What is training and development?

Employee Training and Development (T&D) is the entire process of training employees. Training refers to specific, short-term initiatives and the development of long-term practices, aimed at helping the employee in his/her professional growth.

Employee training and development (T&D) are among the most satisfying actions of  HR . From them, we see the growth of the employee: when innate and acquired potentials are no longer bets and generate concrete achievements, such as solutions, products, services and innovation.

The importance for companies is evident. As change forces businesses to learn—and they are more frequent in the Information Age, you will increasingly see education as part of organizational culture , rather than a reaction to short-term problems and needs.

So, how about knowing more about training and development in Employee management?

When a company detects the need to obtain  competencies , the HR “GPS” will offer two paths.

You can carry out a  process of recruitment and selection of Employee and seek knowledge, skills and attitudes in the market. Or, you can use education to reduce the gap present in the company’s professionals. Each moment will ask for one thing.

Now, assuming you’ve decided to qualify contributors , what options are available?

The first is to look at the positions and meet the demands punctually, a  training program ; the second is to think about what the person will need in their career within the company, a  development plan .

Both constitute dimensions of learning at an individual level .

There is also another, the organizational one, in which the important thing is how the company acquires competences to adapt to the changes and innovations of the context in which it is inserted.

Modern approach to T&D, according to Chiavenato

You can use the points below as objectives to improve your company’s processes.

1-Planned x Casual

The most current view corresponds to anticipating situations and  thinking about training and developing Employee in a strategic way, as part of  the organizational culture .

Therefore, the modern distances itself from the casual, that is, from qualifying eventually.

2-Intentional x Random

It is also possible to verify that the choice of employees is included in the strategy. It’s not random or non-standard.

3-proactive x reactive

Another point is that, nowadays, the objective is to anticipate needs, instead of acting after the problem has set in.

4-Long term vs short term

The training and development of Employee is done with the months and even years in mind in mind, not the immediate problem.

5-instability x stability

Programs are geared towards generating change, things must be different at the end of the process.

6-Consensual x tax

The idea is to encourage and engage the employee to participate in the processes, instead of simply ordering the professional to do it.

7-Temporary x permanent

There is awareness about the need for constant improvement to adapt to changes, so there is no way to train once and for all.

So, would you say that the training and development of Employee in your company is modern or traditional?

What is the difference between training and Employee development?

The two learning processes are important for  strategic Employee management  and  share types and methods of work .

However, as Chiavenato clarifies, there is a difference from a temporal point of view:

“Training is present-oriented, focusing on the current job and seeking to improve those skills and competencies related to immediate job performance.”

“Employee development generally focuses on the positions to be occupied in the future in the organization and the new skills and competences that will be required.”

You can also look at the issue from a systemic point of view.

The training carried out throughout the employee’s journey in the company are units that, together, determine their development.

If everything is planned, intentional and coherent, the tendency is that, in the end, the professional will be better than when he started.

How important is T&D to business strategy?

One of the ways to organize the business strategy is to use the  balanced scorecard .

The advantage of this approach is to understand how success — characterized by the financial aspect, profit, return on investment, etc. — emerges from more fundamental levels.

And what does that have to do with T&D?

Imagine a house with four floors. The penthouse would be the  financial perspective : a beautiful view, comfort and security.

It’s where companies want to get, as said, revenue, profit and return on investment.

Just below, there’s the  customer’s perspective:  to reach coverage, you need to serve these Employee, increase your market share, ensure satisfaction, build loyalty, etc.

However, this is only possible with the structuring of activities that can be efficiently replicated on a daily basis.

The  perspective of internal processes,  then, is the first floor, where we think about how we are going to sell products and services, be  productive at work , make deliveries, etc.

And you know what holds it all together?

The  learning and growth perspective:  it is employees who use their skills in internal processes to serve customers and generate financial gains.

Realize that the business strategy framework follows a cause and effect relationship between levels.

Therefore, the role of Employee training and development can be easily identified as part of the learning and growth perspective, which is the foundation of Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton ‘s strategic map .

What types of Employee training and development?

Types are linked to what will be trained or developed, while methods to how. Below you will see examples related to the types of training and development.

Types of employee training

1. Recycling and professional updating

It occurs when the employee’s skills are out of step with the best market practices.

For example, if the production line is now automated, professionals who used to work with manual processes need to update.

2. Management and supervision skills

There is a natural cycle of professionals occupying positions at the head of teams, especially in management and supervision.

Thus, it is quite common training programs to fill these positions via internal recruitment.

3. Reduction of competency gaps

Especially in organizations that manage by competences , the mapping of knowledge, skills and attitudes is constant.

Together with performance evaluations, they give rise to training in which deficiencies are sought.

4. Integration and promotion of Employee

When a candidate is hired or an employee is promoted, HR needs to adapt the professional to the new position.

This involves training both focused on competencies and on developing relationships with the team.

5. Soft skills

A growing area is behavior and attitude training.

This is the case when Employee Management seeks improvements in teamwork, assiduity, commitment, problem solving, creativity, etc.

Types of employee development

1. Career

It works in parallel with the career plan , that is, HR needs to identify what the needs are so that Employee can move from lower levels to higher positions and salaries.

2. Continuing Education

Especially in technical positions, professionals need to maintain learning routines after initial training. Here, in addition to company training programs, it is common to offer specializations and external courses.

3. Change Management

It is the work to keep the organization adequate to innovations. Through the training of professionals, the business becomes able to live in new economic, social and technological scenarios.

Training and development methods

1-training methods

1-In-class training

The more traditional model is that professionals go to a classroom or laboratory to be guided by professionals with knowledge and experience in the issues of the training program.

A variant is  in company , in which instructors and professors come to the company to teach courses.

2-e-learning

Corresponds to learning on online platforms or teaching software. Content can be presented in different formats such as texts,  videos , audio.

In addition, virtual environments use interactive activities, such as responding to forums, solving questions and playing games to promote learning.

3-microlearning

Teaching, in this case, is made up of little pills to improve specific skills. It is quite common to use videos of 3 to 10 minutes with the content and exercise proposals.

4-Flipped classroom

The idea of ​​an inverted room is for the employee to study the content in the distance model, and the face-to-face room serves for debates, dynamics and clarification of doubts.

5-social learning

It is teaching through interaction between professionals. In training programs, this can be encouraged if the most experienced and qualified employees are the course instructors, for example.

2-development methods

1-Rotation

Allow the employee to perform different functions in the organization in order to gain experience, achieve achievements and develop skills.

2-External qualification

Give access to programs offered by educational institutions, such as vocational courses, technical schools, undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

3-feedback

Grant feedback on the work and competence of the employee after certain periods or tasks, aiming at continuous improvement.

4-mentoring

Choosing successful professionals to guide those who aspire to the highest positions in the organization.

What are the benefits of T&D in companies?

When Employee Management takes a leading role in employee training, the company will reap important results.

In addition to improving  key HR indicators , Employee training and development goals  integrate the learning and growth perspective of the business strategy . See the main gains.

1-Reduce competency gaps

The first benefit you can see is also the most direct. We use T&D to  bridge the gap between the skills we have and the skills we need .

And what we need can come from different sources:

• conditions for the success of the business strategy;
• requirements to perform the tasks of positions and functions;
• seeking to comply with laws, rules and codes of conduct;
• solving problems and crises;
• product or service improvements;
• internal innovation and entrepreneurship.

To meet these and other goals, teams have a set of  technical and behavioral skills . It is up to HR to identify the demand for learning.

2-Improve HR indicators

Competencies are   conceptualized as the ability to perform, which has  knowledge, skills and attitudes (CHA ) as elements.

Thus, when we think about improving  turnover , attendance, organizational climate and productivity, or even indicators from other sectors, such as costs and sales, we can easily find the need for T&D.

A simple example is absenteeism . One day, you check the time tracking on your work desk, and then you see numerous absences in the last quarter.

In this case, what is expected is a change in attitude – which can be trained or sought in the market.

It could also be a lack of skills and knowledge. The leader of an industry may complain about the team’s productivity, and you may notice that employees do not master the technology of the production process, just to cite one case.

3-Strengthen organizational culture

The work of consolidating beliefs, values ​​and norms of behavior requires a multi-pronged approach, such as recruiting for cultural fit , administering professional personality tests   and using leaders to promote the culture.

Among them are the training and development programs for Employee.

4-develop talents

Talent shortage is a problem faced by many companies.

In  a survey carried out by ManpowerGroup ,  Brazilian contractors point out the lack of technical (33%) and behavioral (19%) skills among the main difficulties in making a contract .

And the problem affects several functions, such as IT technicians, industrialists, administrative assistants, accountants and engineers.

Therefore, in addition to improving  recruitment processes  to attract the best candidates, it is important to invest in improving the professionals who are already part of the company’s staff.

A good personnel training and development policy even makes it possible to complement external selections with  internal recruitment .

What are the advantages of each?

These processes are complementary tools and  understanding their applications will make Employee management more effective . First, take a look at the benefits of training:

1-Benefits of training

Meet punctual needs

Trainings can be geared towards  solving the problems encountered today .

For example, when the company qualifies to unlock the progress of a process, contain waste of resources, reorganize the stock, integrate a professional into the team, implement new software, etc.

You don’t have to go far to find an example. An employee quits, and you need to find someone for the job.

You might even have a Employee development plan waiting, but first you’ll have to solve the one-off problem.

be  in compliance

The company’s compliance with legal regulations is often achieved with the help of training.

Imagine that professional laws begin to require a new type of personal protective equipment (PPE), it is necessary to qualify so that employees know how to use it.

Dealing with seasonality and excess demand

Several companies need to recruit temporary professionals due to the increase in demand during a period of the year or due to a non-standard request.

It’s the kind of thing that happens when you sell easter eggs, for example. Well,  training helps to train this workforce in the short term.

Fix flaws in the Employee development plan

Continuing, let’s say you designed a development plan in which the intern becomes an assistant, then an analyst, coordinator and manager,  is it really possible to predict all the variables along this path? 

A simple case: a small wine company now sees a great opportunity in the domestic cachaça segment, and the manager needs to understand the product in order to choose good suppliers.

Can you see how training is helpful in filling the gaps?

Improve employee motivation and well-being

Sometimes, it is necessary to act punctually on issues related to motivation and well-being at work .

Here, there is also no way to predict all the variables – from economic crises to epidemics, there are a number of difficult things to anticipate that can shake the morale and health of professionals, requiring training.

2-Benefits of Employee development

Align training to organizational goals

Development offers a long-term vision and, therefore, provides the criteria for Employee Management to choose training in line with the business strategy.

For example, if an organization intends to open ten stores in the next 5 years, there will be a manager development plan and, within it, several trainings.

Promote professional maturity

Through development, Employee management supports employee growth and seeks to fulfill their potential.

Consequently, the  value of the company’s human capital grows.

attract talent

It will also be possible to see an improvement in the company’s value offering to employees and candidates.

Alongside salaries and benefits, the professional will see opportunities for career growth and evolution.

It is a decisive practice for  employer branding . The company’s consolidation as an employer brand involves investing in the potential of its employees.

Having modern Employee development policies is one of the things that make companies recognized as a good place to work,

form leaders

Finally, development offers conditions to train Employee for key positions.

The leaders will be the silver linings of the house, already fully inserted in the organizational culture and with a great sense of fidelity.

How to set up a training and development program?

To apply Employee training and development programs in your company,  you need to go through four steps : diagnosis,  planning , execution and evaluation. Want to learn how it’s done in practice? Keep reading!

1-Diagnosis

It consists of understanding the needs of the company. The punctual and short-term ones for training, and the general and long-term ones for development.

There are different techniques to reach the diagnosis, check below.

competency mapping

Look for gaps between needed and perceived skills. In Employee development, the criteria can come from what it takes to manage change, career and continuing education.

In training, it is also possible to think about specific problems, such as integration of employees, training for a position, etc.

Organizational weather research

When looking for  changes in the work environment , the gaps are related to the organizational climate, mainly to behaviors and attitudes that are harmful to coexistence.

balanced scorecard

A third diagnosis can come from understanding the business strategy, that is, what we need to train or develop to achieve organizational goals.

The balanced scorecard is a good tool for identifying needs.

Performance evaluation

In any of the cases, it is necessary to carry out different  performance evaluations  to know the perceived competences in the employees and, only then, to measure the gap to the ideal ones.

2-Planning

The task here has different dimensions depending on whether you think of training or developing.

If it is a career plan, for example, it will be necessary to describe the needs in each of the positions and functions, and choose specific training for each moment.

Here is a checklist with the main T&D planning tasks:

• list the needs found;
• set the program’s objectives, that is, which gaps are sought to be resolved;
• choose the type of training and methodology;
• define recipients;
• create an action plan:
• what will be trained?
• because?
• Where?
• When?
• who is responsible?
• how will it be done?
• how much?

3-Execution

Within the action plan, you need to define the execution points. The execution step by step is as follows:

• communicate the personnel training and development plan to employees;
• apply the types and methods of T&D;
• collect data to evaluate performance, such as grades, satisfaction surveys and monitoring of changes in the company’s results;
• consolidate the results into one document.

4-Evaluation

It consists of verifying two things: the  quality of the program and the impact generated on employees .

The first is done by crossing data related to the types and methods used:

• costs;
• Satisfaction of participants with courses, instructors, materials, etc.;
• Performance notes on programs.

The impact is the concrete change generated by the program. This is done with the comparison on a graph.

In the first line, what would happen without the intervention is projected, and in the second, what happened. The difference between the two things is impact .

The impact can be positive, negative or neutral depending on the ability to improve the points indicated as needs and fulfillment of the T&D objectives.

Of course, the assessment depends on making new diagnoses over time.