|
Trainer Meet Trainer Conference
"Developing Superior Performers For Extraordinary Results"
Datuk Aziz - "Reframing of Training In Learning Organisation"
 |
Change is occurring around us everyday. The way organisa-tions
are being managed and the nature of businesses in today's world
is fast changing. Orga-nizations will have to change the way their
people learn and perform in order to achieve excellent results
and satisfying customers" needs. Training is no longer for trainings'
sakes but instead, emphasis is given to the outcome of those training.
This shift towards outcome is posing a serious challenge for many
a Human Resource Development professionals in today's organizations.
Speaking at a "Trainers Meet Trainers" Conference organised by
the Centre for Modern Management in Kuching in March this year,
Datuk Haji Abdul Aziz Husain, the Deputy State Secretary for Human
Resource elaborated at length on the reframing of training in
learning organization. In an excerpt from his paper, he said that
"...Learning organization may mean different things to different
people. Learning organization may refer to the organization as
a whole or it may refer to learning by each individual in the
organization. It is important to recognize that in a learning
organisation, all individuals in their respective places throughout
the system are learning to improve themselves and the process
in the organization. Thus learning in this context is necessary
to enable the individuals to perform their job better and more
effectively whether they work alone or in a group or team. It
will enable the workers or teams to meet the organizations' objective
by continuously maintaining and improving their productivity and
the quality of their products and services. It implies that people
in the organization need to learn more and more as the environment
changes.
The challenge faced by all organizations today is when to maximize
learning. This will mean that the responsibility for training
cannot be left to the training institution alone nor the department
or unit in charge of HRD. To achieve the learning organisation,
the management needs to involve everybody in the planning and
implementation of the learning. In a learning organisation each
individual need to know about what learning actually is, why it
is important, and how to make it happen. This means the full understanding
of the learning philosophy and the setting up of the infrastructure
necessary to make it happen. There is also a need to redefine
the role of trainers in this new setting. The trainers have to
re-examine their responsibilities in order to maximize the effectiveness
of learning.
In most organization, training is now regarded as central and
essential, a service that adds value to the whole organization.
This is a major paradigm shift for those organizations that believe
in the need to change. Why has learning become so important now
more then ever before. The answer seems obvious. Yet we need to
look into the underlying reason in order to deers"
Planned Individual Learning
Caption
 |
The American Society for Training and Development in its Model
for HRD Practice indicate that the focus of Training and development
is "on identifying, assuring and helping develop, through planned
learning, the key competencies that enable individuals to perform
current or future jobs. Training and development primary emphasis
is on individuals in their work roles." It goes on to say that
the purpose of training intervention is primarily planned individual
learning, accomplished through training, on the job learning,
or other means of enhancing learning. This is a good start as
the definition emphasize on learning and planned individual learning
to enable the performance present and future jobs. However, the
definition appears to refer only to formal training setting in
organizations. Training is a process of learning. A process that
needs time. It is not a program to be completed. Although there
are slow and fast learners, there is no shortcuts. Just like mastering
golf or chess or riding the bicycle, practice and sustained training
ensures success of participants.
Values & attitudes
Training also goes beyond competency and skill building, but covers
values and attitudes which increase the individuals self worth
and motivates him to give his best to the organization. Training
enables the development of skills and competency of workers to
do their job better, faster and enable them to work smart, improve
their work process and methods. The overall objective of training
is to improve the organization by improving the quality and efficiency
of its people. Commercial organizations expect the bottom line
to improve while in non-profit organization, improvement in service
level and decreasing cost is expected. The overall well-being
of workers should also improve through better working environment
and increased levels of empowerment and responsibility. Traditionally,
training enables the workers to be emplaced in the job he has
been trained to do and to carry out his responsibilities and further
advance his career in the organization. This traditional role
will continue to play an important role in both the public and
private sector.
Facilitating learning
Training should also facilitate learning and enable workers to
continue learning even after the formal training session. Learning
promotes proactiveness and creativity, qualities that are needed
to improve work performance and the quality of products and services.
Learning should not only be a formal activity as learning can
take place beyond or without formal training. Continuous learning
involves everyone at all levels in the organization and should
not be the domain of HRD alone. Finally, training should always
be done with a view to maximize learning by both trainees and
the trainer given the resources available in the organization.
