Identification of the key aspects of the business's training and development program and the importance of these to the performance of the business

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Identification of the key aspects of the business's training and development program and the importance of these to the performance of the business

The point of training

Training employees is to improve the skills of the employee or teaching them new skills, so obviously a well trained workforce will have large benefits for a business over a poorly or not trained workforce.

* Well trained staff will generally be more productive which is good because goals will be achieved on time or quicker than usual and overall objectives will be met faster and more efficiently.

* Through training employees improve their skills and themselves which brings the chance of promotion, as the more important the job within the business the more sense it makes to have a skilled trained employee with the most qualification.

* Training helps the business use new technology as they can be trained to use new machinery, computers, software and the workers will be more efficient and quicker in their job through the implementation of this technology.

* To improve flexibility, if the organisation of the business is being changed people can be trained to do new jobs and new tasks.

* Job satisfaction should be increased for employees and the higher the job satisfaction for an employee the more motivated they are likely to be and a motivated worker is a more efficient worker.

Why do we need training?

Although training is costly and time consuming it is a very valuable benefit to a business if it is well trained.

To realise a need for training can be found in various different ways, if you compare the skills needed to do a job with the job description then you can see any major differences indicate that training would benefit. Many businesses offer optional training as a employee forced to train will be less likely to want to comply than someone who chose to do the training themselves, often managers will ask employees what they feel are their weaknesses and/or what they believe they would benefit from through training.

Once a manager has established a need for training they must justify it, this is generally how it will help the company to achieve its objectives and aims. Occasionally criteria will be measured before the training and after to identify whether the training was effective.

Within Alcatel they tend to send their staff on long training courses which will cover many different aspects from the actual job in this case a sales person. They would be taught the sales technique but also team development and other motivational techniques, Alcatel sees training as a very important tool which can make even the best workers that bit better and is a better alternative to finding a new person for a job. Often they will mix training with something fun so that it is taken in well for example a meal in an expensive restaurant as the 'treat' for their hard work. This is a great way to motivate people as they are not only gaining the skills but something they see as an enjoyable time, which they will link to the training.

Training methods

Training is generally seen in two ways, there is off-the-job training and on-the-job training which I will now explain.

Off-the-job training

This is internal and external training courses, generally the employee is sent once a week to college or university to be trained. Training staff are often employed by the company to teach staff about new technology or methods that the business is keen to use. Large businesses can have training centres on the property so that they can be constantly improving their workforce, offering courses which can be from a day to weeks depending on what the actual training is for.

Firms today are keener to offer training that incorporates qualifications in with it; these are offered by external examination by universities and colleges. A few examples of this are;

* Vocational training, offers the qualifications of an NVQ or GNVQ (national vocational qualification & general national vocational qualification). The difference really is that the GNVQ or is more the knowledge of what you are training for and the skills required where as the NVQ is how to do the job being training for.

* Professional courses, offered by institute of personnel management and others this offers good qualifications in the area studied. This qualification would be more expected for higher staff e.g. area managers than just general workers.

* Modern apprenticeship, a person is employed for 1-2 years by a company where they are given a salary and also a qualification generally an NVQ depending on where and what apprenticeship they take.

On-the-job training

This is where the worker being trained is working while completing certain activities related to their work environment, these include;

* Mentors, where a trainee is paired with a more experience member of the work force. The trainee does their job but goes to the 'mentor' to discuss problems and learn how best to solve them.
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* Coaching, where an experienced worker shows the trainee how to use the equipment required.

* Job rotation, in large companies this can be used to trained 'high flyers'. The employee works in different departments for short spaces of time acquiring the skills from each area. This enables the person to know how the whole business works so that as they progress up the hierarchy of the business they will have the range of experience they need.

* Often a young trainee will follow or more experienced worker around to pickup what they need to do ...

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