8.1 TRAINING FOR A NEW ECONOMY

The organisational culture tends to be regulated from the full rigour of market competition and hence tends to stress correct form and procedure in all activities. Quality of service, customer care and risk control are based on the principles of rules of procedure, inspections and sanctions, with limited feedback provided to the staff. Supporting this above fact, organisational structures have been typically hierarchical, with long chains of command and bureaucracy reinforced by strict systems of reporting and accountability.

The challenge for today's organisation culture is to become much more market driven without losing reliability and meticulous attention to detail, underpinned by sound ethical principles, which remain essential to continued and sustained success. This is what lies at the heart of the change process which will guarantee survival and to which trainers must become deeply involved and committed.

There is now a growing acceptance that training and development must be driven by the strategy of the organisation. This, in turn, has significant implications for trainers, where the emphasis will be on concentrating upon organisational needs, through developing individuals so as to arrive at an organisation, which devotes itself to long term learning, rather than to short-term training. Such learning demands continuous and meaningful interaction between people and their working environment. Such an environment is both supportive and stimulating and this will lead to considerable learning and through this, to individual and organisational growth. But for this to happen, changes have to take place, particularly in the traditional rule-based organisations where structure, systems and procedures were designed to maintain stability at all costs by preserving the status quo and getting people to the line.

In the learning organisation, training is not an activity which is separate from day-to-day activities. Instead, it is an inherent part of the working environment.

When people need to know or learn something, the information and the facilities to learn must be immediately available to them. This means the learning organisation learns from all sources and directions, so that change is not only accepted but is eagerly sought out and the challenges it brings are welcomed. Such a result reduces the impact of change and strengthens the organisation's ability to cope successfully and to survive (Bentley, 1990).

Success therefore can be derived from a learning culture where training and development become demand-led rather than supply-driven. With the genuine and enthusiastic commitment and backing of top management and the allocation of resources to match, training will work to ensure that organisations attract, train, develop and retain the people talent needed to guide them successfully through the coming decade and into the next century. Participative leadership of a learning culture, supported by goal-oriented human resource development, means that organisations will generate better solutions from their own commitment, experience and creativity, and training for change will make it work.

Challenge for Management

Many line managers are recognising the importance of effective training and development. However, recognition is one thing; active and purposeful involvement is another. There are many managers who only pay lip service to their key role in achieving results thought the people they lead and for whose training and development they are ultimately responsible. By definitions managers must meet this challenge with and through the efforts of other.

But a further challenge, which by implication relates to all the other challenges, is the changing nature of the workforce. For example, the average young member of staff today is more socially sophisticated, is more questioning, is more demanding and will generally seek and expect earlier responsibility than his or her counterpart in the past.

Managers will therefore need to adapt to meet this challenge if the required results are to be achieved in all other areas. Management training in particular, must consequently take this factor into account, by focusing sufficiently on the most appropriate ways in which managers can obtain the optimum contribution from all members of staff in achieving the required quality of service and level of productivity.

Chief executives need to recognise the value of learning as the primary force to facilitate and achieve change in their organisations. Their leadership role requires them to match their conviction with consistent, demonstrable commitment. The starting point is to agree. And disseminate well-documented, comprehensive business strategies from which training need can be derived. Senior executives must also ensure that the line managers share. Their commitment to learning and insist on quality in all aspects of training and development.

To do this effectively, managers will have to prepare their staff for the changes, both expected and unexpected, which undoubtedly lie ahead. They must ensure that their staff are given the knowledge and skills and the confidence to deal with inevitable pressures. The way in which we react to and manage these pressures and the. Commitment we demonstrate to our people will have a considerable effect on our future success. Indeed for those companies new to the market and who are possibly employing large numbers of inexperienced people, proper attention to staff and customer care is likely to be the difference between success and failure.

Enabling staff to accept change is one of the most valuable of the many skills of leadership. This means that managers at all levels must be flexible in approach; sympathetic in attitude and positive in style in order to provide this help.