The above gave a broad definition of training, which encompasses
not only formal classroom training, but the development of individual
and group learning in both formal and informal setting.
Our Future Training Path
What then are the future directions of training in our local context"
The developments in the following areas are likely future trends
upon which training philosophy for the State Civil Service can
be developed:
Training will become a process of developing expertise in order
to improve performance. This will increase the chance that training
will produce the required results and prevent training from slipping
into unproductive efforts that cannot be measured or assessed.
Training will be more focused on learning that improves overall
performance. This will not only include enhancing of individual
skill to close the actual learning gap but also enable the individual
to develop skill in teamwork and enhance his creative potential.
This trend will not however preclude training for purpose of long-term
development including training in collages and universities. Thus
in the State Government HRD program focused on issues concerning
officers performance in terms of improving skill and quality,
long term general program such as the MBA's and other Masters
Degree courses will continue to be organized for future career
development of the officers.
Informal learning will play a more important role in learning
organization in the future. Although mentoring and providing guidance
to new employees have been practiced in a lot of organization,
there is a need to provide a structure to these important services.
Mentors need to be recognised and trained to do their jobs and
time need to be allocated for such informal training to take place.
Informal learning in groups should also be encouraged ton enable
workers to learn from each other.
There will be very little distinction between training and education.
Although liberal education is the foundation of many professions,
and should play an even greater role in providing people with
the required knowledge, we should not relegate training as second
place. Most professionals such as a heart surgeon or a airline
pilot requires intensive training before becoming proficient.
What is important here is that both education and training should
maximise learning. To achieve this objective there is a need to
have a high degree of collaboration and cooperation between educational
institutions and training organizations. Such collaborations are
taking place with the launching of training programs and courses
by institutions like CMM and SSDC and Universities such as UNIMAS
and UiTM. This trend will have to play a more prominent role in
enhancing learning by the workforce in the future.
Caption
 |
The shift of emphasis from training to learning. This means that
training should be learning centred. The focus of the trainers
is to facilitate and maximize learning. Learning is a process,
by which individuals or group of individuals acquires knowledge
or skill, changes attitudes, becomes better informed of something
familiar or discover, inquire about or become aware of something
new. The learning process involves behaviour change, a change
that benefits both the participant and his organization. A change
in his or her attitude towards work, a change based on a new understanding
of how to perform better, a change in his or her capacity to do
better than before the training take place. Future training programs
especially for officers in the Civil Service will be designed
to ensure such changes will take place. This new focus require
trainers who understand what is required from the program and
what need to be done to ensure that changes takes place.
The importance of IT in training cannot be over emphasised. The
introduction of e-government, e-commerce and other electronic
flagships means that our work force must be proficient in their
usage. Use of IT for training does not only facilitate training
but also helps participants to be familiar with these tools. IT
also enables the communication of ideas outside the class or workshop
setting. The use of IT in training will gain greater momentum
in the future. Future training programs by CMM will incorporate
these IT elements in order to get participants to use IT for research
as well as for communication. Learning to use IT will also have
to be continuous and need to be done by the people themselves.
Such training will help to facilitate the IT literacy in the organisation.
In future all training activities need to be planned properly
before implementation. The Planning of Training will be a core
function of all HRD function. Training should not be a stopgap
measure or quick solutions to outstanding problems. Planning will
involve understanding the organization and its need, its purpose,
culture, type and size. Understanding of the organization and
the people is critical before applying strategy. The second part
of planning involves the application of training strategy for
learning and adapting the correct training strategy to participants.
This requires trainers to develop and learn various training strategies
that can be used in the training. Various authors have developed
a number of traditional strategies, some of which dated back to
the time of Aristotle. These strategies can be applied though
they may have to be tailored to the needs of the organization.
This means in-depth understanding of the strategy and the ability
to apply models to real world situation.
The training strategies described by Davis and Davis in "Effective
Training Strategies" include: The Behavioural Strategy, The Cognitive
Strategy, The Inquiry Strategy, The Mental Model Strategy, The
Group Dynamics Strategy, The Virtual Reality Strategy and the
Holistic Strategy. Although the strategies and the learning theories
on which they are based may be different, they are not completely
divergent from each other and some may in some cases overlap.
One thing that must be made clear is that there is no one superior
strategy as each one is suitable to be applied to a particular
organization with a particular setting." |
