14.

Training and Development

Training and development à changes in skill, knowledge, attitude, or social behaviour.

Training and development activities à planned programs of organizational improvement.
Ultimate objective = to link training content to desired job behaviors.

Theoretical models:
- individual differences model
- principles of learning and transfer
- motivation theory
- goal setting
- behaviour modelling.

Change, growth, and development are bald facts of organizational life. In addition to nonstop
change, modern organizations face other major challenges:
- Hyper competition à both domestic and international
- A power shift to the customer à internet, access to databases
- Collaboration across organizational and geographic boundaries
- The need to maintain high levels of talent
- Changes in the workforce
- Changes in technology
- Teams.

Organizations that provide superior opportunities for learning and growth have a distinct
advantage when competing for talented employees à dual responsibility:
- organization: responsible for providing an atmosphere that will support and encourage change
- individual: responsible for deriving maximum benefit from the learning opportunities provided.

Training and management are important managerial tools, but there are limits to what they can
accomplish.

Properties and characteristics of training and development:

1. Learning experiences
2. Planned by the organization
3. Occur after the individual has joined the organization
4. Intended to further the organization’s goals.

Training = activities directed toward the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes for
which there is an immediate or near-term application.
Development = the acquisition of attributes or competencies for which there may be no
immediate use. 

Research: 70% of workforce learning is informal (unplanned).

Characteristics of Effective Training:

  Top management is committed to training and development: training is part of the
corporate culture.
 Training is coupled to business strategy and objectives and is linked to bottom-line
results.
 Organizational environments are “feedback rich”.
 There is commitment to invest the necessary resources, to provide sufficient time and
money for training.

The model (p. 347) illustrates that characteristics of the individual, as well as on the work
environment, are critical factors before training (by affecting motivation), during training (by
affecting learning), and after training (by influencing transfer and job performance).

Program development comprises three major phrases:

- Planning (or needs assessment)
- Implementation (or training and development)
- Evaluation à twofold process:
   1. Establishing measures of training and job-performance success (criteria)
   2. Using experimental and quasi-experimental designs to determine what
   changes have occurred.

Possible training goals:

 Training validity (did trainees learn anything during training?)

 Transfer validity (to what extent did KSAO’s learned in training lead to improved
performance on the job?)

 Intraorganizational validity (is the performance of a new group of trainees in the same

organization that developed the training program similar to the performance of the
original training group?)

 Interorganizational validity (can a training program that “works” in one organization be

used successfully in another organization?)

6 steps in defining what is to be learned/ content of the training:

1. Analyze the training and development subsystem and its interaction with other systems.
2. Training needs.
3. Training objectives.
4. Decompose the learning task into its structural components.
5. Optimal sequencing of the components.
6. Alternative ways of learning.

Overall goal  à to link training content to desired job behaviors!

1.
Training does not always lead to effective behaviors and enhanced organizational results à
reason: lack of alignment between training and organization’s strategy à better alignment? Do 3
things:

 Identify what new capabilities will be needed, how they compare to current capabilities,
and what steps are necessary to bridge the gap.

 Leaders should periodically seek to identify key strategic capabilities that will be needed
as the organization goes forward.

 Training organizations should compare their current programs and services against the
organization’s strategic needs.

3 other conditions must be present:

- individual must be capable (can do)
- individual must be motivated (will do)
- supporting development effort of individuals.

2.
Needs assessment:

1. Essential starting point about needs assessment.

2. Many training programs do not use it (only 6%).
3. Very little ongoing research.

Three-facet approach:

 Organization analysis
Identification where training is needed in the organization. Purpose à to link strategic
workforce-planning considerations with training needs-assessment results.

 Operations analysis
Identification of the content of the training.
1. A systematic collection of information that describes how work is done.
2. Determination of standards of performance for that work.
3. How tasks are to be performed to meet the standards.
4. The competencies necessary for effective task performance.
For jobs that are complex/ dynamic à Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA): focuses explicitly
on identifying the mental aspects of performance, like decision-making or problem
solving (not directly observable).