Flexible: So as to deal successfully with the practical effects of change in an open-minded manner.

Sympathetic: So as to understand fully the anxieties caused by change to others.

Positive: So as to give people confidence in the instructions and decisions passed down to them by someone who is clearly seen to have confidence in his own decision confidence in the future.

It is no longer acceptable for line managers to abrogate responsibility for the training and development of their staff. They cannot give it off to the training function by sending staff away to be 'processed' by the trainers and then returned to the real world of work to get on with the job. A three-way contract between line managers, trainers and participants is essential. This will build strong links between training programs and corporate objectives with success or failure being directly linked to improved competitive edge in the market place. Linking the investment of the training budget to the strategic plan does not seem a particularly novel idea, but it is quite remarkable how few companies actually apply this approach.

As part of their responsibility for the training and development of their staff, line managers must expect to be assessed on the extent to which they discharge this function as part of their normal role. If one separates the concepts of education and training, where the latter is decidedly job-specific, then it is quite possible to construct a legitimate argument for linking course performance evaluation into the overall performance appraisal plan. Indeed it is evident that line managers, whose budgets pay for training are much more anxious to experiment with this idea in order to improve their perceived return on investment

In general, awareness of increasingly intense competition and the requirement to reduce costs has resulted in a greater understanding by senior line management of the importance and value of training. It is now seen as an investment for the future rather than a cost on the present. Moreover, it is now regarded as shortsighted for line management to slash training budgets in an attempt to reduce operating costs. But it is certainly possible with a greater degree of professionalism, to ensure higher added value from the training budget.

Activity A:

a) Write down two characteristics of a learning organisation.

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b) Write down two duties of today's line managers.

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HOW TO TRAIN FOR TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT?

Are you going for Global quality? Then, don't forget to take your shop floor worker abroad along with you. As CEOs aim for total quality, quality managers across the country are upping the ante on shop floor training. No longer are they content transplanting Japanese quality systems in their manufacturing units, instead they are spurring teams to shop floor workers to gird the globe in search of quality practices.

The rationale is simple. Basically the knowledge-base that a shop floor worker needs to produce quality has two components: functional skills and background knowledge. While functional skills teach workers how to achieve quality, background knowledge tries to explain why quality is important in the first place. So the latter is a fundamental issue as it allows the shop floor worker to see how he fits in with the performance of a product and eventually, with the customer. It's also the more difficult of the two to teach. While companies have been toying with the idea so far, they are now putting their money where there minds are. Going global in training practices, many companies are taking their shop floor workers to visit quality environments abroad. Managing Director of Daewoo says "Giving our workers knowledge beyond their own work area is a critical part of our training strategy. Here are four quality reasons why companies are training their workers abroad:

Bring Quality Alive

While the most innovative training practices arise from comparing, if not formally benchmarking, a production unit's work against that of a similar plant abroad, the data seldom set the imagination on fire. That's the lesson the 827 crore Coats Viyella learnt the hard way. Despite the company's good financial health, it had a chequered industrial relations history and compared to Coats Viyella plants elsewhere in the world, worker productivity was poor. However much the management harangued its workers with comparisons about the productivity levels at Coats Viyellas's other plants, they paid little heed. "We discussed that productivity statistics with workers and union leaders in our mills," says the President (personnel), Coats Viyella. ''But the problem was that our workers always used to think that the productivity elsewhere was because of better machines and superior technology."

Then, last year, Coats Viyella decided to tackle the problem head-on. It flew its union leaders abroad and showed them how higher productivity had been achieved in similar plants. Pertinently, the sites chosen for the visit were not in the West, instead, Coats Viyella displayed the two factories it manages jointly with the Chinese Government. After this, union leaders from 20 union leaders from Coats Viyella's Indian units accompanied CEO John M.Shaw and Subramaniam on a week-long trip to China. The union leaders spent four days at the two Chinese plants studying methods of work, systems of organisation and the working environment. They had a worthwhile experience when they met the Chinese workers they could see for themselves how things were different there and how the Chinese work and the gains from this trip are already payable at the Madura Coats plants in Bangalore and Tamil Nadu.

