T&D potentially has a positive impact upon the employment relations climate. Signalling employees that they are being valued, training was positively correlated with job pay, job promotion and future prospects, and job security (Heyes, Stuart). This was though dependent on the factor that top level management endorse it and positively propose it. Training was also seen to enhance job motivation under certain conditions: there was a practical use to the training and this had been clearly depicted to them (Heyes, Stuart).
Alternatives to T&D are to poach employees from other rivals, or acquire employees through the expensive recruitment and selection process who has the requisite skills required- premium must be paid. The former is a large barrier to the T&D initiative as the benefits accrue to the company and the employee. The rival can potentially poach your trained employees. This is known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, due to which many companies in the UK do not invest in human resource development (Sisson, Storey). The use of temporary or outsourced employees will not only be harder to train as they may deemed unworthy of investment due to their movement ability, they may be not able to provide the high quality service. Though companies outsourcing their call centres seem to be providing them the necessary service. But these operators in India cannot replicate the highly customer orientated service that British call centres can provide i.e. speaking to Yorkshire people in their own dialects- this would require training.
Employees are going to become trained whether the initiative is taken or not as with time they will gain tacit knowledge and they will pick things up ‘by sitting next to Nellie’ over time. This is very inefficient, and a focused initiative could alleviate this.
Many initiatives are not as simple as keyboard typing. Sales techniques methods could be judged on the basis of sales figures and also can be observed (possibly even ethnographically), but these methods of measure can vary due to a number of reasons. Other methods used by Barrat Developments plc were: performance and productivity levels, turnover, and absenteeism(Winstanley, Woodall, pg 107). Application of the Bramley doctrine poses a few troubles here. These methods can depict the evaluation of the T&D initiative but only to some degree.
Another factor as to why T&D does not take place is because UK managers goals are not aligned with the development of their staff, but the profitability or growth of the organisation. It is only natural to be more concerned about yourself than others and with the difference of the managements’ goals and that of the T&D goals, the appraisal system of motivation will work against the T&D goals.
Kodak employees were not being trained as they were meant to be, because the managers were not motivated to do so because this would cause their understaffed office to be affected in terms of volume of work to be done and the workforce was too busy to train. As soon as the manager’s appraisal system was changed, and the training was part of their reward system, the initiative soon began to shape itself.
This was also apparent in Rosenthal et al. research of Tesco where the appraisal system used on the managers, kick-started the service quality initiative .
The culture of UK companies is one of being financially competitive and they place a higher degree of importance on the return to shareholders. The global economy is threatening inefficient markets and companies. Price based competition was always a priority, but now consumers are looking out for the best combination of service and price. If anything the importance of being competitive on price has increased. India and China pose great threats. The highly competitive local market is also pushing companies towards withdrawing themselves from this strategic initiative.
Barrat in the early 90s agreed and began on their training strategy but soon withdrew as the economy had turned dire. They cancelled a few programmes and postponed the evaluation stage. These cost cutting measures front a double edged sword. The measures are important in withstanding the downturn but the long term benefits are sacrificed and demotivate the staff (Winstanley, Woodall).
There are many contingent factors that will affect the T&D strategy that the company will adopt. The following are a few:
Before planning the initiative an audit of the internal and external environment needs to takes place (STEP, SWOT analysis…). This will not only allow the weighing of the different alternatives, but allow consideration on how to counter potential resistance and barriers.
The HRD manager will need to be able to mix with not only the top brass but also the lower level staff. This is so, so as to allow informative and collaborative relationships to form. He cannot be one that either cannot trust as this may increase resistance for suspicion of hidden agendas. For instance the staff may think that the strategy is designed to make them more efficient and help the management reduce the workforce. This concept will have to be quelled by the HRD manager with charisma (using the right kind of language)
The strategy must take into consideration recruitment and selection, retention and rewards and appraisal in combination with the current and expected environment to form the HRM strategy.
Training and Development is paradoxical in the sense that long term benefits have to be weighed against short term strategic needs and resources. T&D allows and helps the effective production of quality services to take place but reduces the cost effectiveness.
The government has recognised these issues but has developed a voluntary government initiative of IIP. This may be due to their own spending budgets, non-interventionist policy or due to pressure from the City.
Reasons provided for companies being reluctant to pursue T&D are quite wide ranging.
The prisoners’ dilemma is an important concept but exists due to the ineffectiveness of the retention and overall HRM policy. T&D has shown in empirical evidence that various areas of the industrial relations climate can be bettered. This should prevent them from leaving the organisation. The employee is going to learn one way or another – best be systematic and effective.
The initiative formed should be well formed taking into consideration the culture of the management and the workforce. The initiative should be clear, concise and well integrated with the various parts of strategic HRM.
Any attitudinal problems of mangers should be replaced or changed as this is the least valid of reasons. The primary concern should be the well being of the company. Some enlightenment with regard to the pros and cons may be necessary to convey to the management .
The only valid reason may be of competitive pressures and the state of affairs of the company and the industry within which it is in. But there should be a continual purveyance of decisions made to the workforce with a clear understanding of issues. Such an understanding culture to come into being cannot happen overnight but over a period of time. This must persist and other advantages will also come about.
It is a must to weigh the pros and cons and balance them as best as possible- T&D is a long term investment with long term potential benefits to form a long term competitive advantage. Taking into consideration the underlying forces present in the environment, some reasons for not pursuing a training initiative can be considered valid while others not.
Bibliography
J Heyes, M Stuart Does Training Matter? Employee experiences and attitudes Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 6 :3
K Sisson, J Storey (2000) The Realities of Human Resource Management: Managing the employment relationship, Open University Press
D Winstanley, J Woodall (1992) Case Studies in Personnel Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD)
