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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Write down two duties of today's line managers.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Write down two positive effects if quality at workplace is
linked to quality in life of a worker.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Write down one reason for how introducing new technology
would result in loss of power of an individual.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Write down two skills of a facilitator.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Write down two reasons why social skills have become
important.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.