Communicate Quality

More often than not, when managers try to explain the big picture to workers, it is met negatively, accepts the HRD Chief Mahindra & Mahindra (M & M): "It's a problem because the shop floor staff gets suspicious if managers suddenly start talking to them about the business and its future. That is an apprehension that line managers and the human resource team has to manage and dispel." In order to cross the communication chasm, M & M decided to send its workers abroad to expose them to quality manufacturing practices. But there was one subtle difference, the teams going abroad included a mix of

White collars and blue collars from several levels. By the end of the trip, most communication barriers had been bridged. By now, M& M must have sent around 40 shop floor worker, along with managers and union leaders to Japan, South Korea, Europe and the UK and the United States. Mostly, they visit automotive plants and are encouraged to interact with the host companies and learn their business practices, work ethics and even the social norms in those countries. On their return, the teams are debriefed on the trip, the training module, and their impressions of work processes and conditions abroad. Then, they are asked to share their experiences with their colleagues. The fact that everyone is learning together is almost as vital as the learning that is taking place. Kumar says, "Demonstration strongest element of training."

Build Quality Skills

While DCM Daewoo too has invested in sending workers abroad, its focus has been purely on functional training. In a hurry to jump start its quality journey in this country, Daewoo happens to train a large number of workers to the factory in Seouls, three months of taining in Daewoo's quality manufacturing systems. By the end of 1995-96, the company would have sent 700 operators and assembly-line workers to Daewoo. Other than functional training, such trips are also meant to teach workers the processes implementation which requires a fresh approach to work. Take the concept of Jidoka which the company has imported from the Toyota Production System. Now, jidoka entails shifting defect control from an end-of-the-line quality-check to the work process itself. Naturally, the critical factor here is the worker's attitude.

While the theory is easy- when you see a defect in a product, immediately take the initiative to correct it-managers worry about its implementation. However, DCM Daewoo reckons that a worker will be more inclined to do so if he has seen it being performed routinely.

General Manager (personnel and Administration), DCM Daewoo says, "If you keep auditing the quality of training that you impart to your workforce, the quality of products will keep improving dramatically."

DCM Daewoos workers, after one trip to Seoul, are not only motivated, but are also finally able to see quality from the user's perspective.

Showcase Customer Quality

If the Rs. 733 crore Ranbaxy Laboratories is giving its workers exposure abroad, it is not because the company has a problem. Instead, the programme is intended to give workers a view of a culture where attitudes towards hygiene are fundamentally different. For the pharmaceuticals manufacturer found that most of its workers came from a background where even a hospital did not display the kind of hygiene Ranbaxy was trying to achieve.

The Director (Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing) says that "hygiene can be taught as a part of the work procedure. But to embed the concept in the minds of workers needs something more. So, Ranbaxy drew lots to select 20 workers from its Dewas plant in Madhya

Pradesh and sent them on a 10-day trip to the US. But the study tour's focus was not on functional training but more in the nature of cultural acclimatization and exposure.

Visiting clinics and hospitals, the workers got a feel of the kind of environment in which medicines made by them would be used and came away with indelible memories of high quality standards. Says the General Manager (TQM): "The idea is to help the people to relate what they are doing on the shop floor to the customer's life. This is not something that is meant to have an immediate measurable impact. Eventually, the battle for quality will be won or lost in the mind of the shop floor worker."

Best Practices

Provide workers first hand experience of global best practices.

It Ensure that supervisors and managers are trained along with workers.

Expose workers to the environments in which customers use your products.

Constantly retrain workers in the theory and practice of TQM.

