Training and development is the sphere that is focused on organizational activity, particularly on the improvement of the performance of groups and individuals in an organization. It is also sometimes referred to as human resources development (HRD) (Sung & Choi, 2014). Basically, training programs developed by HR departments concern themselves with improving employees’ current performance and ensuring that they are ready for their future responsibilities.
Currently, more and more companies implement various training strategies for their employees, and they do it for particular reasons. Certainly, there are many advantages of using this strategy, which allow organizations to improve their performance, thereby increasing the competitive ability. First of all, training programs can help create good teams within an organization, as there would be no weak members and everybody would know what they should do and collaborate with each other. One more advantage of good training is that employees often want to acquire more knowledge and skills so that their work would be easier for them and bring them more money, but they cannot receive this knowledge on some additional courses due to their high costs and the lack of time (Sung & Choi, 2014). Thus, having such courses in the workplace is a great opportunity for employees to improve their skills.
Sometimes, training programs can be a disadvantage to a company. First of all, there is always a fear that employees can take their newly acquired skills to a competitor. Another disadvantage of training programs is certainly the additional costs for the organization of these programs (Sung & Choi, 2014). However, if these programs turn out to be efficient, the expenses will be compensated.
References
Sung, S. Y., & Choi, J. N. (2014). Do organizations spend wisely on employees? Effects of training and development investments on learning and innovation in organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(3), 393-412.