Research Proposal on Training and Development of Employees

Research Questions

i. How does training and development of employees benefit them with respect to their roles in the organization?

ii. How are organizations affected by training and development of staff?

Literature Review

Training of employees can be defined as the process of equipping an employee with additional skills to enable them to improve their performance at work. Based on this definition, training focuses on ensuring that employees improve their performance. Training is important since it ensures that employees have skills that complement the constantly changing technology. Skills may also be modified during training (Milhelm, Abushamsieh and Arostegui, 2014). Development, on the other hand, deals with the complete growth of the employee, by providing new knowledge that opens them up to new opportunities for growth in an organization. The research will aim at proving that training and development have positive impacts on an organization. Milhelm et al. (2014) suggest that an organization should be able to provide necessary resources and ensure that different needs of employees are met by the training and development program employed. This way, the desired outcome is guaranteed as employees respond positively to the training.

In looking at the impact of training and development on employee performance, these shall be discussed while focusing on the following key areas: competency, efficiency, productivity, and employee engagement.

Competency

According to Degraft-Otoo (2012), training and development positively enhance the competency of employees. There are three types of competencies which are technical competencies, managerial competencies and personal competencies. Technical skills are concerned with having skills and knowledge that are applicable to a particular profession. Managerial competencies refer to having the knowledge required for management while personality competencies refer to knowledge and skill required by an individual in order for them to succeed in a particular profession. Asare-Bedaiko (2008) states that through training and development, employees are able to gain useful skills that can be utilized within an organization. The knowledge acquired by the employees during training thus enables them to become creative and innovative, especially since the business environment is constantly changing. Employee competency is important since it ensures that they are able to perform exceptionally well in their areas of expertise within an organization. Training also enables employees to enhance their technical skills, thereby being able to deal with the different technological changes in an organization (Asare-Bedaiko, 2008). This shows that there is a positive correlation between employee training and development and efficiency of employees in an organization.

Efficiency

The constantly changing business environment is useful in ensuring that employees gain increased efficiency through training and development (Kennedy, 2009). Skills acquired enhance how employees do their work and this increases their performance within the organization. Training and development enable employees to increase their skillsets helping them to develop an advanced workforce that is more efficient. The employees can develop different methods of doing certain tasks in the organization making it more productive. This goes to show that through training and development, employees are able to enhance their efficiency and this positively enhances their productivity.

Productivity

Productivity is defined as the economic measure of output per unit input (Nda and Fard, 2013, p. 91). The training and development process aims at ensuring that employees get new knowledge and skills that are essential in enhancing their productivity (Bataineh, 2014). Training also ensures that employees improve their old skills and are able to perform better in an organization. Gaining of new knowledge also ensures that employees are able to perform a variety of tasks, and this ensures that their contribution to the organization is enhanced (Khan, Abbasi, Waseem, Ayaz and Ijaz, 2016). According to Elnaga and Imran (2013), training enables employees to get closer to the performance level desired by the organization, through increased productivity in different areas. This occurs mainly as a result of having a combination of skills that ensure that certain workloads in an organization are met, through the application of minimized skills (Khan et al., 2016). Increased productivity also ensures that employees require less supervision to complete given tasks.

By enhancing competency skills, training and development allow employees to increase their productivity since they are able to engage in different tasks in an organization such as decision-making, problem-solving and other interpersonal relations that are vital to the running of an organization (Nda and Fard, 2013). Development programs enhance the morale of employees, and this increases their resourcefulness to a company. This ensures that their productivity in the organization is increased.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is directly related to their commitment to an organization (Githinji, 2014). Commitment demonstrates the level of involvement of an employee to a particular job and to the organization. Engagement also positively relates to competency, which is positively enhanced by training and development. When employees have the required skills, their level of engagement to the job increases, and so does their engagement with the organization. This ensures that they have increased productivity and this increases their performance. This also has other positive results for the organization such as increased levels of employee retention, reduced employee turnover rates and increased employee loyalty (Githinji, 2014). Being engaged in the job as a result of having the required competency skills also ensures that employees engage in positive competition with each other, thus promoting creativity and innovation. This also promotes cooperation among them through sharing of ideas. High involvement also results in higher performance, which tends to be consistent. Furthermore, training allows employees to be able to utilize their own talents and abilities, and this ensures that they are able to contribute positively to the running of the organization (Githinji, 2014). Additionally, training allows employees to have a better understanding of their duties to an organization and the benefits that arise from employee engagement. Constant communication with employees on how to utilize their skills in their positions within an organization also enhances employee engagement. Generally, employee training enhances their engagement to their work within an organization, resulting in improved performance.

Based on the literature review, it is evident that employee training and development increases the employee performance within an organization by enhancing their competency skills, efficiency, productivity and engagement in the organization. These are all positive impacts that ensure that an organization attains customer satisfaction, provides quality goods and services and is also able to retain most of its employees and enhance employee loyalty, among other benefits.

The research will be useful in building on previous researches done in this area and provide a critical review on the criticality of availing training and development to employees in every organization.

Methodology, Methods and Sample

Methodology

The empirical research will take an interpretivist philosophical approach to gather the data for the research. This is simply because the research aims at identifying specific benefits accrued to an organization that offers training and development programs to its employees (Research Methodology, N.d.). The researcher will also be required to interact with the participants being used in the study through carrying out face to face interviews. The research will also be deductive since it is simply testing the impact of employee training and development to an organization, especially since previous researchers indicate that there is a positive correlation between employee training and development and their performance.

Methods

The type of data that will be needed for the research is qualitative data. The research will thus require both primary and secondary data. Primary data will be collected using qualitative methods of data collection such as the use of questionnaires and face-to-face interviews (see appendix 1 and 2). These methods will be used by the researcher to identify the different methods that organizations employ to deploy training and development of employees (Engetou, 2017). Speaking face to face with employees is necessary for the researcher to be able to gauge the accuracy of the information obtained, and to ensure that those interviewed give clarifications on certain factors, such as which methods they would prefer for their training and development. The researcher will seek the consent of the participants to record the conversations during the interviews for easy note-taking during data compilation (see appendix 1).

The secondary data will be obtained from sources such as newspapers, scholarly journals, textbooks and the internet. These sources will be useful in filling gaps that the researcher may fail to obtain such as clarification on how organizations benefit or are affected by training and development. Both types of data will be used to write the report of the research based on the findings obtained.

Problems that may arise during the research include the unavailability of the participants since they are working employees. The time schedules of these employees may also not allow them to set aside time for the interviews. This will make it difficult for the researcher to cover all aspects of interest to the chosen topic. Another challenge will be financing the research. The researcher will be required to travel to different areas to carry out the research and this may be financially draining especially since time is a constraint (Degraft-Otoo, 2012).

Sample

Since the research will involve interviewing people, the researcher will mainly use employees from different companies and a few supervisors. The researcher intends to use five employees from ten different organizations and at least two supervisors from each of the organizations. The sample will be obtained. The researcher will use a non-probability sampling technique to obtain the participants to be used for the study. This is simply because none of the participants is currently known and will thus be identified arbitrarily through an online survey. This means that every participant that takes part in the online survey will have the chance of taking part in the study and the researcher will thus randomly select the participants that provide satisfying responses needed in the online survey. Non-Probability sampling has also been chosen since the research is exploratory and seeks to provide information on the specific benefits of employee training and development to an organization.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical issues that the researcher may face when conducting the research include the need to have an informed consent and the promise to ensure that the respondents remain anonymous. These issues arise since certain participants tend to feel coerced or incentivized to participate in studies, and this goes against the ethical codes of resea...