WHY TRAINING DOES NOT LEAVE DESIRED IMPACT?

Anil Kaushik

About the author:

ANIL KAUSHIK, is a Management thinker, Educator, Motivator,
Consultant, Chief Editor of Management Magazine ‘Business Manager’,
author of labour law books & President of Indian HR Forum. He has 30
years of deep rooted understanding of industrial relations, shop floor
experience and research in HRM Area and Training. Mr. Kaushik has
many papers on HR & LABOUR LAWS to his credit published in national
newspapers & magazines. He can be reached .......... bmalwar@yahoo.com,
akaushikus@yahoo.com or bmalwar@gmail.com. Mob: 09829133699

During my professional career as management expert and trainer,

have encountered many managements who feel that training is nothing
but waste of time and money and should be done as a pleasure event.
Some feel that training comes to second to getting the work out and
employees are engaged for producing results only. While some are
supporting to training activities and seriously plan out, others have an
attitude of “kuch training - waining karna hai. Ek din ka kuch kar do
record bhi ban jayega or ek din ke liye in logon ka bhi entertainment ho
jayega. Bahar khana-vana kha lenge.”
The hard reality of training is by and large neither management
does not take it seriously nor trainers. Many trainers do not have the
shop floor exposure and contact with the people essential to being
effective in training. Why this situation has developed? I feel when
organization does not take this activity as serious attempt to develop
the required skills in employees and merely take on as ritual, trainer will
also respond in the same way. Managers and trainers have joint
responsibility in providing training and development to employees -
training that will actually change people’s behaviour in a way decisive
growth both employee and organization.
There can be many reasons while training is not taken seriously
and even if conducted does not leave desired impact. Few of them can
be :
1. The benefits of training and development are not clearly spell
out to top management neither by HR department nor by
trainers. This is because of the lack of method for demonstrating
potential benefits of training to top management. Without the
means to determine benefits of training, top management may
not allocate funds to training because they will prefer the areas
where returns are more apparent.
2. Management seldom evaluates HR managers for carrying out
effective training to employees. Since management feel training
impact is not measurable, much importance is not given while
evaluating HR manager’s performance and consequently HR
 managers also do not take it seriously and is taken as a expense
and not investment.
3. Few organizations systematically plan and budget for training.
The organizations who lack knowledge about the effects /
benefits of training, don’t plan training as continuous activity.
4. Production and floor managers do not spare employees and
allow time for training. Whenever HR managers plan for
technical people training, production heads keep it at lowest
priority and do not support HR function in training and
development of employees. Normal perception of production
heads is to produce only and nothing else. Even if resources
are assigned to training, employees from different technical
department are not sent on priority. Because according to
production people that without appropriate planning production
requirements preclude sending their employees to gain from
training.
5. Training is done unsystematically without proper planning. In
many organizations neither training needs are identified or
planned properly nor is training purpose mostly for short term
objectives.
6. There is waste difference in the perception trainer and
managers. People attending a training programme may expect
certain behavioural out comes from the programme, the trainer
may expect a different set of out comes and manager of the
organization may expect another set. This difference is
perception makes training activity use less. When such training
programme are conducted without aligning perception of all
the three, training can not leave desired impact.
7. Trainings are conducted by trainers without understanding the
culture of the organization, the practices that are followed by
people, hence there is total disconnect between participant
employees and trainer leaving the exercise useless and
participant after returning to the job may not find any thing
beneficial taken from training which could be applied at
workplace.
8. In many cases trainers chosen for a particular course lack
sufficient experience and education to deliver that particular
course. Without the appropriate skills, the trainer does not and
can not provide sufficient assistance to participants. And my
view trainer should also be able to provide on the spot consulting
services to participants if some questions are asked or practical
issues are raised.
The question remains how to change the attitude of the management
towards training and actions of HR managers in this direction to ensure
that training leaves desired impact and HR managers are able to show
the benefits of training to the top management. It is for the HR
professionals to measure the organization climate, productivity, and
level of employee’s behaviour. Tools for measuring these are available.
HR managers should also the able to measure the influence of training
on productivity and over all quality improvement in people behaviour.
It is only by this difference; top management can understand the benefits
of training and development and help HR managers in changing the
attitude of top management in this respect. If the contribution of training
to productivity exceeds the cost of training, management will not find it
difficult to invest in training.
Trainers of course need to be aware of or be able to find out about,
training and development resources appropriate to needs of employees.
Often description of training programme contain vague course objective
leaving participant employees in state of confusion they are not confident
about deliverables of the programme. It is for the trainers to ensure
that what participants expects, should be delivered through training
specifically designed in a highly customized way. Unless trainer also
behaves as a consultant to the organization while conducting training,
with the objective to solve certain issues of participants, he will be
thought of as a unit isolated from the main stream of organizational
activities.