Training and Development

Within any business, it is important that the staff are trained to their job properly. They will normally also be given an induction on the first day of their new job. There are two main types of training that a business will consider. These are on-the-job training, and off-the-job training. There are many advantages and disadvantages a business has to consider when deciding to train their employees on-the-job or off-the-job.

Advantages of on-the-job training:

1. Training an employee in their own working environment, with equipment they are familiar with and people they know can help they gain direct experience to a standard approved by the employer.
2. Employee may find that they have more confidence to use the equipment if they are supervised and guided as they feel they are doing the job right.
3. Employee may feel more at ease being taught or supervised by people they know rather than complete strangers.
4. Managers or supervisors can assess improvement and progress over a period of time and this makes it easier to identify a problem intervene and resolve problems quickly.
5. This type of training is also productive, as the employee is still working as they are learning.
6. As training progresses and the employee begins to feel more confident, this confidence would allow them to work at a higher standard and ultimately be more productive.
7. Training "on-the-job" would also prove an opportunity to get to know staff they might not normally talk to.
8. Mentoring or training on-the-job can work our very cost effective.

Disadvantages of on-the-job training:

1. Teaching or mentoring is a specialisation in itself, unless the person mentoring or training has the skills and knowledge to train, this would mean that the training would not be done to a sufficient standard.
2. The person teaching or mentoring may not be given the time to spend with the employee to teach them properly, which would mean substandard training has been achieved and learning has only been half done.
3. The trainers may posses many bad habits and pass these on to the employee being trained.
4. If the trainer has been given limited time to train the employee, this would mean that the skill or knowledge has not been fully understood.
5. If a trainer has been brought into the company externally they might not be familiar with the equipment fully or layout and this would waste time.

Advantages of off-the-job training:

1. If the course has been designed by staff member it can be delivered to fit in with the employee's regime and workload, so it does not affect productivity.
2. Can work out extremely cost effective as no hotel fees, trainer fees or extra equipment are incurred, all is provided in-house and in works time.
3. Depending on the course, employees are ample to meet other employees perhaps from other branches or departments they would not have normally met.
4. As employees are familiar with the trainer and the environment they are being taught in, this would help them to feel more relaxed.
5. The person developing the course would be able to gauge the level of ability and content for the course to be taught.
6. The course would be more relevant and adaptable to the needs of the company.

Disadvantages of off-the-job training:

1. Extra Audio or Visual aids to aid learning (whiteboard, Overhead projector, projector, video etc) might not be available and so this would mean courses might be basic or substandard.
2. As a member of staff may be delivering the course rather than an experienced trainer, the employees might not take the course seriously and this might hamper learning.
3. Employee rivalry and banter may mean that employees bypass the course and undervalue its content as they think they know better or have better ways of doing it.
4. Depending on the teaching skills of the employee training the members of staff, they might not be able to gauge the existing abilities; knowledge, skill or need for training, and so employees attending the course might already know what is being taught already.
5. If the need for training has not accurately been gauged this would result in the work space being wasted where it could have been utilised more productively.
6. If resources are limited, equipment available may be different than that used by the employees and this would be counter productive.
7. Employees may feel devalued if they are sent on an internal training course to improve skills rather than learn new ones and so courses have to be selected and promoted to the employees very carefully and sensitively.

For new graduate employees, the training will definitely take place on-the-job. On Monday the graduates will come in and be given an induction. Every day, graduates will be given a 30 minute break every 4 hours. They will come in and be shown around the place and shown where everything is (toilets, training room, dining room etc). This should last all morning. In the afternoon they will go through all of the health and safety procedures, shown all fire exits and be taught what to do in the event of a fire. On Tuesday when they come in, they will have a surprise test on everything they learned the previous day. They will not be given their results till the end of the week. This is to ensure that any graduate who did not perform well will not instantly become demotivated, before they have even got a feel of the place. I would give them the rest of the day off after this test. On Wednesday, when they come in, I will make each graduate go and “shadow” an employee. The graduate will follow the employee around all day doing everything that he/she does including having lunch and breaks at the same time as him/her. The employee will show them what must be done and how do it.

The graduates will work and be trained at the same time (on-the-job training). The same thing will happen again on Thursday, except with a different employee. In the afternoon however, graduates will be asked to go and take a training CD on customer service. They will each go and undertake this at different times of the afternoon. At the end of the day, they will be told that on Friday they will be tested on everything they had learned during the course of the week. On Friday, they will come in the morning and take the test. They will then be told their results from Tuesday’s test, and the graduates who did not do so well will be asked to retake it. The ones that did well will be given the rest of the day off. In order to evaluate my training programme, I will look at the results of the graduates Friday test results, and if most did well then that will show that my induction programme is effective. If however the results from the graduates are poor, then the induction programme will need to be improved for future graduates.