Link quality in the workplace to quality in the worker's lives.

Activity B:

a) Write down four quality reasons for companies sending their workers abroad.

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b) Write down two positive effects if quality at workplace is linked to quality in life of a worker.

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VIEWING TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT FROM A CHANGE MODEL PERSPECTIVE

Although we usually deal with the concept of change in an organisational behaviour course, the reality is that for new training or development practices to be successfully implemented, they must be accepted by the customer (managers, senior management and employees). for managers and employees change is not easy. Even when we know a practice or program could be better, we have learnt to adapt to its inadequacies. Therefore, resistance to new training and development practices is likely. As a result, prior to implementing a new training and development practice you should consider how you can increase the likehood of its acceptance. The figure below shows the model of change.

Fig. 8.1 : Model of change

The model for change is based on the interaction of four components of the organisation: task employees, formal organisation arrangements (structures, processes, and systems) and informal organisation (communications patterns, values, norms). As shown in the figure, different type of change-related problems occur depending on the organisational component that is influenced by change. These change related problems include power imbalance loss of control, resistance to change and task redefinition. For example, including new technology for training into company (such as multimedia training using the internet) might cause changes in the organisation's power structure. Without the new technology managers may have less control over access to training programs than they had with traditional methods of training. As a result, tension related to power imbalance created by the new system occurs. If these issues are not dealt with, the managers will not accept new technology or provide support for transfer of training. For change, related problems need to be considered for any new training practice. Resistance to change refers to managers and employees' unwillingness to change. Managers and employees may be anxious about the change, they might feel that they will be unable to cope, value the current training practice or not understand the value of new practice. Control refers change to managers and employees ability to obtain and distribute valuable resources such as data, information or money. Changes can cause managers and employees to have less control over resource. Change can also give managers and employees control over processes that they have not previously been involved in e.g., choosing which training programs to attend. Power refers to the ability to influence others. Managers may lose the ability to influence employees as they gain access to databases and other information, thus getting more autonomy to deliver products and services. Employees may be held accountable for learning in self-directed training. Web based training method such as task redefinition refers to changes in managers and employees' role and job responsibilities. Employees may be asked not only to participate in training but also to consider how to improve its quality. Managers may be asked to become facilitators and coaches.

Activity C :

a) Write down the reason for resistance to training and development.

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b) Write down one reason for how introducing new technology would result in loss of power of an individual.

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SKILLS OF AN EFFECTIVE TRAINER

When the strategies and tactics for training are selected, the skills demanded of the trainers are often overlooked. The assumptions are made that those who are full time trainers are Omni competent and those who could be described as occasional trainers need only to have technical competence to be able to train others. However, today an increasing number to practicing trainers are beginning to adopt the language of OD consultant and are moving into the kind of work to do with direct intervening the organisation than with the traditional activities associated with trainers. Increasingly in the training literature the terms 'intervention and training consultant' are appearing. Thus, there is a wide range of specific skills needed to undertake one-to-one coaching, team-building, facilitating, counseling, besides being an interventionist and a change agent. However, an appropriate strategy or tactic may be when measured against the constraints, target population, budget and principles of learning, unless the trainers have been selected and trained to meet high standards, the training will be not effective.

Some of the essential skills of a good trainer are as follows :

Demonstrating technical competence in the area being taught.

Showing a natural ability to teach and gain satisfaction. from it.

Possessing a high level of interpersonal skills.

Being good listeners and questioners.

Having a genuine interest in People.

Being flexible in the use of training strategies and tactics.

Valuing the need for thorough planning and preparation.

Accepting a share of accountability for the trainees' future performance.

Area in which these qualities/skills could be reflected include:

Outside interests ,particularly those which are people - oriented and exercise interpersonal skills or which may involve teaching others.

Simulated exercises which resemble training simulations.

Informal judgments based on relationships with the work situation.

Formal judgments based on performance appraisal, group meetings, developmental discussions.

