Training & Management Development

Session 3

Human and Social Capital

• Human Capital - individual’s skills, knowledge and expertise– Developed via formal training and education– Source of competitive advantage to individuals/organisations

• Social Capital - network of relationships that can be used for the good of the individual/collective– Network of formal and informal ties– Trust facilitating co-ordination & co-operation for the mutual

benefit– High quality relationships

Definitions

• TRAINING - process of improving the skills and knowledge of employees in order to improve their performance on current job

• DEVELOPMENT – learning that is not necessarily related to employees current job but prepares them for other positions in the organization

• MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT – any attempt to improve current/future management performance by imparting knowledge, changing attitudes or increasing skills

Comparative MD

• US/UK - focus on general management; training corrects individual weaknesses and contributes to business strategy and performance

• Continental Europe - leaders are ‘born not made’ – innate ability/personality as the most important factor in making an effective manager

• Germany - management is about functional specialism and technical skills

• China - discursive and group work methods of western management development clash with culture of conformity, social status and position of the expert

National approaches

VOLUNTARIST

(UK, Sweden, Australia)

• Employers train to meet business objectives; market mechanisms operate to balance the supply and demand for training– Lower productivity; slower

adoption of new technology

FUNCTIONALIST (Germany, France)

• Government regulates /legislates the degree to which employers provide functional/educational training– Surplus of blue workers;

low flexibility; ill-suited to demands of globalisation

Management Development in UK

• 2513 Euros spend per manager per year (less than half what Germany spends; only Romania spends less)

• 74% of organisations claim to have a dedicated training budget

• Only 47% of organisations have an HR rep. in the boardroom

(Methodology: 2 year study of 700 private sector firms from manufacturing, transport and services; report by The Chartered Management Institute,

July 2004)

European and Asian resistance to US case study method (Saner & Yiu, 1994)

• Anglo-Saxon - teacher as a Catalyst; solution brain

storming; innovation-oriented thinking • Germanic - teacher as an Instructor; transferring of

rules and procedures; application-oriented thinking

• Asian- teacher as a Referee; clarifying of norms and sanctions; learning to think independently of Confucianist principles

• Eastern Europe - teacher as a Gate Keeper; exploring relation between enterprise & environment

Who owns your learning and development?

• Who benefits from your learning and development?

• Who pays the costs of your learning and development?

Dilemmas

• Development of employees - costs or investment?

• Training makes employees more valuable but in the same time more marketable

• Problem of transferable and non-transferable skills

• Clash of individual needs with organizational goals

Training of multi-skilled workforce

• Off- the-job training (classroom instruction; audiovisual; e-learning; simulations)

• On-the-job training (apprenticeship; internship; action learning, job rotation, secondments)

• Systems of career management (coaching; mentoring)

• Self-development (self-assessment) • Collaborative training methods and team training

Management Development

• Systems/practices that facilitate MD: appraisal, career planning, fast-tracking

• Top 3 methods: internal skill training; external public courses; mentoring and coaching (e-learning as the least favoured method)

• Qualification based MD programmes

• Investment in MD are triggered by changes in the external environment, business need and HR strategy

Leadership Development

• Companies with very disciplined and rigorous approach to leadership development produce more talent

• Jobs, bosses, hardships and special projects are considered the most useful

• Formal training and education has limited impact

• Leaders are born and made: successful performance is attributed to experience and coaching rather than in-born talent and early-life experiences

• Feedback sessions with subordinates

Strategic training

• Alignment with organisational objectives – from a separate stand alone event to a fully integrated

strategic component

• Senior management support and involvement of line managers– Encouraging employees to accept change

• Integration with HRM policy– Drawing on information from performance

management and measurement– Quality of programme design and delivery

Training and performance: Evidence

• Positive impact on product quality, product development, market share, sales growth (Kalleberg & Moody, 1994)

• More investment related to higher profit (d’Arcimoles, 1997)

• Positively related to trust in decision-making and employee security (Boselie et al. 2000)

Training policy

• The organisation’s underlying philosophy • Who is eligible• What the process is for identifying training needs• What types of training are available and on what

basis • What the balance should be between on and off-

the-job training• Appeal mechanism for employees

Training effectiveness(Kirkpatrick, 1959;1996)

Training session:1. Reaction (to programme; to teacher)

2. Learning (grading; exams; coursework)

Transfer of learning to the workplace:3. Behaviour on employee level (activity sampling;

observer diaries; self-recording)

4. Results on organisational level (productivity; outputs and costs)

From ‘learning’ to ‘results’

• Challenging job and assignments

• Supportive work environment• Social support (supportive social interactions and

relationships)• Supervisory and peer behavior encouraging independence and

innovation

• Organizational climate: • Continuous learning culture (emphasis on innovation and

competition)

Training measurement: Difficulties

• Bias – learning as a main criterion of training effectiveness

• Intangible and non-measurable effects

• Long-term effects

• Weak link with performance– A substantial decrease in effects from learning to results criteria

due to situational factors/constraints– Modest correlations among different measures of training

effectiveness (i.e. high ‘learning’ does not mean high ‘results’)

Coaching versus mentoring

• COACHING - Conducted by immediate supervisor; showing people how to apply knowledge they already possess (Conway, 1994)

• i.e. direct supervisors cannot be good mentors (conflict between treating all subordinates equally and the need for treating

protege differently and better)

• MENTORING - Older individuals serving as role models and providing career guidance, task assistance, and social support to younger colleagues (Kram, 1985)

• i.e. mentor might counsel a protégé with personal problems to cut down on work hours while direct supervisor will have different priorities

Executive coaching

• Coach - a person who works with others to develop and implement strategies to improve their performance (Hall et al. 1999) – not the employee’s supervisor and does not

participate in distribution of reward to that employee

– the external agent with experience, expertise and credentials (confidentiality and politics issues)

Mentoring

• Impacts on the speed of assimilation of proteges, their commitment, advancement, salary progression, reduction of stress and anxiety

• It is seen as an entitlement

• Ideological belief that young adults who do not have mentors are seriously disadvantaged

• Mentoring can build a sense of dependency that hampers their proteges to function independently later in their careers

Toxic Mentors and Toxic Proteges (Feldman, 1999)

– Mentors who are seeking proteges for political support rather than technical are likely to form dysfunctional relation

– Protegees who are seeking mentors for social support rather than task support are likely to form a dysfunctional relation

– Use of deceptive impression management techniques by both parties

– The more public relationship the greater commitment to dysfunctional relation