Cascio: Managing Human
Resources: Productivity,
Quality of Work Life,
Profits, Seventh Edition
III. Development 8. Workplace Training © The McGrawâˆ'Hill
Companies, 2005
286 Part 3 Development over the Internet. They also led the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce to create an online learning center for its 2,200 membersâ€"most of whom employ fewer than 100 employees. Online learning also permits large firms, such as
General Motors, to reach more than 175,000 employees at 7,500 dealerships in less than a week, using interactive distance learning (IDL) technology. IDL will let employees view a live course, beamed in by satellite, and ask questions of the instructor, without leaving their dealerships, which slashes travel time and costs, and improves quality, because GM can select its best instructors to teach each course.
Classroom courses are not going away, and e-learning does have its drawbacks, as we shall see in the conclusion to this case, but one thing is certain:
E-learning is changing corporate training forever.
Challenges
1. What are some of the key advantages of e-learning?
2. Are some types of material or course work better suited than others to e-learning? 3. What disadvantages or opportunity costs can you identify with e-learning?
Traditionally, lower-level employees were "trained,” while higher-level employees were "developed.” This distinction, focusing on the learning of handson skills versus interpersonal and decision-making skills, has become too blurry in practice to be useful. Throughout the remainder of this chapter, therefore, we will use the terms training and development interchangeably. In the
United States, as in many other countries, training is big business, and the first half of this chapter examines some current issues in the design, conduct, and evaluation of training programs.
Change, growth, and sometimes displacement (e.g., through layoffs and restructuring) are facts of modern organizational life. Young people entering the workforce today can expect to be laid off several times by the time they reach age 50.3 As those laid off find new jobs, they discover what all new employees do: You have to "relearn the ropes” in the new job setting. Orientation training, the subject of the second part of this chapter, can ease that process considerably, with positive results both for the new employee and for the company.
Trends such as leased employees, disposable managers, and free-agent workers will make orientation even more important in the future. Let's begin by defining training, and consider some emerging trends in this area.
EMPLOYEE TRAINING
What Is Training?
Training consists of planned programs designed to improve performance at the individual, group, and/or organizational levels. Improved performance, in turn, implies that there have been measurable changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and/or social behavior.