How To Achieve Training And Development Among Employees

By Peter Powell


The acquisition of knowledge and skills is a continuous process that begins when we are born and only ends (or so it is assumed) when we die. Training and development occurs in two main ways. The first occurs effortlessly as we attempt to deal with our day to day challenges. This is known as incidental learning. The second is as a result of a deliberate effort to become better and is thus referred to as intentional leaning.

Every organization should make it its responsibility to train its employees. The employees should, on their part, collaborate with the employers and make themselves available for the training. There is a need to develop personal development objectives that should be designed in a manner in which they will be in line with the aspirations of the organization.

The management should strive to provide the resources and the environment that makes this process possible. Such an environment should include a clear job description on which the training is to be based. The employees should be taught basic competencies needed in the present as well as in the future.

Learning opportunities are present in everyday activities. Unusual incidences happening in the work place should be used as opportunities to gain experience. If such do not exist, one should make a deliberate effort to take on newer challenges. Job expanding is a strategy that is usually adopted by the management in an attempt to help employees develop new skills. It involves the allocation of newer tasks to employees that have mastered skills in their area of specialty and need a new challenge.

Employees should conduct self-assessments that will help determine the type of training that they will need. Such an assessment is centered on the identification of skills, values, strengths, weaknesses and experience among others. There are a number of self-assessment tools that are available freely over the internet for free or for a small fee. Another alternative of doing the same is to compare oneself with persons who have a similar job description as theirs.

Participating in committee activities is one of the ways of gaining exposure to different areas. Committees comprise staff from different departments in an organization. They often have different ideas and approaches to solving problems which help in the professional development of individual committee members as well as the prosperity of the entire organization. All employees should be allowed to sit in these committees on a rotational basis.

Job shadowing refers to the act of one employee learning from a colleague who is, in most cases, more experienced in the field. It is one of the most effective (and cheapest) ways of passing skills and knowledge between employees in the organization. Coaching works in more or less the same way. A coach instructs the employee for a certain period of time and only lets them free after they have acquired the required skill.

Another way of making progress in the work place is to go for further studies. One of the ways of achieving this is to enroll in a college or university where the training is done formally. Some of the institutions also provide their curricular online which makes the learning process very flexible. Informal training can also be done online by individuals that are considered to be experts in their industries.




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