Above all the people selected should actually want to be a trainer. In the past, it has been thought that the subject 'expert' has been the ideal trainer. Undoubtedly, in most circumstances, there is a requirement for subject competence. However, it may be more profitable in the long term to improve the technical competence of someone with potentially good trainer qualities rather than try to develop the interpersonal skills etc. of the subject expert who is unsuited or unwilling to be a trainer. To begin with, there is a need to systematise and to organise the training for potential trainers. This can be examined' terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to be an effective trainer.

It is important for trainers to appreciate that people learn in different ways and have preferred learning styles which may be influenced by individual differences of personality, age experience etc. Knowledge of some of the interrelated principles of human learning and motivation help the trainer to arrange the appropriate learning conditions for the trainee. In connection with these principles it would be useful to have in mind a profile of the nature trainees in one-to-one situations.

In order to structure a training session, the trainer needs to have diagnostic skills and a range of technical, interpersonal and judgmental skills. The technical skills would include preparing and planning a period of instruction, deciding the style and methods of presentation, organising the logistics of syndicates, role-playing and other activities, using visual aids correctly. There is also a need to develop questioning skills, to design tests. They are closely associated with the judgmental skills required to make an appraisal ~ gain an impression of the nature of the trainee to set realistic goals during training and' recognise when the trainee is sufficiently competent to apply what has been learned.

The interpersonal skills which the one-to-one trainer has to expertise are described by Megginson and Boydell (1979) as being similar to those required by the skillful counselor. This includes attending, observing, remaining silent, drawing out, giving and receiving feedback and suspending judgment. The importance of these skills become clear when it is remembered that coaching is undertaken at all levels in the organisation where individuals are being developed to undertake greater responsibilities.

The same and additional skills have to be exercised by the trainer who is involved with groups of trainees without a thorough appreciation of and training in the appropriate skills then activities such as syndicate exercises, discussions, role-plays etc can deteriorate into time fillers or rest periods for the trainer. These activities or tactics should be used to achieve objectives and demand, a range of skills from the trainer which in addition to those listed above, include listening, analysing, correcting, guiding, promoting, controlling and summarising. In exercising these skills, the trainer acts as a facilitator which is quite different from the role which many trainers usually adopt. One of the reasons that tactics such as role - play and discussion may not be effective is, because the trainer or those who have designed the training do not understand the demands that facilitating makes on the trainer.

In discussing one-to-one and group training, it has seen that control over the direction and content of the training has been exercised by the trainer. Facilitating places the trainer is in a position where he or she becomes an enabler for students to learn by themselves. The trainer and the trainees become interdependent and draw upon one another's knowledge and skills to achieve the learning objective. In effect, control over the learning process s in varying degrees, depending on the tactic to the trainee.

In the facilitating mode, the trainees contribute knowledge, skills and experience which have been acquired over a number of years. Facilitators have to adapt their approach to meet the needs of the trainees and individuals within the group which could involve a change or development of the trainer's attitudes. There must be an acceptance of openness within the group so that it can establish its own ground rules to work together as a cohesive unit and that the facilitator is a resource for the group to draw upon to direct activity and contribute to their learning. In performing this function, the facilitator will need to exercise a variety of skills. There is a need to be aware of and to monitor the individual learning and emotional needs of group members to create a secure climate to structure the learning experiences so that they remain relevant and that the objectives are achieved.

The role of the facilitator is demanding and not all trainers may be able to adapt to it. The training departments that plan to use their trainers as facilitators could overcome potential problems by being more rigorous in the assessment of attitudes and skills of potential trainers. Rogers (1969) identified a range of qualities of facilitators which can be used to built profile for selection:

Less protective of their own constructs and beliefs than other trainers.

More able to listen to students especially to their feelings.

Able to accept me ideas of students even if they are seen to be troublesome, provoking etc.

Able to accept positive and negative feedback and use it in their own development.

