Lecture 9

Course Overview and Logistics

Introduction to Training and Development

• Philosophical Perspective: A quote from the past president of Motorola emphasizes that organizations should set aside a percentage for people maintenance just as they do for equipment.

• Investment vs. Cost: For large organizations, training and development (T&D) is an investment in human resources and human capital rather than a mere cost.

• Organizational Impact: T&D affects employee retention, organizational planning, culture, and growth.

Defining Training and Development

• Varying Literature Definitions:

  • Definition 1: A planned effort by an organization to facilitate employee learning, retention, and transfer of job-related behaviors. This definition emphasizes the transfer of training (the extent to which learned material is applied on the job).

  • Definition 2: A process by which knowledge, skills, and abilities ($KSAOs$) of employees are enhanced. The emphasis here is on learning.

  • Definition 3: Systematic acquisition of skills, rules, concepts, or attitudes that result in improved performance in another environment. The emphasis remains on transfer.

• Nuances between Training and Development:

  • Training: Focuses on current job-related behaviors, formal qualifications, and induction content.

  • Development: Focuses on equipping employees with skills and experiences valuable beyond their current role and throughout their careers (e.g., mentoring, secondments, workshops, "acting up" opportunities).

• Investment Statistics: Motorola, for example, devoted $5\% \text{ to } 10\%$ of its payroll to training.

• Primary Objective: Improving organizational performance through efficiency, expediency, and quality while supporting human capital growth.

The Science of Training

• Foundational Principles (Bell et al.):

  1. Learning Science and Systematic Design: Effective training is grounded in clear needs analysis, organizational goals, and evidence-based learning principles (e.g., practice, feedback, and spacing).

  2. Learner Characteristics: Outcomes are shaped by prior knowledge, self-efficacy, goal orientation, and motivation.

  3. Transfer and Climate: Learning does not automatically translate into performance. Transfer is shaped by post-training factors such as supervisory support, opportunities to apply learning, the climate for learning, and alignment with workplace systems.

• Adult Learning (Andragogy) vs. Pedagogy: Design must speak to an adult audience rather than "dumbing down" content.

The Five-Step Training Process

1. Needs Analysis: Determining what the organization, team, and individuals require.

2. Establishing Objectives: Developing concrete, measurable goals based on the needs analysis.

3. Designing and Testing: Incorporating psychological theories and testing the program before full rollout.

4. Implementation: Delivering the training using various modes (online, in-person, hybrid, on-site/off-site).

5. Evaluation: Rigorously measuring the transfer of training and organizational impact.

Step 1: Training Needs Analysis ($TNA$)

• Integration with Job Analysis: Training must be linked to a robust job analysis. It identifies the gap between existing $KSAOs$ and the $KSAOs$ required by the job.

• Three Levels of Analysis:

  1. Organizational Analysis: Aligns training with broad goals (e.g., productivity, customer service, waste reduction, retention). It assesses management support, resource availability (space, equipment, budget), and the capability to deliver training.

  2. Task Analysis: A form of job analysis focused on what the trainee needs to learn to do the job properly. It involves identifying specific duties, observing performance, and interviewing staff to find areas needing attention.

  3. Person Analysis: Identifying who needs training. This involves demographic analysis to tailor delivery to education levels (e.g., the difference between trainees with year 12 certificates versus tertiary qualifications).

Call Centre Case Study: Needs Assessment Application

• Context: 10 staff and 1 manager answering public complaints.

• Identified Problems: High turnover, low self-efficacy (confidence), a new IT system for logging info, and high levels of stress.

• $TNA$ Application:

  • Organizational Level: Need for better public response, lower turnover, and fewer errors.

  • Task Level: Skills for dealing with stressful calls and using the IT system.

  • Individual Level: Increasing confidence and coping mechanisms for sustained stress.

Pre-Training Environment Considerations

• Individual Differences: Trainees bring cognitive ability, motivation, previous knowledge, and expectations that affect outcomes.

• Environmental Support: Organizations must value training. How training is framed (e.g., "basic" vs. "advanced") affects how learners perceive their own status and competence.

Step 3: Designing and Testing the Training Programme

• Encoding and Memory: Training must manage cognitive load on short-term memory. It should help trainees organize content into coherent schemas (heuristics) rather than rote memorization.

• Constructive Processes: Active engagement and applied learning opportunities allow trainees to capitalize on prior knowledge.

• Feedback Essentiality: Novices require structured guidance rather than trial-and-error discovery. Feedback should be immediate and frequent.

• Strategic Design Choices:

  • Massed vs. Spaced Training: Massed sessions (long duration, short time) are efficient but cause fatigue. Spaced sessions (short sessions over a long period) produce better retention.

  • Theory vs. Experience: Framework-based learning contrasted with practical, experience-based practice.

• Types of Knowledge:

  • Declarative Knowledge: Knowledge about facts; involves memorizing and reasoning. Performance is often slow and error-prone during this stage.

  • Procedural Knowledge: Knowledge of how to perform activities. Reached when skills become automated, allowing for effortless problem-solving.

Step 4: Implementing the Training Programme

• Trust in the Trainer: The trainer must be a reputable, knowledgeable, and trustworthy source.

• Tuckman's Model of Group Development: The five phases—Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning—should inform group assignments and activity sequences.

• Vroom’s Expectancy Theory ($VIE$) in Training:

  • Valence: The attractiveness of the outcome/satisfaction.

  • Instrumentality: The perceived link between training performance and the outcome (job improvements).

  • Expectancy: The link between the effort expended and the performance achieved in training.

• Goal Setting Theory: Training should encourage setting clear, difficult, specific, and accepted goals. This influences the direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior.

• Self-Efficacy: Includes outcome expectations (belief that behavior leads to an outcome) and efficacy expectations (belief that the person can perform the required behaviors).

Step 5: Evaluation of Training

• The Problem of Transfer: Behavior is difficult to change; even pretty designs fail if no transfer occurs back to the job.

• Degrees of Transfer:

  • Initiation: Does the person start using the material?

  • Maintenance: Do they keep using it over time?

  • Generalization: Can they adapt the skill when the job evolves?

• Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Model:

  1. Reactions: Internal criteria; how trainees felt about the program (measured by surveys).

  2. Learning: Internal criteria; did they acquire the intended $KSAOs$ (measured by tests or demonstrations).

  3. Behavior: External criteria; changes in behaviors exhibited on the job (measured by supervisor ratings).

  4. Results: External criteria; economic value and organizational effectiveness (measured by costs, profit, or turnover rates).

• Return on Investment ($ROI$): A comparison of benefits to costs expressed as a percentage of the original investment ($\text{ROI} = \frac{\text{Benefits}}{\text{Costs}} \times 100$).

Future Directions and Challenges

• Future Trends:

  • Increased Complexity: Automation leaves more complex tasks for humans, requiring higher knowledge levels.

  • Globalization and Diversity: Increases the need for interpersonal and cross-cultural training.

  • Continuous Learning: Organizations now assume employees must constantly update skills to remain at the cutting edge of performance.

• Key Challenges:

  • Determining if training is the actual solution to the problem.

  • Ensuring appropriate goal setting and delivery methods.

  • Verifying that the training investment yields a meaningful return.

Questions & Discussion

• Assignment Link: The lecturer reminds students of their previous assignment on motivation, noting how those principles (like expectancy theory) apply here.

• Tutorials: Anita and James conduct the tutorials. Students are encouraged to attend in person for applied learning opportunities.

• Contact Information: Students may reach out to tutors or the lecturer via email for further clarification.