ALPHA UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF Project Management
Fundamental of training and
Development Chapter 2
What is strategic training and development?
Lecturer: Nasrudin A. Muhumed
Chapter Contents
• What is strategic training and development?
• What is the strategic training process?
• Strategic Training and Development Initiatives
• Evaluation in training and development
• Business Strategy Formulation
What is strategic training and development?
• Strategic training and development is the process of designing specific
employee training programs that directly align with business needs.
Training with a strategic focus develops the capabilities and tools that
employees need to successfully carry out their jobs. In turn, the
capabilities gained give organizations a competitive edge.
What is the strategic training process?
• The difference between regular employee development and training with
strategic goals comes down to a few characteristics.
All development activities are based on the strategic objectives of the
organization.
The learning framework is general enough to be applied to any business
function’s needs, but specific enough that it can address training requirements.
Continual reporting, analysis and iteration is a core part of the process for L&D
professionals.
Cont.
Management are key champions.
Training activities are tailored to personal needs to ensure learning
sticks.
The above must exist and be routinely utilized in a strategic training process,
particularly one that supports human resource management. At the center is
a performance outcome or behavioral change. Thus, the main differentiator
is that strategic training and development programs look long-term.
Strategic Training and Development Initiatives
Choose a modern learning platform
• Probably the most important key to conducting training and development programs
for employees successfully is how to go about your training. A great way to create
this atmosphere is with a modern learning management system.
• With the purpose of employee long-term development, training and development
initiatives can be created individually or with the help of a learning management
system. Orientations, workshops, lectures, case studies, simulations, and computer-
based training (including e-learning) are all common training methods.
Evaluation in training and
development
• Training evaluation is the systematic process of collecting information and
using that information to improve your training. Evaluation provides
feedback to help you identify if your training achieved your intended
outcomes, and helps you make decisions about future trainings.
Business Strategy Formulation
• Strategy Formulation is an analytical process of selection of the best
suitable course of action to meet the organizational objectives and
vision. It is one of the steps of the strategic management process. The
strategic plan allows an organization to examine its resources, provides a
financial plan and establishes the most appropriate action plan for increasing
profits. It is examined through SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for
strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. The strategic plan should be
informed to all the employees so that they know the company’s objectives,
mission and vision. It provides direction and focus to the employees.
Steps of Strategy Formulation
Cont.
• Establishing Organizational Objectives: This involves establishing long-term
goals of an organization. Strategic decisions can be taken once the organizational
objectives are determined.
• Analysis of Organizational Environment: This involves SWOT analysis, meaning
identifying the company’s strengths and weaknesses and keeping vigilance over
competitors’ actions to understand opportunities and threats. Strengths and
weaknesses are internal factors which the company has control over. Opportunities
and threats, on the other hand, are external factors over which the company has no
control. A successful organization builds on its strengths, overcomes its weakness,
identifies new opportunities and protects against external threats.
Cont.
• Forming quantitative goals: Defining targets so as to meet the company’s short-term
and long-term objectives. Example, 30% increase in revenue this year of a company.
• Objectives in context with divisional plans: This involves setting up targets for
every department so that they work in coherence with the organization as a whole.
• Performance Analysis: This is done to estimate the degree of variation between the
actual and the standard performance of an organization.
• Selection of Strategy: This is the final step of strategy formulation. It involves
evaluation of the alternatives and selection of the best strategy amongst them to be the
strategy of the organization.
What are the steps in a strategic training and
development process?
• This process is always rooted in business-level outcomes.
While you’re looking for performance outcomes at the
individual level, these outcomes need to have business
impacts. It’s also a cyclical process where each step
informs the next
Summary
• Summary: Last year companies spent $70 billion on training and
development. But as much as businesses understand the
importance of upskilling their employees, how effective is it? Can you
actually see a return on your investment? That’s where training and
development initiatives are vital. It’s one thing to center on training but
it’s quite another to have a clear strategy.