Clarke (1986) describes the trainer's role in open learning programme as that of a facilitator and the following personal qualities which may be needed to be considered while selecting trainers:

Patient, tolerant and able to cope with frustration.

Perceptive (ability to put themselves in student's shoes) understanding, sympathetic.

Friendly, approachable and trustworthy.

Prepared to tolerate disruption in private life.

Able to change quickly from one task or subject to another.

Prepared to accept interruptions to non-open tutor activity e.g. lecturing.

It is not likely that all of the qualities presented by Rogers and Clarke will be required of all facilitators in every learning situation. However, an assessment of the demands of the programme will help to identify which qualities are relevant.

Activity D :

a) Write down two skills of an effective trainer.

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b) Write down two skills of a facilitator.

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8.5 ROLE OF THE 21st CENTURY TRAINER

A useful way to approach the role of the 21st century trainer will be to look through the eyes of the manager whom you wish would regard you as indispensable. If I were a manager, What would cause me to say, "Here's someone I know I can count on to get the job done, someone I've just got on my team." What would make me willing to take this person to an important business meeting and not worry that he will embarrass me either or the company or the mission? What would make me say, "Here is someone I would be proud to have a talk with our managers or our customers anywhere in the world. "

What would such a person be like? What would she wear? How would she speak? Most important, what could he/she do? The answers point us to some of the key characteristics of the 21st century survivor. Here are some characteristics:

1. Performance-oriented: First and foremost, survivors will think of themselves as being in the performance business, not the training or education business. Successful trainers will understand that, regardless of their job titles, regardless of their specialties, hey have one role, to help improve performance aimed at accomplishing important organisation goals. Though they may be specialists in classroom presentation or instructional design or task analysis or web authoring, nothing will boost their flexibility and agility as much as nurturing a focus on performance. Managers are being pressured to react more quickly than ever before to changing situations and to make decisions before all the facts are in. They need help from flexible people who understand that the point of it has to do with business outcomes. People who don't come all unglued when analysis reveals that something else will work a lot faster and cheaper than training. This means that a lot of us will have to learn to think about training in a new way. Those who continue to see training as the solution to every performance problem are already behind the curve. In the next century, they'll be expendable because they won't have the performance orientation that will allow them to solve problems rather than simply to "do training".

2. Technically skilled: Companies will be looking for performance-oriented trainers who are at the top of their craft -skilled performance professionals who can actually tackle (rather than just talk or theories about) the common tasks of the day. These will be people who are able to respond with skill and confidence when a manager says: "I need you to do a performance analysis in the manufacturing area of our Malaysian division." "Go teach our new vision course to our managers in Milan. Go draft an evaluation plan for the new mind-reading course we're developing."

Survivors will be those who have mastered the basic skills of performance technology, and who keep struggling to master the latest hardware and software tools that continue to rain down on us. The losers will be those who continue to apply training to all situations, who can't recognise the need for non training interventions, and who don't know how to guarantee the results of training when it is the right thing to do.

3. Socially skilled: Well-honed interpersonal skills will be increasingly critical as well. One could argue that social skills are even more important than technical skills, just look at the people you know personally who survive because of their ability to get along, rather than because of their ability to do their jobs. Some years ago a Labour Department study concluded that something like 75% of workers who lost their jobs didn't lose them because they lacked technical or occupational skills with which to do those jobs; they lost out because they didn't have the social skills they needed to keep the jobs. But while social skills have always been important, they'll become more vital as time goes on. Why?

As cross-functional teams proliferate and as the world gets smaller, trainers will have to be able to interact with more and more people who are different from themselves - people with different habits and beliefs, people from different cultures and truly strange beings like newly minted high school graduates. They'll have to be able to interact successfully with people who can read, write and speak as well as people who can't.

