01: The Training and Development Process

Investing in Learning

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It seems that the Canadian landscape for workplace investment in training and development continues to be a ‘good news/bad news’ type of scenario.

According to information provided by the Conference Board of Canada (and as noted in our textbook), Canadian workplaces continue to lag behind our American counterparts in how much is invested for workplace training. That is the bad news. The good news, according to this report, is that Canadian companies are steadily increasing the amount of funds provided per employee to invest in individual workplace training and development plans.

Click here to read the report from the Conference Board of Canada.

As identified by the Conference Board of Canada, investment in learning promotes and creates positive workplace culture but the changing external environment impacts the level of investment from a budgetary perspective.  While challenging, Canadian workplaces cannot back away from the improvements in funding for workplace learning and skills development.

The need for investing in ongoing training for Canadian workers is highlighted in a recent online article provided by Canadian HR Reporter. The article notes that the need for ongoing training is critical for ensuring the continued health of the Canadian economy. More importantly the type of training needed to invest in the future is on the continual shaping of skills and competencies for Canadian workers.

Click here to read the article by Canadian HR Reporter.

As noted in the article, gone are the days where Canadian workers can expect ‘jobs for life’. Continual learning through formal and informal training strategies, are critical in order for both Canadian workers and workplaces to remain competitive. The article speaks to Canadian skills development as a changed approach for employee ‘re-skilling’ in certain sectors facing workplace challenges.

What has not changed is that the primary skills of individual adaptability and commitment to learning are ongoing requirements for Canadian workers in order to meet the future and its continuing demands. That is should be good news for us all.

Discussion Questions:

  1. As the manager for training and development, what types of re-skilling programs would you implement in order to retrain and retain a potentially aging workforce?
  2. According to the article, the concept of ‘jobs for life’ is disappearing:
    • How long do you see yourself working for a particular employer?
    • What will determine the length of your tenure with that employer?
  3. If the employer investment in your workplace training needs is $889, what types of training will you want to receive?
  4. How much individual training do you think $889 will buy?

Should Robots Be Training Your Employees?

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Here is an interesting twist in the world of training and developing employees: Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be better at reading emotional intelligence than HR professionals.

Click here to read the article.

An exceptional human skill is reading people’s emotions, but robots may be better at it than trained HR professionals. A robot with the proper algorithm may be better served training employees, supervisors, and managers on the soft skills of emotional intelligence than an HR professional.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. By using AI and machine-learning algorithms a greater amount of HR data can be analyzed and evaluated at a level of efficiency and accuracy that no human can achieve. Could you image a HR professional evaluating an employee’s emotion with 87 per cent accuracy? Well, AI can reach that level of emotional accuracy. Researchers at MIT have created a wireless system called EQ-Radio, which uses wireless signals to scan an individual and identify if an individual is excited, happy, angry, or sad.

Click here to watch how MIT has developed an emotion detection machine.

Imagine what impact this type of technology may have on training and developing employees? Instead of using the end-of-training session reaction evaluations (commonly known as happy sheets), you can measure if your training had an emotional affect. In addition, there are many other HR applications of using emotions to understand employees at work.

AI and machine learning algorithms may just start to become mainstream in some workplaces. HR must be aware of the impacts of AI on the employees that work in organizations, how to use these new technologies, and how to manage the changes that these technologies will have.

Discussion Questions

Think about AI, machine learning, and EQ-Radio. How could these technologies disrupt training and development in the workplace?

Identify some of the potential ethical concerns that HR departments will need to address when companies start using emotional detection scanners in the workplace? What could HR do to reduce ethical and personal privacy concerns?

Motivation with Meaning

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Motivational word graphic
Source: Kheng Guan Toh/Shutterstock

Motivation is one of the fundamental principles linked to effective employee training and development. It is pretty simple – If employees are motivated to learn, they will learn, if employees are not motivated to learn, they will not learn. The more employees are able to learn, the more connected they will feel to the organization. When employees are not connected to the organization, organizational growth and positive employee engagement just does not happen.

As highlighted in our Training and Development studies, motivation comes in two forms:  extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic rewards are fairly standard in that they rely mostly on compensation based systems. It is a bit more difficult to build intrinsic reward systems as these rely on individual value based connections that may vary from employee to employee. From a value based perspective, however, the more difficult things are, the more important they become. This also applies to the development of intrinsic reward systems.

According to the Ivey Business Journal, intrinsic rewards are more important that ever, given a historical pattern that shows significant decreases in rigidly structured and directive driven organizations.

Click Here to Read the Article

As noted in this article, implementation of effective intrinsic rewards systems begin with management training on what intrinsic rewards ‘feel’ like. By developing a concrete understanding for the ‘feel’ of intrinsic rewards, the hope is that those managers will re-create a similarly positive feeling state for employees that report to them.

It is important to note that this article does not advise or advocate for the abandonment of all extrinsic rewards systems.  From a Human Resources perspective, we can learn from this advice by developing a solid blend of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards systems that act as motivators for excellence both for ourselves and for the organizations that we serve.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Thinking about your own work experience, how do extrinsic rewards influence your work performance?
  2. What are intrinsic motivators that drive you to be successful in your career?
  3. From a Human Resources perspective, how can an organization be explicit about rewarding performance from a value based, internal motivation system using the four steps identified in the article?
  4. Why is it so important to have management training based on intrinsic reward systems?
  5. Is striving for excellence an internal or external motivator for you?
  6. Why does excellence in employee performance matter?

Does Canada Lack Innovation and Productivity?

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Is Canada falling behind because of lack of training investment?

HR Directors should raise the alarm! Canada is falling behind in productivity and innovation and it is due to lack of training and development for employees.

Click here to read the article

Statistics Canada has identified Canada as ranking in 20th place in the world for investment in employee training.  That is shockingly low for such a great country.

HRM ONLINE reports:

  • Just 30% of Canadian employees, aged 25 – 64, felt that they were receiving enough training to be able to do their job to the best of their abilities.
  • The Canadian figure sits far lower than that of the US, where 45% of employees reported receiving adequate training.
  • US businesses spend an average of 50% more on training their employees than Canadian companies do.

Think about it; we all know, in order to improve your organization you must develop your employees. The United States is training their employees and Canada is not! No wonder Canada is not improving our productivity, we are not investing in development or innovation.

Maybe the province of Quebec has got it right with all organizations with over $1 million in payroll have to invest 1% into employee training. It is too bad that other organizations don’t see the writing on the wall – If you don’t invest you don’t succeed!

HR Professionals must take a lead, raise the alarm, and get corporate training and development on the radar of corporate executives. Canada should be embarrassed that we are not in the top ten ranks for development. Corporations should make a conscious effort to invest more in corporate training and improve our productivity.

Discussion Questions

  1.  As a HR Professional, what arguments would you make to get increases to employee training?
  2. How serious do feel the lack of employee training investment is to Canada’s growth and productivity?