactive in offering training sessions for employees as part of efficiency and sustainability strategies. According to Shammot (2014), organizations often tailor different training schedules to ensure that employees are equipped with the right skills that can motivate them to perform optimally. These training schedules are often modified to include factors that motivate employees to achieve their maximum potential in the form of on-job and off-job programs. Irrespective of the size of an organization, a well organized and relevant training of employees is the primary prerequisite for business growth since trainers are skilled to balance the business strategy and core values that might support complete efficiency and employee motivation (Madia, 2014).
According to Obeidat, Masadeh, and Abdallah (2014), training is the primary strategy for organizations to create a sustainable performance module in the dynamic business environment. Training sessions enable organizations to merge different cultural, organizational, and social skills that employees possess to ensure that there is a balance between personal and organizational interests. This means that an organization with proactive and relevant training programs is in a position to effectively manage talent, skills, and social environment of employees since effective training modules encourage a complete and optimal performance level. Such an organization may use the outcome of different training modules to develop proper human resource management strategies such as social, technical, and personal programs in the business environment (Wilden, Lings, & Gudergan, 2010).
In relation to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, effective and continuous employee training in an organization might create an ideal environment for recognizing the needs of employees, creating promotion opportunities, and introduction of structured systems for career growth (Madia, 2014). When training is organized to incorporate the relevant aspects of skill development and motivation, it is possible for organizations to guarantee employee self-actualization (Obeidat et al., 2014).
The primary benefit of complete employee training in any organization is the creation of a service environment that embraces the aspect of equality in role allocation, promotion, and performance review. Besides, training enables the management of an organization to create structures that might accommodate the dynamics in skills development and execution, especially in circumstances where adjustments are required (Wilden et al., 2010).
This means that training strategies on organizations should be customized to integrate collaborative and social conditions for an ideal work environment. Reflectively, it is necessary for any training plan to be inclusive to ensure that the agents of effective performance and other stakeholders are on the same page. The set-up of the corporation might be created through a continuous exchange of information on different elements of skill management. In order to actualized complete training system modification, it is necessary for an organization to execute different training strategies to create models that incorporate the ideas of most the stakeholders to ensure that each program is embraced by the targeted audience (Obeidat et al., 2014).
In the last three decades, organizations have experienced positive growth as employee training strategies evolve. As a result of improved demand from customers, in terms of services and variety, organizations have been successful in keeping up with the changes to remain competitive and improve on efficiency in service delivery and a good work environment (Madia, 2014). As a prerequisite for achieving the state of optimal performance, organizations have rolled out a series of initiatives to ensure that the labor force is reliable and skilled in line with international service standards. In order to show leadership in a complex organization, it is necessary for a manager to practice aspects of leadership that balances different dimensions of power in order to minimize the gap between supervision and perception of the subjects or subordinates. A proper balance may lead to continuous and sustainable teamwork between the management and subordinates in any work environment (Wilden et al., 2010). The training strategies in a friendly work environment are likely to be accommodative to different cultures to create a social environment that is motivational to all parties involved.
The previous organization training model was a linear procedure that was characterized by an individual in the higher rank who conveys decisions to those below him or her without proactive involvement in the training process. The linear process was replaced by the interaction model which is characterized by direct interaction in the training process between the trainer and subjects. In the interactive model, the trainer and the subjects are very active in influencing the course of communication and decision at the macro and micro levels of organization structure (Madia, 2014). This means that the 21st-century employee training model has proactive instruments such as efficiency, proactive interaction, and exclusivity as necessary to ensure optimal accomplishment of a series of current and future business goals.
According to Bloom and Reenen (2010), effort-performance (E-P) expectancy is critical in apprehending different perceptions held by individuals that are related to the level of performance in a work environment. For instance, an experienced leader in a multi-cultural organization may inspire the optimal performance of the employees if he or she applies ethics in designing different training modules. On the other hand, an inexperienced and unethical leader may inspire fear and poor morale in the organization, leading to sluggish performance levels among employees, especially when the training strategies are irrelevant, fixed, and poorly structured. Therefore, the theory argues that better performance as a result of employee training is expected from a more experienced leader than a less experienced counterpart, irrespective of the environment where leadership skills are applied (Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
In order to create an ideal environment for optimal motivation, there is a need to roll out training programs that are holistic, friendly, and soft to employee valence. Besides, the work environment should integrate healthy and sustainable ethical decision culture to create an ideal behavior modeling and social control structure for organization leadership sustainability (Madia, 2014). Other notable elements of the effective organization training are a clear definition of engagement rules, organization behavior code, and strategies for addressing any deviation to ensure that all stakeholders are keen on the sustainability of the employees.
