Both of these two systems are popular in China. No doubt one of the main responsibilities of HR managers is to arrange suitable and efficient training programmes to develop their colleagues’ ability. Considering the time and money limit, they must choose an optimal solution. However, which of the two training system is superior?
It is interesting that not much research focus on this area in China although it is very important for China’s future labour market. The opinions above are just based on my own values and knowledge background and I hope that these will be helpful to those who are interested in this topic.
Company-based vocational training system
Company-based vocational training system is considered as a training process offered by a certain company. Its creation and operation are all controlled by a certain department in the company, which in most cases is the HR department. This kind of training system is generally called the company’s own college. In China, some famous companies, such as General Electric Company (GE), Procter & Gamble (P&G), and Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P (HP), have established successful vocational training system. They provide many excellent talents not only for themselves but also for other companies in China. Company-based vocational training system is of great importance in China’s vocational education & training area.
As mentioned above, the company-based vocational training progremme is fully controlled by the enterprise. In order to better explain this system, I take the P&G College as an instance.
P&G is a typical employer who spent a lot of time cultivating its workforce. P&G boasts 23 brands in 80 countries around the world and 12 of these countries have sales above $1 billion. It is the market leader in everything from detergent to diapers to razors. One reason of the company’s success can be its solid strength and distinguished marketing skills, another one must be its personal career management—bringing in large quantities of outstandingly talented people. These are all benefited by the careful training and career development.
P&G College consists of three departments: Headquarters’ General Manager (GM) Institute, Regional P&G Institute and Function Institute. It also has three different curriculum systems: Class M for Management, Class A for Administration and Class T for Technology. Different levels of the same class are provided in different departments. The structure of the P&G College is shown in the Figure 1 as followed.
Figure 1 The P&G’s Training System
P&G College has many characteristics. It offers training programmes to all the people, working in and out of the company. The whole courses are comprehensive and trainees can choose their own subjects based on the types of jobs. Moreover, all the instructors are people who have positions in P&G and the promotion and performance evaluation of the instructor is linked with the promotion of their posts in P&G, which made it’s training system quite outstanding.
Professional Certification training system
The Professional Certification training system appears and advances because of China's special employment environment. Due to the huge labour force of China, thousands of people are looking for jobs and the employees working in the HR department have to face numerous CV every day. Is there any method to screen these CV much more quickly? The Professional Certification system turns up. The Professional qualification certificate, for example, Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), has become the entry threshold of many enterprises. People who press for jobs will focus on how to get the qualification as soon as possible. The best way may be asking special training institutions for help. The special training institutions, we can also call them professional certification training companies, have gradually become another important part of China’s vocational education model.
In China, the most famous certification training company may be Neworiental, who firstly started its business on special English education such as TOEFL and IELTS. Another company named Sunland Career, however, has more kinds of professional certification training projects in a wide range of fields, from banking industry to lawyer industry.
Sunland Career’s main business is training, without other service. It offers different kinds of training programmes, such as CPA, CFA, Psychological Consultation, Nutritionist etc, which can be chosen by individuals. The promise that the company will provide continue training to the trainees until they pass the qualification examination is clearly written in the contract. This means that you can take another training process in the same field for free if you did not get the certification after the first period of education.
In addition to this personal training area, Sunland Career has an independent department called Sunland Business School, which offers training programmes to other companies specifically. Sunland can adjust the existing curriculum system by the demands of consumers. Full service including initial test, process control, performance-oriented courses adjustment and detailed results report is the characteristic of the company. Some famous companies have been its customers, for instance, Bank of China.
The structure of the Sunland Career is shown in Figure 2 as followed. The company offers different curriculum system in the department for individuals and the department for the company, which called Sunland Business School.
Comparative of the two methods
For the HR manager who works for a large company, for example, General Electronic Company (GE), company-based vocational training system is the better choice. In this mode, everything is under the control of HR department and a senior HR staff will benefit the training performance a lot. It is also beneficial that the company can find many talents in its own college, full of sense of belonging and responsibility. Consider the consulters in P&G College. They are all senior managers or technicists who have engaged in P&G for many years. They know the company well and can teach something closely linked with the company’s current circumstance. Because the performance assessment of their class is related to their working promotion, they will try their best to cultivate the trainee well. The HR staff can control the training process and collect information which may improve the teaching effects in the future. This method is also helpful to establish the company’s culture. In the teaching process, the teacher will transfer the mission and vision of the company to his audience, which makes the employees more cohesive. Nevertheless, HR department will spend a lot of money and time on establish an excellent company college and should continue improving process all the time. What’s more, for those companies who have only a few employees, the company-based training system is not suitable.
For the HR manager who works for a small company, without powerful capital strength, the professional certification training system is better. When we turn to professional certification training system, the training programmes provided by an institution outside the company, we may find that the cost is very small. The company, especially the HR department, does not need to spend money on renting a place for teaching. Arranging class schedule for its employees is also unnecessary. The company can just send its employees to the professional certification institution and does nothing but waiting for its staff become qualified professors. What’s more, trainees come from different companies can communicate with each other when studying in the institution. This is useful for innovation and network expanding which are both important for company’s future developing. However, the training process is provided by other institute which means that the HR department will not know whether the employees are carefully study or not. This may cause a waste of time and money, both for the employees and the company.
Conclusion
Each type of these two training systems has its own merits and demerits. Choosing an appropriate training system is not an easy to do. As mentioned before, the HR department should consider of many aspects before making a decision, such as the number of employees who need to be trained, the cash flow of the company and so on. In general, company-based vocational training system is more suitable for large companies and the professional certification training system is more applicable for small companies.
With the quick development of China, the Human Resource Development will be more and more important for Chinese Companies. It is very urgent to analysis and improve exist training systems.
List of References
- The Emerging Global Labor Market, available free of charge in www.mckinsey.com/mgi.
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Mun C. Tsang (1999). The cost of vocational training, Education Training, 41(2), 79–97.
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Bennell, P.,& Segerstrom, J. (1998). Vocational Education and Training in Developing Countries: Has the World Bank got it right? Int. J. Educational Development, 18(4), 271–287.
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Soskices, D., W. (1993). Social Skills From Mass Higher Education: Rethink the Company-based Initial Training Paradigm, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 9(3),102-113
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Hansson, B., (2007). Company-based determinants of training and the impact of training on company performance, Personnel Review, 36(2), 311-331
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Deissinger, T., (1996). Germany's Vocational Training Act: Its Function as an Instrument of Quality Control within a Tradition-Based Vocational Training System, Oxford Review of Education, 22(3),317-337
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Farrell, D., & Grant, A., J.(2005). China’s looming talent shortage, The McKinsey Quarterly, 4
