CHAPTER 2: TRAINING DEVELOPMENT

The Evolution of Training: From an Event to Learning

As more companies such as Keller Williams recognize the importance of learning for meeting business
challenges and providing a competitive advantage, the role of training in companies is changing. Recall
the discussion in Chapter One, “Introduction to Employee Training and Development,” of the different
ways that learning can occur in a company. Learning occurs through training, development, informal
learning, and knowledge management. Training and development programs that are organized and
created by the company, i.e., formal training and development programs, are one way to ensure that
employees learn. In less strategic approaches, training involves a series of programs or events that
employees are required to attend. After attending the training program, employees are responsible
for using what they learned in training on the job, and any support they might receive is based on the
whims of their manager. Also, training provides no information that would help employees understand
the relationship between the training content and their job performance, development objectives, or
business goals. This type of training usually fails to improve workplace performance and meet
business needs. The role of training as a program or event will continue into the future because
employees will always need to be taught specific knowledge and skills. This approach assumes that
business conditions are predictable, they can be controlled by the company, and the company can
control and anticipate the knowledge and skills that employees need in the future. These assumptions
are true for certain skills, such as communication and conflict resolution. However, these training
events or programs will need to be more closely tied to performance improvement and business needs
to receive support from top management. The training design model, presented in Chapter One, and
the different aspects of the model, discussed in Chapters Three through Eight, will help you
understand how to design training programs that can improve employee performance and meet
business needs.

LEARNING AS A STRATEGIC FOCUS

The Learning Organization

Many companies, recognizing the strategic importance of learning, have strived to become learning
organizations. As discussed in Chapter 1, a learning organization is a company that has an enhanced
capacity to learn, adapt, and change.4 Training processes are carefully scrutinized and aligned with
company goals. In a learning organization, training is seen as one part of a system designed to create
human capital. ARI’s president is the company’s biggest cheerleader for learning and development.5
His vision is that all ARI employees are lifelong learners. To foster a learning culture, ARI emphasizes
choosing new employees who have a desire for personal and professional development and providing an
environment that fosters learning. Interview questions for job candidates focus not only on the match
between their abilities, experiences, and job requirements, but also on their desire for personal and
professional development. All employees have individual development plans that match career goals
with learning objectives. Every employee needs a development plan to be considered for promotion.
The company sets goals for average training hours for employees each year. If those goals are
reached, nonmanagement employees receive a bonus of one day’s pay. ARI has a corporate university
but they also support employees interested in other types of learning by providing complete tuition
reimbursement from the first day employees join the company.

The essential features of a learning organization appear in Table 2.1. Note that the learning
organization emphasizes that learning occurs not only at the individual employee level (as we
traditionally think of learning), but also at the group and organizational levels. The learning
organization emphasizes knowledge management.One of the most important aspects of a learning
organization is the ability for employees to learn from failure and from successes. That is, learning
includes understanding why things happen and why some choices lead to outcomes.6 Both success and
failure trigger investigation, which help employees revise assumptions, models, and theories. For
example, Apple’s Newton tablet failed miserably when it was introduced in 1990. However, the failure
caused Apple to reexamine its theories about what makes successful products. As a result, Apple
recognized that a touchphone would be accepted more easily by consumers

TABLE 2.1 Key Features of a Learning Organization

because of the existing smartphone market. Subsequently, using what they learned about the iPhone
helped develop a more successful tablet, the iPad. Pixar, which has created a number of successful
and acclaimed animated films, still conducts reviews of the process used to make each of its films. For
example, Pixar asks employees the top five things they would do and not do again. This is important to
gain a better understanding of the reasons behind successful performance so they can be shared by
others. To learn from failure and success requires providing employees with the opportunity to
experiment with products and services similar to what happens in engineering and scientific research.
Some of the conditions necessary for successful experimentation include that it involves genuine
uncertainty, the cost of failure is small and contained, the risks of failure are understood and
eliminated if possible, there is an understanding that failure still provides important information,
success is defined, and the opportunity is significant.

At Walt Disney Company over the last ten years, training has evolved to include flexible learning
delivery, customized learning experiences, and collaborative development with internal training
customers.7 Disney has moved from an instructor-led training approach to an approach that uses
face-to-face instruction (either in a classroom or on the job) combined with online instruction (game
simulation, e-learning). This suits Disney’s business strategy, which has always emphasized matching
the appropriate technology and methods to the audience regardless of whether the audience is a
guest or an employee (cast member).

