KAMPALA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES
BSTC 3.2, BSCE 3.2, BSEE 3.2, BSME 3.2 (Bsc. In telecommunications
engineering, civil engineering and mechanical engineering)
MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATION
CIV3216
To: Dr. Ismail Bakheit Eldouma
NAME REG NUMBER
MANIGE PROSPER 2022-01-08330
NYAGA HUZEIFA SSEBI 2022-01-08764
TUMWIINE HASSAN 2022-01-08597
Department: civil Engineering
Program: Transportation Engineering
Date: 2024-10-22
Subject: Homework (management of organization)
16. TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF WORKERS
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
What is Employee Training and Development?
Training and development is ongoing process where companies help their employees
acquire the knowledge and skills needed to reach their full potential and optimum performance.
A lot of times, training and development are used interchangeably but, strictly speaking, there is
a difference.
Training employees is about teaching them how to perform a specific task or procedure. It’s
usually focused on short-term gains—enabling employees to become better at their current job.
For example: Training employees to use the latest update of your office suite, Training a new
hire to use your billing system, Introducing the latest digital marketing tools to your marketing
department
Employee development, on the other hand, is about growth and acquiring skills that will be
beneficial in the long term.
For example: Hosting a boot camp on workplace communication, establishing a culture of
knowledge sharing, starting a mentorship program for rising stars in your sales team
Benefits of Employee Training and Development:
There are multiple benefits to investing in an employee training plan such as the following:
Improved Internal Service:
Training helps employees communicate, collaborate, and interact more effectively, which
contributes to better internal customer service, creating a more efficient and harmonious work
environment.
Improved Performance:
Staff training is directly linked to better performance because it helps employees become more
skilled, more confident and more knowledgeable about their industry.
Higher Job Satisfaction and Motivation:
Continuous training and development makes employees feel more valued, inspiring them to give
100%. This leads to higher efficiency hence maximization of profits.
Improved Loyalty and Retention:
Employees see training and development as an additional company benefit and stay longer with
companies that provide such opportunities. Dedicating resources to training and development
allows employees the opportunity to grow within your organization. There is a strong correlation
between employee growth and staying with a company for the long term, therefore reducing your
turnover rate.
Improved Engagement:
Job-specific training and career development opportunities are among the top factors that make
employees feel more engaged as they feel they are part of the business and hence giving 100%.
Minimize Skills Gap:
Employee training programs help companies bridge any existing or imminent skill gaps,
strengthen weak links and enable internal hiring (which is more cost-effective compared to
external hiring).
Competitive Edge:
Empowering employees with the knowledge and skills they need helps your company remain
competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment.
Better Problem-Solving Skills:
Training and development provides employees with the skills and knowledge necessary to
analyze situations, generate innovative solutions, and make better decisions to any problems that
they may face.
Enhanced Knowledge Transfer:
If you stimulate employees to learn from one another, you ensure that vital skills, expertise, and
knowledge are transferred to other employees within the organization.
Improved Company Reputation:
Companies are competing for workers nowadays. If you invest in training and development, it
will be much easier to attract and retain top talent.
Profit Growth and Cost Savings:
An employee who struggles with the technical aspects of their job could be sent to effective
training and come back with faster speeds, higher judgment and accuracy, and this increases the
competence in his job. Employee training and development programs can help you reduce
turnover and hiring costs, while also maximizing your profits
TYPES OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT:
Below are the basic types of training and development programs that can be employed;
Orientation:
A one-time event to welcome a new hire that usually covers topics like company mission,
corporate culture, administrative procedures.
Onboarding:
Like orientation, onboarding is part of new employee training. The difference is that onboarding
is a series of ongoing lessons or learning sessions to help a new employee acquire the critical
skills they need.
Technical training:
Technical training is for jobs that require technical skills like data analysis, programming, etc.
Soft skills training:
More in the area of employee development, soft skills training helps your workforce enhance
personal attributes like communication, leadership, emotional intelligence.
Products and services training:
Used to provide employees with proper product knowledge on the latest products, services or
features your company offers so that they can provide the right support to customers.
Leadership training:
The best employees often get promoted to management positions and when this happens, they
need to be trained in skills like decision-making, conflict resolution and project management.
