Tacit knowledge tends to be the primary focus of formal training and employee development.

From the textbook, Employee training & development, 7th, read the following chapters:

Introduction to employee training and development Retrieved from: https://digitalbookshelf.argosy.edu/#/books/1260050858/cfi/6/26!/4/2/2/4@0:0

Strategic training

Chapter One

Introduction to Employee Training and Development

Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Discuss the forces influencing the workplace and learning, and explain how training can help companies deal with these forces.

Draw a figure or diagram and explain how training, development, informal learning, and knowledge management contribute to business success.

Discuss various aspects of the training design process.

Describe the amount and types of training occurring in U.S. companies.

Discuss the key roles for training professionals.

Identify appropriate resources (e.g., journals, websites) for learning about training research and practice.

Forces Affecting the Workplace Make Training a Key Ingredient of Company Success

Customer service, productivity, safety, employee retention and growth, uncertainty in the economy, extending learning beyond the classroom, the use of new technology—these are just some of the issues affecting companies in all industries and sizes and influencing training practices.

The examples presented below show how these concerns have affected companies in several different business sectors and how training has helped them succeed.

Many companies, recognizing that learning goes beyond typical face-to-face classes, are using technology to make it easier for employees in different locations to learn and share knowledge through formal courses, as well as through collaboration. For example, GameStop, the retailer of new and used video games, hardware, entertainment software, and accessories, has 18,000 employees in more than 6,600 locations in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Europe. Who doesn’t like to play video games like Super Mario, Borderlands, or DragonBall XenoVerse! Its customers can get games from GameStop that they can’t get anywhere else, and it allows customers to buy, sell, or trade games unlike many of its competitors. GameStop serves a variety of customers, including five-year-olds and their parents who are looking for Nintendo games to adult gamers who want to buy the latest gaming equipment. Most GameStop employees (called game-associates) hold part-time, entry-level jobs, requiring working several shifts during the week. They often leave for other jobs or opportunities such as going back to school. Training helps GameStop successfully deal with turnover by ensuring new employees provide consistent customer service that translates into satisfied customers and return business. Most new employees who join GameStop are expert gamers, have expertise about the technology and trends influencing the gaming market, and were loyal customers. As a result, GameStop’s training doesn’t focus on teaching employees about video games but instead emphasizes how to interact with customers and understand their gaming needs. Also, the training helps employees become ambassadors for the company by sharing their knowledge and passion for gaming with customers. The LevelUp program is an online program that enables employees to complete training on their own time and at their own pace, scoring points based on achieving different skills and advancing to the next level. Training content varies based on the employees’ needs; it allows them to log in and out of training at any time and skip sections they already know. The LevelUp program helps prepare new game-associates as well as provide training for more experienced game-associates who may be more interested in a retail career and want to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become assistant managers and store managers.

McAfee, part of Intel Security, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee protects consumers and businesses from the malware and emerging online threats. Sixty percent of employees use social networking tools that support learning and 50 percent of training content is delivered using self-paced online instruction. McAfee also encourages knowledge sharing. Employees can connect online with potential mentors and mentees based on the personal profiles they create. A career development group helps employees collaborate and share ideas about their personal development. A language learning community is available for employees around the world to talk to each other to improve their language skills.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan uses Know It and MI Source to reach employees at forty different locations. Know It includes wikis, web courses, podcasts, discussion boards, and e-learning to provide information on more than eighty business topics. MI Source gives claims and customer service employees access to information they need to better serve customers. Scotiabank Group, with operations in more than fifty companies, developed an internal social networking application, Face Forward, which includes user profiles, blogs, wikis, and social bookmarks.

US Airways provides extensive training for flight attendants and pilots. Newly hired flight attendants receive five weeks of training, including an introduction to the aviation industry, and Airbus cabin simulators include “door trainers” to practice opening emergency exits under difficult evacuation conditions, such as total darkness and billowing smoke. Training also includes jumping into a pool and inflating a life raft and helping passengers into and out of a raft. Federal law requires annual classroom safety training for flight attendants, and performance drills every two years. Pilot training includes practicing skills in a simulator that presents many different scenarios, such as both engines failing, and re-creates the feelings and sounds experienced in flight, including turbulence. Forced landings and water ditchings are taught in the classroom. The payoff for this type of extensive training was most evident in the spectacularly safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 and its 155 passengers and flight crew in the Hudson River in 2009. Based on their almost automatic responses developed through years of training, flight attendants were able to calm passengers, prepare them for a crash landing, and open doors and inflate life rafts to assist in the orderly but quick exit of the slowly sinking airplane. The cockpit crew followed the training they received in how to cope with engine failure and successfully conducted a water landing.

Sources: Based on M. McGraw, “Staying Power,” Human Resource Executive (January/February 2015): 39–41; “McAffee. Part of Intel Security,” TD (October 2014): 98. Training Top 125, training (January/February 2011): 54–93. 36; S. McCartney, “Crash Courses for the Crew,” The Wall Street Journal (January 27, 2009): D1, D8.

INTRODUCTION

The examples discussed in the chapter opener illustrate how training can contribute to companies’ competitiveness. Competitiveness refers to a company’s ability to maintain and gain market share in an industry. Although they are different types of businesses, these four companies have training practices that have helped them gain a competitive advantage in their markets. That is, the training practices have helped them grow the business and improve customer service by providing employees with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful.

Companies are experiencing great change due to new technologies, rapid development of knowledge, globalization of business, and development of e-commerce. Also, companies have to take steps to attract, retain, and motivate their workforces. Training is not a luxury; it is a necessity if companies are to participate in the global and electronic marketplaces by offering high-quality products and services. Training prepares employees to use new technologies, function in new work systems such as virtual teams, and communicate and cooperate with peers or customers who may be from different cultural backgrounds.

