hra 310 chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Human Resource Development

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9–2

Chapter Outline

• Scope, Cost, and Purpose of Human Resource Development

• The Needs Assessment Phase• The Design and Development Phase• The Evaluation Phase


Scope and Cost of Human Resource Development

• U.S. firms spend more than $50 billion on employee training annually

• Training may be offered to:– new hires and current employees– Recently promoted employees– managers– customers


Training and Strategy

• Training enhances individual and organizational performance

• Training facilitates employee retention and progression

• Training enables strategy implementation

• Training may be needed for new technologies and culture change efforts


Figure 9.1 The Instructional Systems Design Model


Needs Assessment: Who needs to know what?

• Gathering Data– Search of existing records– Individual interviews– Group interviews– Questionnaires– Performance tests– Written tests– Assessment centers– Observation– Collection of critical incidents– Job analysis– Task analysis


Needs Assessment: Organizational Analysis

• Is the training consistent with the organization’s goals, strategy, and culture?

• Will employees be able to transfer trained skills to their jobs?

• How will training impact other units?• Which training effort should have

priority?


Needs Assessment: Job and Task Analysis

• What tasks must be performed?• What knowledge, skills, and abilities are

required to do these tasks?• Which tasks must be trained, when, and

where?


Needs Assessment: Individual Analysis

• Who needs to be trained?• What do these people already know

about job tasks?• What is their level of basic skills?• How varied are the trainees?• How motivated are the trainees?


Specifying Behavioral Objectives

• What will the trainee be able to do at the end of training?

• Under what conditions?• How well?• “Type a correctly formatted one page

business letter using Word 2005, with one or fewer errors, in 20 minutes.”


Preconditions for Learning

• Trainee Readiness– prerequisite experience or background– required basic skills

• Trainee Motivation– choice to attend– training is relevant to career goals– self-set goals for training performance– enhanced self-efficacy expectations

• persuasion, modelling, enactive mastery


Conditions of Practice

• ACTIVE practice!• Overlearning to enhance retention, transfer,

and performance under stress• Whole Learning for simple tasks or highly

interdependent task sequences• Part Learning for complex tasks with many

steps• Distributed practice often provides better

retention and less fatigue than Massed practice


Overcoming Interference

• Interference occurs when a familiar stimulus must call forth a different response.

• Example: learning to turn right when you see a red traffic light.

• Provide lots of practice, explain why turning right is now correct and stopping is now incorrect


Transfer of Training to the Job

• Maximize similarity of training and job settings• Teach principles underlying the behavior• Lots of practice in many scenarios• Enhance end-of-training self-efficacy• Action planning, relapse prevention• Provide opportunities to perform trained

behaviors on the job• Job aids and reminders• Supervisor support for training


Adult Learning Principles (Andragogy)

• Adults have relevant experience that must be drawn upon

• Adults may want to take responsibility for their learning

• Adults are problem centered rather than subject centered

• Therefore, training should be practical, active, interactive, and somewhat self-directed


On-The-Job Training

• Should be carefully planned and structured• Relevance and trainee motivation are usually

high • Trainers should be trained and use checklists

to assure nothing is missed• Trainees should be assessed and certified

when competent• Apprenticeship programs combine on and off

the job training


Selecting Training Methods

• Consider:– Cost– Size of group– Facilities (space, AV)– Need for variety and active involvement– Trainee expectations– Trainer skills and preferences– Match of method with training content


Some Training Methods

• Role play• Case study• Game or simulation• Lecture• Group discussion• Reading, self-study manual• Videotape• Teleconferencing• Computer-based training


E-Learning

• Computer delivered training via CD-Rom, Company intranet, Internet

• Satellite broadcast, virtual classrooms, webcast, discussion groups

• May be– Synchronous (all participate at once)– Asynchronous (learners work in their own time)

• Participation may be tracked with a “learning management system”


Advantages of E-Learning

• Quick delivery to many trainees on different shifts and locations.

• Lower cost per student, reduced instructor travel, and facility expenses

• In self-paced programs, learning may be faster on average than for classroom training

• Easy to roll out updated training products• Available on-demand, available for refresher

training at will


Caveats on E-Learning

• Not well suited for teaching “soft” skills• Some learners lose motivation• Little opportunity for trainees to learn

from each other• “Blended learning,” a combination of e-

and classroom learning or skill practice opportunities, is often very effective

Figure 9.3 Management Development: How Managers Learn


Management Development Systems

• Should feature on the job challenges and mentoring as well as classroom programs

• Commonly include an Action Learning Project

• Should be closely tied to business needs

• Are often based on competency models


New Employee Orientation

• Supervisor introduces the job, departmental practices and expectations

• HR teaches about the organization, mission, culture, overall policies and HR rules and procedures

• Buddy or mentor follows up with further advice


Figure 9.4 Four Levels of Training Evaluation

Source: Reprinted with permission form the November 1983 issue of Personnel Administrator, copyright, 1983, the Society for Human Resource Management, Alexandria, VA.


Figure 9.6 Evaluation Designs


Figure 9.6 Evaluation Designs (cont’d)


Utility of Training Programs

• Assess total dollar value of benefits from training:– How much better are trained employees than they

were before training?– What is the dollar value of this improvement in

performance per person, per year?– What is the life of the trained skills?– How many people were trained?

• Subtract costs of delivering training


Review

• Scope, Cost, and Purpose of Human Resource Development

• The Needs Assessment Phase• The Design and Development Phase• The Evaluation Phase

hra 310 chapter 9

Education