The another most important subset of HR is Learning and development, which aims to improve group and individual performance by improving skills and knowledge.
Learning and development, or training and development, is a part of an organization’s talent management strategy. The L & D department is designed to align group and individual goals and performance with the organization’s overall vision and goals.
The L & D department is responsible for identifying the skills gaps among teams using platform like SMART objectives, one-to-one interviews and performance appraisals and then prepares suitable training programs, finds trainers to fill these gaps. The L & D departments role is thus multifold. They need not just find out the gap in skills but also design training programs and arrange for trainers which match with the organizations policies.
The process of improvement in the skills is a regular process. Depending upon the type of business activity, the various departments and grades of employees at different level will decide the kind of trainings required and the frequency thereto.
The L & D process needs to be updated about the latest trends in the training industry an accordingly design the most suitable program which matches with the expectations of the employees at different levels.
To design a structured and result oriented program, the HR department can follow certain key steps as laid down below;
The organizations design strategies of effective employee engagement. The strategies are run though employee engagement programs which may or may not be applicable to all levels of management. The strategies work on improving employee engagement through different engaging activities, rewards and motivation. A well-planned Engagement strategy is the only way of improving employee engagement.
In order to keep updated on the latest developments in the industry, the company owners always want to know what the competition is doing and whether their own company is falling short in terms of employee skills. The L & D personnel need to network with professional colleagues and find out information through organizations like the Society for Human Resource Management about latest trends in the L & D domain.
The employees are the best resources who can update about latest technologies and the requirement of implementation of the new technology in their work area. They know a lot about what’s going on and what, if anything, should be changed. If they are being given a chance to update the company about latest software, technology or anything that can help in improving their efficiency they would appreciate the effort and provide valuable feedback about what could be better or eliminated.
The employees should also be given preferences about the kind of trainers they want. Most of the employees want to be trained by someone who knew what they were talking about and know more than what they know.
The company management will always have operating goals in terms of better productivity, performance, customer satisfaction. Once the L & D department knows the goals, they can design specific targeted programs.
The programs should be designed keeping in mind the end user, his desk work and level of activity. Like the legal staff would require training in compliance, marketing and sales would require training that promotes quality and customer satisfaction and the back office department might require training in team management of operations management.
The L & D department should also partner with various agencies like regulatory agencies, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (health and safety), Department of Labor (wage and hour compliance) and the Department of Justice (harassment and discrimination training) for compliance training.
Make sure you draft a plan for your training requirements covering major points like;
Every company likes happy employees, so having a “lifelong training” philosophy that focuses on employee satisfaction is an essential performance booster.
The HR department should encourage employees to go for regular trainings. And at the time of promotion decisions, give preference to employees who completed training and performed well.
The organizations can conduct quiz programs of exams post the training sessions and appreciate the achievers in internal newsletters or through appreciation letters. This will work as a booster and employees would be thinking about paying more attention in the training programs.
In order to claim success of any training program it is advisable to measure the outcomes. It is important to take feedback about the trainers from the employees and understand whether the program fulfilled their expectations or does it still needs improvement.
The successful training program is not just effort of L & D department, the program is successful if the employees must been able to adapt the knowledge for improving their day to day work and start contributing more to the organization.
The role of L & D is therefore not just to design training modules but also to measure the effectiveness of the program and successful implementation across all business verticals. Many of the training Program Fails, because of incomplete training material, inexperienced or over experienced trainer or wrong training audience. The L & D must focus on identifying skills gaps of each level of employees and make programs to match the skill gaps with the training programs.