Employee Training and Development: Reasons and Benefits
Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Copyright 1997-2008.
Sections of this document include
Typical Reasons for Employee Training and DevelopmentTypical Topics of Employee Training
General Benefits from Employee Training and Development
As a brief review of terms, training involves an expert working with learners to transfer to them certain areas of knowledge or skills to improve in their current jobs. Development is a broad, ongoing multi-faceted set of activities (training activities among them) to bring someone or an organization up to another threshold of performance, often to perform some job or new role in the future.
Typical Reasons for Employee Training and Development
Training and development can be initiated for a variety of reasons for an employee or group of employees, e.g.,:- When a performance appraisal indicates performance improvement is needed
- To "benchmark" the status of improvement so far in a performance improvement effort
- As part of an overall professional development program
- As part of succession planning to help an employee be eligible for a planned change in role in the organization
- To "pilot", or test, the operation of a new performance management system
- To train about a specific topic (see below)
Typical Topics of Employee Training
- Communications: The increasing diversity of today's workforce brings a wide variety of languages and customs.
- Computer skills: Computer skills are becoming a necessity for conducting administrative and office tasks.
- Customer service: Increased competition in today's global marketplace makes it critical that employees understand and meet the needs of customers.
- Diversity: Diversity training usually includes explanation about how people have different perspectives and views, and includes techniques to value diversity
- Ethics: Today's society has increasing expectations about corporate social responsibility. Also, today's diverse workforce brings a wide variety of values and morals to the workplace.
- Human relations: The increased stresses of today's workplace can include misunderstandings and conflict. Training can people to get along in the workplace.
- Quality initiatives: Initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, benchmarking, etc., require basic training about quality concepts, guidelines and standards for quality, etc.
- Safety: Safety training is critical where working with heavy equipment , hazardous chemicals, repetitive activities, etc., but can also be useful with practical advice for avoiding assaults, etc.
- Sexual harassment: Sexual harassment training usually includes careful description of the organization's policies about sexual harassment, especially about what are inappropriate behaviors.
General Benefits from Employee Training and Development
There are numerous sources of online information about training and development. Several of these sites (they're listed later on in this library) suggest reasons for supervisors to conduct training among employees. These reasons include:- Increased job satisfaction and morale among employees
- Increased employee motivation
- Increased efficiencies in processes, resulting in financial gain
- Increased capacity to adopt new technologies and methods
- Increased innovation in strategies and products
- Reduced employee turnover
- Enhanced company image, e.g., conducting ethics training (not a good reason for ethics training!)
- Risk management, e.g., training about sexual harassment, diversity training
For the Category of Training and Development:
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books
Basics and General Information
Orienting and Training Employees
Basics and General Information
Field
Guide to Leadership and Supervision in Business
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides step-by-step, highly practical guidelines to recruit, utilize and evaluate the best employees for your business. Includes guidelines to effectively lead yourself (as Board member or employee), other individuals, groups and organizations. Includes guidelines to avoid burnout -- a very common problem among employees of small businesses. Many materials in this Library's topic about staffing are adapted from this book.
Field
Guide to Leadership and Supervision With Nonprofit Staff
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides step-by-step, highly practical guidelines to recruit, utilize and evaluate the best staff members for your nonprofit. Includes guidelines to effectively lead yourself (as Board member or staff member), other individuals, groups and organizations. Includes guidelines to avoid burnout -- a very common problem among nonprofit staff. Many materials in this Library's topic about staffing are adapted from this book.
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Orienting and Training Employees
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Also See
Human Resources -- Recommended Books