Safety training:
Public-sector employees are often required to take occupational health and safety training so that
the company can stay compliant with industry standards.
Customer service training:
Helps employees learn the proper skills and knowledge to ensure that they can provide an
exceptional experience to your customers.
Examples of Employee Training and Development Methods
A comprehensive as well as engaging training and development program integrates various
methods of employee instruction as explained below;
Instructor-led Training:
Instructor-led training can be a highly effective method for complex topics because it allows the
teacher to answer questions on the fly and suggest additional training resources. At the same
time, employees can receive individual guidance.
A potential downside of instructor-led training is that it may be costly and time-consuming
compared to online training options. However, it’s still worth including in your training and
development strategy, according to Dr Jennifer K. Stine who mentions “Don't overlook in-person
programs. While online is attractive, cost-effective, and great for skill development, we are
social learners. Provide people with options to learn in-person, especially for management and
leadership skills.”
ELearning:
Online employee training is extremely popular today because it allows workers to advance at
their own pace, on any device they like. ELearning programs make use of online videos, tests,
and gamified components to engage the participants and improve knowledge retention.
One of the biggest advantages of online training is the ability to train a large number of people at
a relatively low cost.
Simulation:
VR headsets and augmented reality devices are now widely available and a growing number of
organizations are adding these technologies to their employee training plans. The cost to develop
a simulation program is much higher compared to eLearning but it can be more suitable for some
industries where training is mostly done one on one.
For example, Walmart developed a VR training program to help employees better navigate real-
world situations on Black Friday.
Mentoring and Coaching:
Mentoring and coaching are both flavors of one-on-one hands-on training. The only difference is
that mentoring is done with someone within your organization, while coaching is done with a
trained professional from an external firm.
Mentoring and coaching are suitable for industries like sales where employees need ongoing
hands-on training by an experienced professional. This training approach can be time-consuming
but, on the flip side, it enables the employee to receive individual attention and get all questions
answered.
Cross-training:
Cross-training employees are about enabling them to perform duties outside of their standard job
description. For example, a marketer can cross-train in graphic design, a cashier can train in
customer service. Cross-training benefits the employee as well as the company. The employee
becomes more valuable and is much more likely to advance her career, while the company builds
a more flexible workforce.
Two of the most popular techniques for cross-training are job-enlargement and enrichment and
job rotation.
On-the-job Training:
As the name suggests, On-the-job training (OJT), is a training method that enables employees to
acquire new skills, knowledge and competencies while performing their job. A common example
of OJT is a software vendor training employees in the HR department to use a new talent
management system. This training method is a form of one-on-one learning, so it’s best used
when there are enough resources available to support employees during the program.
Techniques that could be used include: shadowing and stretch assignments.
Lectures:
Like eLearning, lectures enable you to train a large number of people with a relatively small
investment. However, keep in mind that this training method may be a bit less engaging
compared to the others on this list because it requires complete concentration for hours.
Group Activities:
Activities like workshops, boot camps and discussion groups can stimulate both learning and
team building. They allow one-to-many and many-to-many training, often in an informal
environment. This employee training method is most suitable for teams that want to exchange
knowledge and solve problems collaboratively.
Role-playing:
Role-playing is very similar to group activities but, instead of a free-form discussion, it focuses
on following a controlled scenario. This method is suitable for teams that need to develop
empathy and consider various points of view.
Case studies:
Case studies enable employees to examine and learn from real-world situations. Employees can
either read in their own time or discuss case studies during group training.
How to Build an Effective Employee Training Program:
1. Secure Executive and Management Support
No learning program will be successful without support from the business leaders. Besides,
managers, supervisors and team leaders must have insight into the skills and knowledge
employees will learn because they are the ones measuring the impact of the training.
2. Ensure Employee Buy-in
It’s equally important for employees to understand what they will walk away with. Certainly,
many employees are keen on developing their personal and professional skills but it’s always a
good idea to boost their motivation a bit. To create an excellent employee training and
development program requires the process to be collaborative. Speaking with employees and
understanding both the skills they need for their current role, as well as the skills they want for
future roles, this helps companies to capitalize on their employees' potential
3. Identify Business Impact
Once you get buy-in from both management and employees, it’s time to start designing your
training and development program.