Human resource management refers to the policies, practices, and systems that influence employees’ behavior, attitudes, and performance. Human resource practices play a key role in attracting, motivating, rewarding, and retaining employees. Other human resource management practices include recruiting employees, selecting employees, designing work, compensating employees, and developing good labor and employee relations. Chapter Two, “Strategic Training,” details the importance placed on training in comparison to other human resource management practices. To be effective, training must play a strategic role in supporting the business.

Human resource management is one of several important functions in most companies. Other functions include accounting and finance, production and operations, research and development, and marketing. Keep in mind that although human resource management practices (such as training) can help companies gain a competitive advantage, the company needs to produce a product or provide a service that customers value. Without the

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financial resources and physical resources (e.g., equipment) needed to produce products or provide services, the company will not survive.

This chapter begins by defining training and development and discussing how the training function has evolved. Next, the forces that are shaping the workplace and learning are addressed. These forces influence the company’s ability to successfully meet stakeholders’ needs. The term stakeholders refers to shareholders, the community, customers, employees, and all the other parties that have an interest in seeing that the company succeeds. The discussion of the forces shaping the workplace (including technology, globalization, and attracting and winning talent) highlights the role of training in helping companies gain a competitive advantage.

The second part of the chapter focuses on current trends in the training area. This section also introduces you to the trainer’s role in a business and how the training function is organized. This section should help you understand current training practices, the types of jobs that trainers may perform, and the competencies needed to be a successful trainer (or, if you are a manager, to identify a successful trainer). The chapter concludes with an overview of the topics covered in the book.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: KEY COMPONENTS OF LEARNING

Our focus in this book is to help you understand the role of training and development in today’s organizations. To do this, it is important for you to understand what training and development means in the broader business context. Figure 1.1 shows the role of training and development for the business. The overall goal of training and development is learning. Learning refers to employees acquiring knowledge, skills, competencies, ttitudes, or behaviors. But the focus of training and development is not just on employees learning for its own sake. Today, merely offering training programs is not enough to get support and funding from executives and to establish the credibility of the training and development function to managers and employees. Learning needs to demonstrate how it contributes to the company’s competitive advantage through improving employee performance, supporting the business strategy (such as growing the business), and contributing positively to business outcomes such as quality, productivity, development of new products, and retaining key employees. From a company’s perspective, what employees learn contributes to the development of intangible assets such as human capital. Human capital refers to knowledge (know what), advanced skills (know how), system understanding and creativity (know why), and motivation to deliver high-quality products and services (care why).1 Human capital may be more valuable than physical capital (equipment or technology) or financial capital (monetary assets, cash) for providing a company with an advantage over its competitors, because it is difficult to imitate or purchase and it is unique to the company.

FIGURE 1.1 The Business Role of Training and Development

There are a number of different ways that learning occurs in a company. They are represented on the outside of the circle in Figure 1.1. Training refers to a planned effort by a company to facilitate learning of job-related competencies, knowledge, skills, and behaviors by employees. The goal of training is for employees to master the knowledge, skills, and behaviors emphasized in training and apply them to their day-to-day activities. Traditionally, companies have relied on formal training through a course, program, or “event” to teach employees the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to successfully perform their job. Development is similar to training, except that it tends to be more future-focused. Development refers to training as well as formal education, job experiences, relationship, and assessments of personality, skills, and abilities that help employees prepare for future jobs or positions. We will discuss development in more detail in Chapter Nine, “Employee Development and Careers.” Formal training and development refers to training and development programs, courses, and events that are developed and organized by the company. Typically, employees are required to attend or complete these programs, which can include face-to-face training programs (such as instructor-led courses) as well as online programs. As you will see later in the chapter, U.S. companies invest billions of dollars in formal training.

Informal learning is also important for facilitating the development of human capital.2 Informal learning refers to learning that is learner initiated, involves action and doing, is motivated by an intent to develop, and does not occur in a formal learning setting.3 Informal learning occurs without a trainer or instructor, and its breadth, depth, and timing is controlled by the employee. It occurs on an as-needed basis and may involve an employee learning either alone or through face-to-face or technology-aided social interactions. Informal learning can occur through many different ways, including casual unplanned interactions with peers, e-mail, informal mentoring, or company-developed or publically available social networking websites such as Twitter or Facebook. The application of social media from a marketing strategy to a learning strategy and the availability of Web 2.0 technologies such as social networks, microblogs, and wikis allow employees easy access to social learning or learning through collaboration and sharing with one or two or more people.4 One estimate is that informal learning may account for up to 75 percent of learning within organizations.

One reason why informal learning may be especially important is that it may lead to the effective development of tacit knowledge, which can be contrasted with explicit knowledge.5 Explicit knowledge refers to knowledge that is well documented, easily articulated, and easily transferred from person to person. Examples of explicit knowledge include processes, checklists, flowcharts, formulas, and definitions. Explicit knowledge tends to be the primary focus of formal training and employee development. Tacit knowledge refers to personal knowledge based on individual experiences that is difficult to codify. The characteristics of formal training and development programs, such as the relatively short duration of classroom or online training and limited opportunities for practice, may limit the extent to which tacit knowledge can be acquired. Thus, informal learning is central to the development of tacit knowledge because it involves employee interactions in personal relationships with peers, colleagues, and experts through which tacit knowledge is shared. It is important to recognize, however, that informal learning cannot replace formal training and employee development. Formal training and development are still needed to prepare employees for their jobs and to help them advance to future positions. Informal learning complements training by helping employees gain tacit knowledge that formal training cannot provide.