training and development

Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

ChapterChapter

Training and Development

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Training and Employee Development

Training—is any attempt to improve employee performance on the job, and usually includes changes in the knowledge, skills, or abilities of the person, or some combination of these three. training is exceptionally popular in the US, a multi-billion dollar industry,

and falls under the larger umbrella of developmentDevelopment—broadly covers anything that helps employees

grow. This includes job-related training, career planning, and general personal development such as assertiveness training or budgeting workshops.

Training as “high performance work system characteristic”

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Extent of 2004 Training and Development

U.S. organizations with more than 100 employees spent $51.4 billion on formal training.

Financial and technology industries spent most on training per employee.

Manufacturing durables, and wholesale and retail trade spent least on training per employee.

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Most Frequent Types of Training Offered

Types of Training Percentage of Firms Offering

Computer systems/applications 96%New hire orientation 96%Management development, nonexecutive 91%Performance management/appraisals 85%Sexual harassment 88%Leadership 85%Product knowledge 79%Customer education 68%Diversity/cultural awareness 72%Quality/process improvement 65%Ethics 61%Wellness 54%

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Needs Assessment Phase

Systematic, objective determination of training needs. organizational analysis—determines the area of the organization that is

in need of training if available, use HRIS information to test hypotheses about training needs

(e.g., sales, productivity, complaints, customer data) use (or collect) performance data

job analysis—determines what should be taught in the training so that the trainees may perform their jobs in a satisfactory manner

can be derived from performance data if available person analysis—assesses who needs training by determining where

employee performance is falling short of what is desired more cost effective to determine who really needs training can workers “test” out or be exempted by past performance data?

Instructional objectives derived for identified performance discrepancies.

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The Program Development Phase

There are multiple issues to keep in mind when developing a training program.

To keep trainees interested, should do the following: training environment should be conducive to learning (on or off site)

should have all necessary materials/equipment check trainability of trainees (skill, ability, and motivation) Work environment correlates.

assess readiness for computer-based learning

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Conditions of the learning environment: whole vs. part learning—learn an entire system at once, or break into

modules massed vs. spaced practice—massed practice occurs when lots of

information is learned at once, spaced when information is learned over a period of time

overlearning—practicing beyond the point of performing the task in a satisfactory manner

goal setting—improves performance by directing and focusing behavior, increasing effort, encouraging trainees to persist through obstacles, and enabling trainees to set strategies

knowledge of results—must provide timely and specific feedback attention—materials should be designed to keep trainee attention retention—material must be meaningful to trainees


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Transfer of training—not an automatic process to transfer training to performance. To help with transfer:

maximize the similarities between training and job practices require participants to practice training procedures encourage trainees to practice their new skills on the job include a variety of possible scenarios for each training exercise label important objectives develop job aids and make them available make sure all basic concepts are understood ensure a supportive environment for learning build the trainees’ self-efficacy give trainees opportunities to demonstrate job skills encourage continual learning


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Method of training—There are two methods to choose from: informational—transmission of information is one-way through lectures,

audio/video media, and self-directed learning 85% of firms use informational training very effective way to transfer theory, concepts, procedures, or other factual

material experiential—hands-on teaching of physical and cognitive skills. These

often include: on-the-job training—often informal best used when one-on-one training is

necessary computer-based training—interactive training, often used to teach employees

computer skills distance learning programs—completing coursework via the internet, either

interactively with others or with a computer program


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Experiential training programs continued: equipment simulators—reproduce physiological and psychological

conditions of the real world when using machines games and outdoor experiential programs—games are primarily used

to teach decision-making skills, while outdoor experiential programs are primarily used for team building

case analysis—reading in-depth studies of incidents in organizations. The incidents are then analyzed and reactions to the incident dissected

role playing—acting out roles and attempting to perform as required in a particular role

behavior modeling—watching positive examples (video or live) of job behavior, then practicing what was observed


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Types of criteria for evaluation of training. reactions—most basic type of data. Surveying trainee

attitudes toward whether they learned, the trainer, the training itself, materials used, etc

learning—changes in knowledge by trainee performance—checking performance appraisals for changes

in trainee job behavior organizational results—changes in organizational outcomes

such as sales, turnover, absences, performance productivity, customer data, error rates, etc. Most distal and macro criteria

The Evaluation Phase: Types of Criteria

8-13 The Evaluation Phase:Effectiveness of Organizational Training

Overall effects of training on productivity larger than other organizational interventions such as performance appraisal and feedback, MBO, and goal setting.