Trainers will have to make sure that they're people that other people like to be around, and not the kind whom others will cross the street to avoid. They'll need to be the kind of people who make good houseguests, people who know how to play in the corporate sandbox. Further, they'll have to be able to play adroitly in a variety of sandboxes. For example, while I was living and working in Paris, a kindly Frenchman took me aside one day during a seminar and said," Monsieur. I hope you realise that in France, bow ties are worn by door -to-door salesman, jockeys and bartenders." The hint was clear. If I wanted people to hear m message, I'd better get rid of the bow ties, which were distracting obstacles. I've never worn bow ties once again outside my home country.

Trainers will have to behave in ways that cause them to be perceived as well mannered in whichever country they are working. Mannerly behaviour is the oil that lubricates social gears. That may sound old fashioned but consider this: foreigners don't refer to us as Ugly Americans for nothing. Americans are simple not known around the world for their manners.

Self-employable: As organisations reshape themselves to compete in a global economy, the familiar employer-employee contract has been eroded to the point where seniority alone no longer guarantees a thing. Those bent on surviving will understand that regardless of who's paying their bills, they're in business for themselves; they are independent contractors, whether they work inside or outside a larger organisation. This means they will have learnt the skills that anyone' r business for themselves has to learn. You can easily find out what those skills are by talking to your own contractors and consultants. For example, managing your own time, budgeting, planning, performing basic marketing tasks and being economically literate. Faced with a given task, survivors will say, "I can do that and then do whatever it takes to get the job done by deadline." The losers will say, "That's not in my job description."

Internationally qualified: Trainers in the strongest position will be those with skills that make them the candidates of choice for either short or long-term overseas assignments. This means that, in addition to the characteristics already described, they will be able to:

a) Adapt to the cultures in which they expect to function. This isn't always a happy prospect. It can mean relearning how to tolerate a smoky environment. It can mean having to eat very strange foods without complaining.

b) Apply the principles of learning within the cultures in which they work.

Learning principles are universal, not culture-based. The application of those principles may be influenced by cultural differences, but the principles themselves are the same anywhere in the world.

c) Speak literate English. During formal education, many foreigners learned their English from British English-speaking people, not from Americans. That kind of English is a lot more literate than the kind you and I are encouraged to speak by the culture around us. When foreigners hear our kind of sloppy English- like man you know? they often have the same reaction that we might have when listening to someone who speaks mainly in dese, dems and dose.

Activity E:

a) Write down two roles of the 21st century trainer.

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b) Write down two reasons why social skills have become important.

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Summary

This unit focuses on the dimensions of training and its growth in the new economy. In the new economy, many organisations are becoming learning organisations, where training is an inherent activity. Success, therefore, can be derived from a learning culture where training and development become demand-led rather than supply-driven. With the genuine and enthusiastic commitment and backing of top management and the allocation of resources to much training will work to ensure that organisations attract, train, develop and retain the people talent, needed to guide them successfully through the corning decade and into the next century. Participative leadership of a learning culture, supported by goal-oriented human resource development, means that organisations will generate better solutions from their own commitment, experience and creativity and training for change will make it work.

The unit further focuses on how to increase the quality of training. There are four reasons why companies should train their workers on quality: bring quality alive, communicate quality build quality skills and showcase customer quality. The unit also highlights how training is increasingly viewed as a change model. If the employees resist training, then it can have an adverse impact on their roles, structures and systems. As a result, prior to implementing a new training and development practice, one should consider how you can increase the likelihood of its acceptance. Employees may be asked not only to participate in training but also to consider how to improve its quality.

Finally an effective trainer has to use his/her skills to function effectively in the role of a 21st Century trainer.

Keywords

Task redefinition: It refers to changes in managers and employees role and job responsibilities.

8 SELF -ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Explain the challenges of today's management in the light of training in the new economy.

2. Explain in details why companies are training abroad their workers for quality.

3. Describe how training is viewed from the perspective of a change model.

4. Write down the role of a 21st century trainer in details.