4. Analyze Skill Gaps
The next step is to understand the gaps between each employee’s current skills and ideal skills.
Find out what your employees need to know in order to fulfill the business goals you set during
the previous step.
5. Layer Training Methods
Different people remember in widely different ways. So, there is no one-size-fits-all when it
comes to learning development. That’s why one of the best practices in training and development
is layered learning. The premise is simple—enables employees to learn however they like and
wherever they want. Layered approach to learning helps identify and enable employees to learn
what they want and need for career development. By sharing knowledge is one of the first steps
to successful knowledge management which can, in turn, make it easier to train employees at
scale.
6. Evaluate Effectiveness
If you set goals at the beginning of your training development, you will be able to track
employee training progress and measure the impact in the end.
7. Provide Continued Support
To create a lasting impact in your organization, you have to make sure that employees are
actively using the knowledge and skills they have acquired.
Action point: Arrange refresher courses, continuously provide training materials, and schedule
follow-up sessions to help employees retain and better apply the knowledge they’ve gained.
TYPES OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT TOOLS:
Employee training and development software is a useful component of employee training as they
help facilitate the learning process, increase engagement, and ensure that employees acquire the
necessary skills and knowledge effectively. Here are a few types of training and development
tools that you should consider as you build your program.
1. Knowledge Base Software
Knowledge base software is a type of learning and development tool that allows employees to
share knowledge. Instead of emailing a co-worker and waiting for an answer, the employee can
simply search your knowledge base and find the information he or she needs immediately.
Knowledge base software is useful for employee training and development as it centralizes all
training material
2. Learning Management System (LMS)
An LMS is a specialized content management system that allows you to store and keep track of
various types of learning materials such as employee training videos, text, and documents. Since
they’re designed for online learning, LMS software usually come with specialized tools such as
quizzes, badges and leader boards. One of the most popular LMS tools today is SAP Litmos.
3. Learning Experience Portal (LXP)
LXPs are the cool hip cousins of LMSs. LXPs mirror common technologies people use in their
day-to-day lives such as streaming video and social media. Often called “the future of workplace
learning”, these tools have all the standard LMS features plus some additional features for a
more immersive learning experience, e.g. a “Netflix-like” interface for streaming video.
4. Project Management Tools
Project management tools can help with quality control of any materials used in instruction of
your employees as well as help with communication to team members and stakeholders.
In today’s modern age, trainer and leadership collaboration is key to building an effective
training program. If supporting departments are working by sending multiple emails, with
attachments and version histories, then collaboration can get messy, communication can get
overwhelming and attention to detail within the training resources can be missed.
Tools that you may want to consider include One Drive which allows multiple trainers and key
leaders to work in real-time on a training resource as well as Planner which provides
transparency to an entire team and supporting partners by keeping the required tasks organized
and assigned, increasing accountability and productivity.
5. Video Training Tools
If you’re simply looking to provide one-on-one training to remote employees or to run an online
class, you probably don’t need a full-blown LMS or LXP. In this case, widespread employee
video training can be your best friend. Your instructor can live stream a lecture or a workshop
and learners can tune in from anywhere. Most platforms also come with live chat that allows
participants to raise their hands when they need to.
Some of the tools you might want to consider are GoToMeeting, Zoom, and Join Me.
6. Micro learning Platforms
Constant information overload is causing our attention spans to shrink every year. To overcome
this problem, some L&D professionals are opting for micro learning platforms. These tools
enable them to turn heavy training lessons into nuggets of knowledge and make information
easier to digest. If you’re looking to implement micro learning, you can try a tool like Talent
Cards.
Example: Micro learning platform from Talent Cards for improved employee training and
development.
7. In-app Training Tools
Imagine your sales team has just received the latest Sales force update. The interface has
changed, there are a ton of new features and most likely, some of your salespeople are wasting
time trying to find their way around the application. Or maybe, they’ll go on without even
suspecting the existence of these new features.
This is where in-app training tools can help. They can provide just-in-time guidance and training
for employees that are learning how to use a complex piece of software. If you’re looking for an
in-app training tool, you may want to try what fix.