Regardless of delivery method, the magnitude of training effects on a skill were generally moderate to large.even effects of training using lecture method were generally

highOverall, effects varied depending on training method, skill or task

being trained, and criterion used to operationalize effectiveness.Effect sizes using learning criteria much better than behavioral or

results criteria.“Environmental favorability” may play a role in these findings

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Assessing the costs and benefits of training. costs—include all expenses such as:

one-time costs—conducting the needs assessment, costs of designing training, designing materials, etc

costs associated with each session—trainer salaries, facility rentals, etc costs associated with the trainees—time off of work, travel costs, lodging, etc

benefits—usually estimated as a dollar impact of performance increase. Be sure to have a systematic and realistic way of estimating the benefits, and avoid overstating

Return on investment (ROI)—(benefits – costs)/total costs. Utility analysis—measures economic contribution of a program

according to how effective it was in identifying and modifying behavior.

The Evaluation Phase: Assessing Costs and Benefits

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Evaluation designs—specific quasi-experimental designs to answer the following questions:

question #1did a change occur in the criteria being measured (learning, performance, etc)?

question #2can the change be attributed to the training? Five basic designs, from least to greatest complexity. All of

them answer the first question (did a change occur) The first two designs do not answer question #2 (whether the

training caused the change in outcomes).

The Evaluation Phase: Evaluation Designs

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1. One-shot posttest design—one evaluation of knowledge at the end of the training session. Tells you if a minimum qualification (e.g., 70% correct) has been met.

2. One group pretest-posttest design—evaluate the training group by giving them a test before and after the training session. Statistically significant differences between the two sets of scores indicates that a change has occurred.

These first two designs help determine if a change occurred, but NOT whether the training caused the change in outcomes.


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3. Posttest-only control group design—measures a single evaluation at the end of training on the group who have gone through training and a “control” group, a group that has not gone through training but is similar to the training group (same jobs, same age range, etc).

randomization—The third design answers question #2 if the people placed in the two groups are randomly chosen from the organization’s population, and randomly assigned to either the training or control group. This is known as randomization (random selection and random assignment), and it evens out things like levels of intelligence in the group, motivation, abilities, etc


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4. Pretest-posttest control group design—both groups are tested before and after the training has occurred. If significant differences between the groups at the pretest stage, training may not be the cause of any differences found at the posttest stage.

this design does determine both if a change occurred AND whether the training caused the change in outcomes


8-19 The Evaluation Phase: Evaluation Designs

5. Multiple time-series design—control and training groups are tested several times at specific time intervals before and after training. Differences can tell you how long training lasts.

this design does determine both if a change occurred AND whether the training caused the change in outcomes

TrainingControl Group

Training Group

Test #4 Test #5Test #3Test #2Test #1

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Special Training Programs

Employee orientation programs. employees are informed of their roles and responsibilities to

help ease their transition into the organization Training for teams.

often focuses on teaching members how to work more effectively or efficiently in team

Information-technology training. training on how to use computers

Diversity awareness training. for improving productivity and competitiveness, changing

attitudes, reducing conflict, improving communication, enhancing creativity, improving progress of minorities and women into upper level management positions

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Special Training Programs

Sexual harassment training.includes description of firm’s policy on sexual harassment,

definitions of sexual harassment, procedure for reporting sexual harassment, procedure used to investigate claims, and descriptions/evaluations of incidents

Creativity training.to instill a spirit of risk taking and innovativenessevidence that such training can work

Training for international assignments.training on communication, decision making, commitment,

ideals, and problem solving skills

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