Series of desirable attributes of employee training is instrumental in controlling behavior and perception of employees towards performance decisions made by the employees (Wilden et al., 2010). In most cases, these attributes are internalized in the training plans, different performance tests, and policies that address the efficiency and productivity of employees in an organization. Therefore, for a leader in a management position to guarantee a balance between the lower and higher valence, there is a need to create proactive and dynamic structures for different organization training programs. The ability to balance these dynamics has the potential of creating an ideal work environment where employees are accommodative of different policies and flexible to embrace changes without affecting their performance (Shammot, 2014).
Current challenges in managing organization training
According to Bloom and Reenen (2010), an environment where employee training is balanced between management strategies and employees can be defined as stable and accommodating to the subordinates. Such an environment is ideal for developing self-confidence since it is flexible enough to elucidate the values and norms of the organization while respecting and encouraging proactive employee participation. This environment is achievable through creating universal shared values of the organization as part of the employee culture and work orientation. In the end, the stakeholders operating within different training programs will create a powerful vision of a common and sustainable future that has unlimited possibilities for an ideal performance environment. However, balancing organization values and motivation in creating different organization training programs has been a challenge in many organizations (Shammot, 2014).
Despite the fact that different parameters have been laid down to define what is perceived as an ideal employee training strategy, the universal ethics on how an employee should be treated or handled during training are similar across the board. For instance, the ideal perspective might be a full commitment to developing training programs that promote fairness in a work environment to guarantee proactive participation between the management and subordinates, irrespective of the level of each employee in the responsibility allocation ladder. However, the issue of integrity has become a challenge in implementing such training programs due to unbecoming behavior that might be practiced by individuals at the private citizen level. In order to create a sustainable reassurance strategy for continuous ethical functionality, there should be series of periodic tests on employees’ health, behavior, performance, and attitude to ensure that the training module adopted are effective in promoting optimal performance (Madia, 2014).
Due to constraints in resources, many organizations do not have periodic training programs for the employees. The unpredictable nature of the existing training programs might not be effective in promoting the optimal performance of the employees since key control issues are disjointed when the training programs are delayed. As a result, it is very difficult to apply any module for tracking the results of the training since the imbalances might not give accurate feedback on the performance of each employee. This means that such an organization may not be in a position to modify each training module to fit within the interest of the stakeholders (Bloom & Reenen, 2010). Therefore, there is a need to design a comprehensive training strategy to address the above challenges as a prerequisite for effective, optimal, and sustainable employee performance. The optimal performance of the employees translates into effective organizations.
Recommendations to address the challenges
From the above findings, it is necessary for organizations to remodel their training programs to be more inclusive, consistent, and performance-oriented. Improvement of the training strategies in organizations is necessary for progressing competence among employees and incorporating different methods of performance feedback as a guarantee for a sustainable organization. The proposed improvement is aimed at improving work environment standards and integrating stakeholder relationship that addresses the interests of the employee and the organization. For instance, an organization interested in addressing any challenge in employee training might introduce the continuous orientation-performance portion training through the LAMP framework. Basically, the LAMP framework “stands for logic, analytics, measures, and process, four critical components of a measurement system that drives strategic change and organizational effectiveness” (Shammot, 2014, p. 56). This program is effective in addressing conflicts, accelerating complaints, managing communication skills, and creating a proactive environment that motivates employees to perform optimally. The criterion for tracking the success of the proposed plan is based on reviewing the feedback from employees before and after implementing the program. The proposed training program is summarized in the table below.
(Source: Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
The evaluation of the program may be carried out through the 360-degree feedback which is proactive in tracking the performance of the employees against constraints such as efficiency, motivation, and different labor management policies in an organization. This is summarized in the table below.
(Source: Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
Conclusion
In summary, effective organization training is an important aspect of human resource management since it determines the level of employee performance. Training programs are instrumental in improving the skills of employees to boost the general productivity of an organization. It is necessary to tailor and customize different organization training programs to ensure that companies have a lean and efficient workforce that is capable of performing optimally in the short and long run. Implementation of a dynamic and proactive organization training strategy is a prerequisite for creating an ideal work environment, which serves the interests of the employee and the organization in an appropriate manner.
References
Bloom, N., & Reenen, J. (2010). Why do management practices differ across firms and countries. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(1), 203-334.
Madia, S. (2014). Best practices for using social media as a recruitment strategy. Strategic HR Review, 26(1), 56-73.
Obeidat, Y., Masadeh, R., & Abdallah, B. (2014). The relationships among human resource management practices, organizational commitment, and knowledge management processes: A structural equation modeling approach. International Journal of Business and Management, 9(3), 9-10.
Shammot, M. (2014). The role of human resources management practices represented by employee’s recruitment and training and motivating in realization competitive advantage. International Business Research, 7(4), 55-57.
Wilden, R., Lings, I., & Gudergan, S. (2010). Employer branding: Strategic implications for staff recruitment. Journal of Marketing Management, 26(1-2), 56-73.