A single training event or program is not likely to give a company a competitive advantage because
explicit knowledge is well known and programs designed to teach it can be easily developed and
imitated. However, tacit knowledge developed through experience and shared through interactions
between employees is impossible to imitate and can provide companies with a competitive advantage.
Pixar’s development of successful computer-animated films such as WALL-E (a robot love story set in
a post-apocalyptic world of trash) and Inside Out (the story about emotions, change, and growing up)
required the cooperation of a team of talented directors, writers, producers, and technology artists
who were located in different buildings, have different priorities, and speak different technical
languages.8 Pixar follows three operating principles: (1) all employees must have the freedom to
communicate with other employees, regardless of their position or department; (2) it must be safe for
everyone to offer ideas; and (3) the company must maintain awareness of innovations occurring in the
academic community. Pixar University offers a collection of in-house courses for training and cross-
training employees within their specialty areas. But it also offers optional classes that provide
opportunities for employees from different disciplines to meet and learn together. Screenplay writing,
drawing, and sculpting are directly related to the business, while courses in Pilates and yoga are not.
The courses are attended by employees with all levels of expertise—from novices to experts—which
reinforces the idea that all employees are learning and it is fun to learn together.

Implications of Learning for Human Capital Development

The emphasis on learning has several implications. First, there is a recognition that to be effective,
learning has to be related to helping employee performance improve and the company achieve its
business goals. This connection helps ensure that employees are motivated to learn and that the
limited resources (time and money) for learning are focused in areas that will directly help the
business succeed. Second, unpredictability in the business environment in which companies operate will
continue to be the norm. Because problems cannot be predicted in advance, learning needs to occur on
an as-needed basis. Companies need to move beyond the classroom and instead use job experiences,
online learning, and mobile learning to help employees acquire knowledge and skills while they focus on
business problems. Third, because tacit knowledge is difficult to acquire in training programs,
companies need to support informal learning that occurs through mentoring, social networks, and job
experiences. Fourth, learning has to be supported not only with physical and technical resources but
also psychologically. The company work environment needs to support learning, and managers and
peers need to encourage learning and help employees find ways to obtain learning on the job. Also,
managers need to understand employees’ interests and career goals to help them find suitable
development activities that will prepare them to be successful in other positions in the company or
deal with expansion of their current job. Chapter Five, “Program Design,” discusses how to create a
work environment that supports training and learning.Creating and sharing knowledge refers to
companies’ development of human capital.

As discussed in Chapter One, human capital includes cognitive knowledge (know what), advanced skills
(know how), system understanding and creativity (know why), and selfmotivated creativity (care
why).9 Traditionally, training has focused on cognitive and advanced skills. But the greatest value for
the business may be created by having employees understand the manufacturing or service process
and the interrelationships between departments and divisions (system understanding), as well as
motivating them to deliver highquality products and services (care why). To create and share
knowledge, companies have to provide the physical space and technology (e-mail, websites, social
networks) to encourage employee collaboration and knowledge sharing. Ford Motor Company has
communities of practice organized around functions.10 For example, all the painters in every Ford
assembly plant around the world belong to the same community. At each plant, one of the painters
serves as a “focal point.” If a local painter discovers a better way to improve one of the sixty steps
involved in painting, the focal person completes a template describing the improvement and its
benefits. The template then is submitted electronically to a subjectmatter expert located at Ford
headquarters, who reviews the practice and decides whether it is worth sharing with other assembly
plants. If so, the practice is approved and sent online to the other assembly plants. Ford has collected
$1.3 billion in projected value for the company and has realized over $800 million of actual value from
its communities of practice.

As companies recognize the value of training and development and view them as part of a broader
learning strategy, seven key capabilities are needed.11 These capabilities are:

1. Alignment of learning goals to business goals

2. Measurement of the overall business impact of the learning function

3. Movement of learning outside the company to include customers, vendors, and suppliers

4. A focus on developing competencies for the most critical jobs

5. Integration of learning with other human resource functions, such as knowledge management,
performance support, and talent management
6. Delivery approaches that include classroom training as well as e-learning

7. Design and delivery of leadership development courses

These capabilities are part of the strategic training and development process, which is discussed next.

Additional Information:

Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes,
and preferences.[1] The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is
also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants.

Reference :

URL:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning