December 4th, 2010 
jvremec
Staff Development And Motivation
Author: Simon Cooper
Of the top motivational forces in the workplace at least six can be either directly or indirectly attributed to staff development – job satisfaction, recognition, empowerment, personal development, promotional prospects and the relationship with one’s manager. Given this, it would be reasonable to expect that staff development was pretty high on the agenda for most managers – but is it?
If we consider what is required for people to become competent in a particular discipline, it can be broadly broken down into three areas – knowledge, skills and practical application. Effective knowledge transfer means that the staff member understands what needs to be done, how it should be done and why they are doing it. The relevant skills either need to be developed from scratch or alternatively, can be transferred from an existing discipline in which the staff member is already competent. There are very few opportunities for applying the knowledge and skills in practical situations other than on the job.
At best, a traditional training course will deliver knowledge and skills. More often than not though, a traditional training course will deliver primarily knowledge with perhaps the odd role play or skills practice thrown in for good measure. Given this, how can a member of staff become fully competent by merely attending a training course? The reality is that they will only become fully competent if they return from the training course and practice what they have learned. This assumes that they have absorbed all the relevant knowledge from the training course and moreover, are given opportunities to apply this learning in practical situations. Better still, they will receive some coaching and feedback interventions from their manager or an experienced member of the team to ensure that the learning and development moves them efficiently towards a high level of competence.
The astute manager will not only realize the need for a proactive coaching approach to be combined with sending staff on training courses but rather, there are probably more cost efficient methods of the initial knowledge transfer such as e-learning, books, articles, shadowing others, industry seminars and even internal procedure documentation. I must emphasize though that using some of these alternative methods of knowledge transfer still require proactive coaching if the individual is to become fully competent.
Experience tells me that there are many instances where a training course is used as a substitute to coaching – after all let’s face facts, knowledge transfer and skills development can just as easily come from the coach as it can from an external training provider. Sure, a training course can give the impression that the manager is serious about their staff’s development and it can also make them feel valued but unless it is combined with post course coaching, it is somewhat hit and miss whether the individual will be able to apply what they have learned and become competent. But then of course we come full circle – many managers simply do not have enough time to coach their staff as they would like.
Is there a better alternative?
When I set up the Experiential Learning Center it was just such an alternative that I sought to achieve. Prior to attending one of our experiential events, the initial knowledge component is delivered via e-learning. While we do spend some time at each of our events reinforcing this knowledge transfer, the majority of the time on our courses is spent with delegates actually doing rather than being taught. We have developed a range of high quality simulations and activities for each programme that enable delegates to experience the relevant business skills in an applied situation.
This is supplemented by expert facilitation and timely coaching interventions. And I do not use the word ‘expert’ lightly here. All of our facilitators are experts in the disciplines of the programmes they run. This means that they can provide effective demonstrations, make the right observations, ask key questions and engage in powerful coaching interventions. Moreover, each of our programmes include an analysis of delegates’ strengths and weaknesses and conclude with a detailed action planning sessions so that delegates are fully equipped to transfer their learning upon returning to work.
It would be remiss of me to claim that delegates will not benefit from additional post course coaching and proactive involvement from their manager. However, less time is required as staff members have invariably progressed further along the learning curve than virtually any other method of learning as they have already gained the relevant knowledge, developed many of the required skills and begun to apply what they have learned.
Therein lies the power of experiential learning.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/staff-development-and-motivation-282943.html
About the Author
Simon Cooper is the Managing Director of Experiential Learning Center Limited http://experiential-learning-centre.co.uk
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What is a good name of a BANK NEW EMPLOYEES ORIENTATION PROGRAM?
My bank has a program called “New Recruits Development Program” which is mainly done to new employees for them to get familiar with the bank products and services.
It’s a training program for new-to-bank staff covering customer service skills bank products, procedures and systems.
The new name should be:
1- Inspirational
2- Original – Not used by other local or international banks
3- Not an abbreviation (i.e. N.R.D.P)
Recruits for banking program.
What is it meant by notion in this sentence?
————
As of April 2008, no target communities have completed 3-year community action plans although the process of developing community risk reduction plans was initiated but ATD and ATF do not have any agreed criteria, beyond the ATD strategic plan, for deciding what activities to fund or how to evaluate and rank different activities within the community action plans. The notion of inviting for the submission of additional, community specific and relatively broad development proposals has added to considerable confusion for ATF and ATD programme staff alike.
You can think of the words ‘idea’ or ‘thought’ as interchangeable with the word ‘notion’ here.
The sentence is equivalent to “The idea of inviting for submission…..”
Apple sent me an email asking to meet 1:1 with Apple Worldwide Developer Relations staff. Is it important I go?
The email said:
“It is the time again that Apple Worldwide Developer Relations staff will have their reqular developer visit to Hong Kong. We would like to take this opportunity to have 1:1 meeting with you. We would like to have an update of your application development status. At the same time we are also happy to discuss with you on any of your issue in your iPhone/ADC program, application develoment and submission etc.”
I think you need to contact them instead of asking an important question, possibly dealing with your career, here on Yahoo!Answers.
Ron
I am a govt. staff and i need to attend an nitttr staff development programme. How do i?
I am working as a lecturer in a govt. aided polytechnic. I am in need to atted staff development programme within India at NITTTR. I am from tamilnadu state. I wish to attend programmes from other near by states. can anyone give me some information. I tried bhopal, chandigarh and kolkata. It is too far from tamilnadu. How many NITTTR is there in india. tell me fast.
Four.
NITTTR,Chennai
NITTTR,Chandigarh.
NITTTR,Kolkata.
NITTTR,Bhopal.
Hello every body, i am doing my thesis on training and development. here is the statement of the problem. so,?
Statement of the problem
Management’s attitude to training and development in a growing number of companies is clear cut. Training and development is seen as an activity capable of making a major contribution to the achievement of organizational objectives. In this situation training will be taking place, where needed, at all levels in the organization, from the boardroom to the shop-floor based on systematic training and development scheme. Systematic (structured) training and development is an important ingredient in organization’s manpower strategy and is a sound business investment; it consists of identifying what training is needed, appropriate planning programmes to meet this need; implementing the training and ensuring that employees are assisted to acquire the skills and knowledge they need in the most efficient manner, and evaluating as far as possible the effectiveness of the particular training programme and satisfying the residual training and development requirements (Kenney & others 1979) .
But in too many companies the traditional laissez-faire attitude to training still survives. The training and development Boards have done much to extend the use of successful training practices, but many organizations still pay ‘lip service’ and barely satisfy minimum training board requirements, with the result that their training has the following features: it is not an integral part of the organization’s operations, it has a low priority and is, at best a peripheral management responsibility; employees are largely responsible for their own training; managers, for example, are appointed for their technical abilities, and are expected to pick up their managerial skills with little or no formal help (Ibid). Management development is particularly non existent and the training officer is inappropriately placed in the hierarchy to advise or take any active part in the training of management staff. More attention has been paid to the presentation of documentation and written programmes than to the actual training management should be (Ibid). In addition, Many organizations never make the connection between their strategic objectives and their training and development programs. As a result, much of an organization’s investment can be wasted i.e., training programs are often misdirected, poorly designed, inadequately evaluated (Sherman et al., 1998). Therefore, all these problems directly affect organizational performance in general and the effectiveness of training and development in particular. However, in recent studies of training and development practice in Ethiopian public organizations show that they do not give much attention to the training and development of employees and its effectiveness of the programmes; rather the practice shows more attention has paid to the preparation of documentation and written programmes than to the actual training management is. Thus, these problems may create a gap between the job requirement and the actual performance of employees that affect the overall performance of the organization. This lets us to guess there is a possibility of the existence of the aforesaid challenging problems in X service College.
Therefore, in order to address the research problem: the assessment of the Practice and problems of human resource training and development of the X Service College, this study raises to answer the following basic questions:
1.Does the college integrate training and development programs with its strategic plans?
2.How training and development need is identified in the organization?
3.How does the organization identify and select employees for training?
4.What procedures are followed to select trainers?
5.What programs and/or methodologies are used to train and develop employees?
6.What are the focuses of the curriculum for training and development programs in the organization?
7.How the college evaluate the effectiveness of employee training and development programs?
8.What problems do they face in training and development of their employees?