New Employee Training Programs

The human resource of a company has for a long time been regarded as a very valuable asset to an organization. So as to ensure that an organization is able to remain productive, it therefore becomes of utmost importance that the human resource department conducts employee development and training programs hence equipping the workforce with the required skills and knowledge to meet the market demands. Equally important is the need to manage performance of the employees. This paper will give three models which can be used by a company to train & develop its human resource and also manage its performance.

One of the recent models used in human resource training & development and performance management is a shared services model. The shared services model allows an organization to cut down its costs by pooling several human resource management services together in a common service unit. The common service unit may then provide human resource related services to the organization and may at times outsource some of its services to other organizations.  Shared services model also allows an organization to restructure its human resource service provision via strategies aimed at recentralizing services in addition to the establishment of an internal market system in an organization.

Human resource training, development and performance management are among the human resource services which are offered at the shared services model level. The advantage of this model is that it has a lot of experts who have vast experience on their areas of expertise (Cooke, 2006). For this reason, it is guaranteed that the human resource training and development will be done with the highest levels of competencies available in the market. Some of the key aspects of HR training and development which should be integrated into the program, include: orientation of new employees into the culture of an organization, the values of an organization, the vision and mission of the organization. Secondly, the program should include a job specific training program. This will ensure that various experts in the organization, for instance, accountants and administrators have adequate knowledge as per standards in the market, hence being able to deliver maximum performance to the organization. Lastly, the strategy should include a continuous human resource training plan, so as to ensure that the organization has a pool of highly competent workforce, hence increasing productivity of the company (Cooke, 2006).

Another human resource training and development model which should be used in the company is an online system. Online employee training system will enable the organization to train both physical and virtual employees (Ecornell, 2011). Due to the increasing use of the internet in many business operations, it has become of utmost importance that organizations find a means of training the employees located in various parts of the globe. The use of the online human resource training and development model will go hand in hand with the electronic recruitment system of the company. With this, the organization will be able to offer some kind of training to potential employees prior to their recruitment at the company. After recruitment, there arises a need of ensuring that skills and knowledge of the employees are developed, hence aligning it with the increasing market demands. The online training system will provide a good avenue for the organization to do this. Some of the mechanisms which will be put in place to ensure that the online training model is successful include the following:

 First of all, the human resource department will conduct training in various phases, with each phase targeting a specific area of a specific job. This will ensure that the organization is able to develop its workforce according to their specific job responsibilities. The online training will consist of professionally crafted learning lessons which will be accompanied by appropriate materials. After the lessons, the employees will be required to pass the online test to assess whether they have understood the concept under study. The application of the concept learnt will be expected to follow after this. The feedback from the employees and customers will be used to assess the efficiency of the model. This model will offer convenience to the employees, since they will take the training at their own convenient time (Ecornell, 2011). The organizational needs will be taken care of in that this model will not impact heavily on the finances of the company, in addition to enabling the organization to achieve its objectives of developing its human resource. Lastly, the model will consist of practical/ physical lessons/ workshops where simulations and practical applications of the concept learnt will be demonstrated. The prior training of the employees via online system will reduce the amount of time taken on these workshops. This will give value to the organization’s investment in the human resource training and also make the employee relevant to the current market demands.

With regard to the performance management, the company should use the results-based model. Since the aim of any business is to maximize on profits, it becomes important that the organization improves its performance levels in order to to align them with the objectives of the organization. The performance management model will work hand in hand with the training and development model. The relationship between the two will be in that the organization will be striving to increase its productivity, hence investing on the training and development of its workforce (Mayne, 2007). In so doing, it will be expecting to have a return on its investment; which is performance. The performance management model will start by providing training to the employees. This will trigger the employees to adjust their practices so that they concur with the concepts learnt in the training. After this, the organization will be ready to get its returns on the investment on its workforce which is results. Since the organization will have its goals and objectives, it will analyze the performance of each individual with respect to the pre-stated goals and objectives. After the results have been analyzed, the human resource department will organize a training program meant at developing the workforce with an aim of enabling the organization to achieve its goals and objectives.

The performance management model will comprise of several aspects. Firstly, it will have a well defined job description so as to indicate precisely what is required from a specific job. Secondly, it will outline a system to use for selecting and recruiting the most appropriate professionals to work for the company. Thirdly, it will indicate the training and education programs which are to be prepared for the workforce. Lastly, it will indicate the performance measuring parameters to be used.

In conclusion, this paper has suggested models which can be used by the human resource department of the company to provide training and development to its employees and also to manage the workforce’s performance. This paper has proposed the use of a shared services model and an online system for training and development of the human resource of the company. With respect to the performance management, a result based model was proposed. With the three models, the company will be able to meet its human resource management requirements.