Introduction
In today’s society, the ability to balance life and work responsibilities is critical to maintaining day-to-day operations and can be difficult to do both successfully. It is a necessity in the contemporary workplace. This is where training organizations come into play. They provide services and resources to their clients in an effort to make balancing personal life and work life responsibilities more manageable. These organizations have developed elaborate training programs. The programs are necessary to achieve the goals of the organizations’ mission statement and serve their clients and employees (Hill et al., 2008, p.151).
Approaches used in workplace training
For employees to benefit from workplace training, an effective and success-proven training approach must be chosen. An organization chooses the best training approach for its employees so that after the training they can impact positively to the organisation (Gupta, Bostrom, & Huber, 2010, p.15). The three major approaches that an organisation can adopt are: web-based, job rotation, and hands-on training. In web-based training, the learners attend lessons on workplace practices online. The classes may involve tutorials from experts or video conferencing online. Learners can attend to the routine duties in the organisation and take the tutorials or video conferencing later.
This ensures that the daily routine is intact. An organisation can also choose to use job training approach for its employees. This approach involves employees learning the actual tasks involved in a section of a firm. Managers may be involved in teaching the employees because they have experience in the job. The last approach to workplace training, job rotation, will involve learners rotating in the organisation so that they get equipped with knowledge on how various sections operate. They get knowledge on how to perform tasks even though not in their job areas.
Trends to workplace training
The current workplace globally has several workplace trends. These trends are global, and they are happening to every firm in the world. The first trend witnessed in the workplace is increased intensity. This trend brings fear amongst employees because organisations are trying to operate on meaningful recurrent expenditure, thus resulting to employee layoffs. Employees find themselves in an awkward position trying to balance their performance and the fear of losing their job (Trower, 2010, p.31).
Less loyalty by employees is another trend that is common in the workplace. Various companies are applying downsizing in their companies; thus, employees have less loyalty to their jobs and companies. This is in contrast to earlier days when there were no layoffs; employees had so much loyalty to their employers and jobs. Longer worker hours have become common at the workplace. Initially, it was a question of what workers would do with their leisure. However, there is no more leisure (Gupta et al., 2010, p.10).
Reasons for workplace trend change from traditional to current trends
In the current workplace, trends have shifted from those that were common in the traditional setup. Advancing in technology has not spared change in workplace trends. As technology advances, then, it implies that an organisation will need fewer employees (Hill et al., 2008, p.148). This has lead to layoffs. The usage of the internet has transformed how learners and employees conduct themselves in a firm. They can now learn more and know many things from various fields unlike in the past. The current trends in the workplace are shifting towards performance and improvement support. This, as a result, increased competition amongst employees and companies (Trower, 2010, p.28).
Project’s proposed optimal approach
This project proposes to use a web-based approach for workplace training. Today, the internet plays a vital role in daily lives, and the approach will use the internet to reach clients in order to help them balance their work and social or family roles. These issues include family, dependent care career, education, daily living needs, legal, financial, health and wellness issues. They also provide personal development tools and college or university student and employee support to employees, families, and students (Trower, 2010, p.28). The project aims to strengthen workplace effectiveness through employee engagement and support.
This project hopes to accomplish this by staying focused on the customer, having open and honest communication, integrity, teamwork, and making sure employees are the core of the business. Employees, who are well focused and feel part of the firm they work for, give all their best to the firm (Griffin, 2012, p.294). This is clearly reflected in the results or output of the firm.
The characteristics of the target learners
Web-based approach to workplace training is an intensive and quite involving method where learners have to be very committed. The approach assumes that the learners have basic knowledge on usage of computers. This is important because the approach involves the usage of internet resources for learning. They range from downloading tutorials to video conferencing. The learners must be willing to apportion some time during the day to attend to the lessons either online or download tutorials from the net. Willingness is another crucial characteristic that web learners should possess. This translates to a positive attitude, thus positive results follow.
Commitment is a crucial component that every web learner should possess; it will directly correlate with the output of the training. Lastly, the learners should be practical-oriented, and this will ensure that they apply what they learn to their job and social lives (Griffin, 2012, p.294).
Learning objectives
The web-based approach to workplace training is based on humanistic-based learning theory. It hypothesizes that people learn because of their self-drive and motivation (Abrams & Berge, 2010, p.526). At the end of the training
- the learner should appreciate the importance of accepting change within a firm;
- the learner should appreciate the role of the internet in today’s firm;
- the learner should balance between family and work life;
- the learner should be driven to change;
- the learner should be ready to accept the challenge and continue to live.
Benefits of the workplace training methodology and theory
The web-based training based on humanistic learning theory is an appropriate method for training in the workplace. Firstly, it is less expensive than the conventional class based system. Secondly, it is less time consuming, thus learners start and complete in time. Thirdly, this training approach is more accessible because learners can listen to teachings at the same time from different locations online (Abrams & Berge, 2010, p.524).
Conclusion
Workplace training is essential in an organisation to help employees to manage their duties and job input requirements. There are several theoretical approaches applied effectively for workplace training. Some of these are: web-based, hand-on training, and job rotation. The current workplace is characterised by trend changes that are quite different from those witnessed traditionally. This project will use web-based theoretical approach that will rely on humanistic-based learning theory. The project aims to implement this approach and achieve all the set objectives at the end training. The learners will learn to cope with the requirements of their jobs and social and/or family lives.
References
Abrams, C., & Berge, Z. (2010). Workforce cross training: a re-emerging trend in tough times. Journal of Workplace Learning, 22(8), 522-529.
Griffin, R. (2012). A practitioner friendly and scientifically robust training evaluation approach. Journal of Workplace Learning, 24(6), 393-402.
Gupta, S., Bostrom, R. P., & Huber, M. (2010). End-user training methods: what we know, need To know. ACM SIGMIS Database, 41(4), 9-39.
Hill, E. J., Grzywacz, J. G., Allen, S., Blanchard, V. L., Matz-Costa, C., Shulkin, S., & Pitt-Catsouphes, M. (2008). Defining and conceptualizing workplace flexibility. Community, Work and Family, 11(2), 149-163.
Trower, C. A. (2010). A new generation of faculty: Similar core values in a different world. Peer Review, 12(3), 37-30.