 Person analysis
Identification of who needs training and of what kind is needed. Important aspect à to
determine whether training can fill the gap or whether other interventions should be used.
Critical incidents.
All three must be conducted in a continuing, ongoing manner and at all three levels.
Demographic analysis = needs analysis done at policy level based on different populations
(special needs of a particular group, e.g. workers over 40)

An important consideration in the needs-assessment process is the external environment.

Individual Development Plans (IDP) include:

- Statement of aims (desired changes)
- Definitions
- Ideas about priorities.

3.
Training objectives à the fundamental step in training design.
Objectives are stated either in behavioural or in operational terms.
Each objective should describe:
1. the desired behaviour
2. the conditions under which the behaviour should occur
3. the standards by which the trainee’s behaviour is to be judged.
Objectives also may be stated in operational or end-result terms.
4.
7 features of the learning environment that facilitate learning and transfer:

1. Trainees understand the objectives of the training program.

2. Training content is meaningful.
3. Trainees are given cues that help them learn and recall training content.
4. Trainees have opportunities to practice.
5. Trainees receive feedback from trainers, observers, video, etc.
6. Opportunity to observe and interact with other trainees.
7. Training program is good coordinated and arranged.

5.
Sequence involves learning each subtask before undertaking the total task.

Team training à individual training cannot do the whole job; we need to address interactions
among team members. But simply placing a task within a team context may not improve overall
performance.
Systematic approach to team training that includes 4 steps:
1. Conduct a team-training needs analysis.
2. Develop training objectives that address both taskwork and teamwork skills.
3. Design exercises and training events based on the objectives from step 2.
4. Design measures of team effectiveness based on the objectives set at step 2, evaluate the
effectiveness of the team training, and use this information to guide future team training.
à popular intervention: Crew Resource Management (CRM).

Theoretical models to guide training and development efforts:

Different people have their own favourite ways of learning. The growing popularity of various
forms of technology-delivered instruction offers the opportunity to tailor (op maat) learning
environments to individuals.
“Can do” and “will do” factors should be effective predictors of training performance.
Trainability = combination of an individual’s ability and motivation levels.
We need to establish a behavioural baseline for each individual: results from each individual’s
prior history. Unfortunately, a great deal of training research ignores the concept of the
behavioural baseline and the measurement of initial state.
Adaptive training = methods are varied to suit the abilities and characteristics of the trainees.

Learning principles

 Knowledge of Results: KR (Feedback)

Provides information that enables the learner to correct mistakes. Intrinsic or extrinsic.
Qualitative, quantitative, informative of evaluative. Presence of KR improves
performance, but managers often misperceive its effects.

 Transfer of Training
The application of behaviors learned in training to the job itself. The use of multiple
rating sources with different perspectives is necessary to provide a more realistic
assessment to transfer effects. O.a.: maximize the similarity between the training situation
and the job situation. The attitudes of trainees may also affect transfer.

 Self-regulation to keep Changes in Behavior

Increases the self-efficacy of trainees and their attendance was higher than that of the
control group.

 Adaptive Leadership
Designed to provide trainees with information about future directions they should take in
sequencing study and practice in order to improve their performance. Substantial impacts
on self-regulation process indicators and on the sequence of trainees’ study and practice.

 Reinforcement
In order to behaviour to be acquired, modified, and sustained, it must be rewarded
(reinforced). Reward à “Good, repeat what you have done”
Punishment à “Stop, you make the wrong response”.
In practice, it is difficult to apply this principle.
 

 Practice
Active use of training content. 3 aspects:

- Active Practice: not enough to read only. Error-management training.

   - Over-learning: tasks become “second nature”.

   - Length of the Practice Session: learning is better when practice is spread
   (intervals between sessions) rather than massed.

 Motivation
Characteristics that predict motivation to learn: pretraining self-efficacy, valence of
training, job involvement, organizational commitment, career exploration,
conscientiousness, goal orientation, anxiety.
Pygmalion effect = expectations have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, so
that the higher the expectations are, the better the trainees perform (and vice versa).

 Goal Setting
One of the most effective ways to raise a trainee’s motivation is by setting goals. Goal
setting is not risk free à excessive risk taking, feelings of failure.

 Behavior Modeling
Based on social-learning theory (we learn by observing others).
1. Modeling
2. Role-playing
3. Social reinforcement
4. Transfer of training