No doubt that a competitive human resource can boost customer satisfaction, increase productivity, reduce waste and errors in production, and most of all, increase the company’s profitability. However, how do you build a competitive human resource in your organization? The answer is through periodic and relevant training and development programs.
Provide Periodic Training and Development Programs
When I say periodic, it means that training and development programs for employees must become a part of the company’s business cycle. As technology advances in the speed of light, and the business games continually changing, employees’ knowledge and skills therefore must be able to adapt to these changes.
Training programs must not be put aside and scheduled on a seasonal basis where when there is only a need or a problem arising from lack of skills and/or knowledge on the part of the employees concerned. In addition, sometimes, retraining employees is needed, especially for those performing routine jobs; for there is a tendency for employees’ productivity to wane when the same jobs is performed for a longer time.
Provide Relevant and Timely Training and Development Programs
Relevant training and development programs means having these programs addressed what the employees and the jobs they performed currently require. This also means taking into account current or latest technologies and business processes being used or that would be adopted in the immediate future.
It is recommended that an annual TNA (Training Needs Analysis) be conducted company-wide to appraise where employees need to improve. Although, a summary of the yearly performance appraisal results of all employees may indicate possible areas for training, and independent TNA for specific jobs and responsibilities is deemed more effective. The results of this analysis will provide accuracy and relevance to the intents and purposes of the training and development program.
More so, the HRM (Human Resource Management) professional or department can prioritize which areas need immediate intervention through training. If I may note here, not all performance problems can be solved through training, there are other much more effective ways. Hence, the need to prioritize. Irrelevant and untimely training is costly.
Conclusion
An organization’s competitiveness hinges on how competitive its human resource is. Therefore, invest in the development or enhancement of your employees’ knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes. This kind of investment has a better ROI (Return on Investment) than investing on the latest machinery and technologies, and the effects of which is both immediate and long term.
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