HR

• Training


  An organization's planned efforts to help employees acquire job-related knowledge, skills, and behaviours with the goal of applying these on the job
• Development


  The combination of formal education, job experiences, relationships and assessment of personality and abilities to help employees prepare for the future of their careers
• Different steps of training

  1. Assess needs for training

  2. Ensure readiness for training

  3. Plan training program - objectives, trainers, methods

  4. Implement training program

  5. Evaluate training program - 5 steps
• Formal Training


  • Talent development programs, courses, and events that are developed and organized by an organization
  • Typically employees are required to attend or complete these programs, which can include face-to-face training programs as well as online programs
• Informal Learning


  Learning that is learner-initiated, involves action and doing, its motivated by intent to develop and does not occur in a formal learning setting - controlled by the employee
• 3 strategic goals for learning and development

  • Improving organizational performance
  • Enhancing individual employee performance
  • Developing organizational leaders
• Needs Assessment


  The process of evaluating the organization, individual employees and employees' tasks to determine what kinds of training and learning, if any, are necessary
• 3 pillars of needs assessment

  • Tasks - process of identifying the tasks and competencies that training should emphasize
  • Employees - do performance deficiencies result from a competency gap - lack of KSAs, or something else? Can training resolve the gap? Who needs training?
  • Organizations - Organizations should examine strategic priorities and culture, norms, resources limitations for training
• Readiness for learning


  A combination of employee characteristics and positive work environment that permit learning
• Indicators of employee readiness for training

  • Learning skills - cognitive ability, includes being able to use written and spoken language, solve math problems, and use reasoning to solve problems
  • Motivation
  • Permanent or temporary employee
  • Basic cognitive ability - reading, communications, etc
  • Supportive environment
  • Lack of situational constraints (lack of money, time, tools)
• Planning training


  1. Establish objectives - what the employee is expected to do, the quality or level of performance that is acceptable, and the conditions under which the employee is to apply what they learned

  2. Identify the resources needed to carry out the desired performance or outcome
• Training methods


  • Presentation method - lectures, workbooks, video clips, podcasts, websites
  • Hands-on method - On-the-job training, simulations, role-plays, computer games
  • Group or Team-building methods - Group discussions, experiential/action learning
• Measuring Effectiveness of Training

  1. Reaction (individual) - Measure your participants' initial reaction

  2. Learning (individual) - Measure how much information was effectively absorbed

  3. Behaviour (individual) - Measure how much the training has influenced the behaviour of the participants

  4. Results (organizational) - Measure and analyze the impact of the training at the business level

  5. Return on investment - Did the training have a positive ROI?
• Orientation


  Training designed to prepare employees to perform their jobs effectively, learn about the organization, and establish work relationships
• Onboarding


  A process that focuses on transferring organizational, team and role specific knowledge to new employees
• 4 areas a comprehensive onboarding process prepares employees in

  • Complying with policies and rules
  • Clarifying job requirements
  • Understanding the organization's culture
  • Connecting with co-workers
• Honeymoon phase


  New employee may experience higher job demand, new hires may realize their job preview was not accurate, incumbent may experience lower levels of job embeddedness
• Socialization usually takes about 3 months - depends on the complexity of the job
• 4 approaches to Development

  • Formal Education - at workplace or off-site, workshops and short courses, university/college programs, conferences, certifications
  • Assessment - collecting information and providing feedback to employees about their behaviour, communication style, or skills
  • Job experiences - job enlargement, rotation, transfers, promotions, downward moves, externships, sabbaticals
  • Interpersonal relationships - mentor, coach
• Coach


  A peer or manager who works with an employee to provide a source of motivation, develop skills, and provide reinforcement and feedback - short term, focus on certain skills
• Mentor


  An experienced productive senior employee who helps develop a less experienced employee (a protege or mentee)
• Two Dimensions of Mentoring

  • Career - protection, assignment of challenging tasks, exposure and visibility
  • Socioemotional - acceptance and confirmation, role modeling
• Mentorship Outcomes


  • Mentees receive career support
  • Acting as a mentor allows managers to develop their interpersonal skills
  • Stronger networks
  • Career success
  • Monetary compensation
  • Prevent mistakes
  • Career satisfaction
  • Expectation for advancement
  • Mentor career success
• Performance Management


  The ongoing process through which managers ensure that employees' activities and outputs contribute to the organization's goals
• Steps in Performance Management Process

  • Define performance outcomes for company, division and department
  • Develop employee goals, behaviour and actions to achieve outcomes
  • Provide support and ongoing performance discussions
  • Evaluate performance
  • Identify improvements needed
  • Provide consequences for performance results
• Behaviour Performance


  Focus on behaviour
• Outcome Performance


  Focus on outcome
• Purposes of Performance Management

  • Tell top performers they are valued, encourage communication between managers and employees, establish uniform standards for evaluating employees, and help the organization identify its highest performers
  • Helps employees know what is expected of them and what they can do to succeed
  • Helps organization achieve strategic objectives
  • Links employees' behaviour with organizational goals
  • Provides information for day-to-day decisions eg. salary and recognition
  • Supports hiring decisions
  • Basis for developing employees
  • Builds awareness of strengths and areas for improvement
• Performance Management Process


  1. Defining performance expectations

  2. Providing ongoing coaching, feedback and support

  3. Evaluate performance

  4. Identifying improvement areas
• Steps 1 and 2

  • Identifying what the company is trying to accomplish (goals/objectives)
  • Develop employee goals and actions to achieve these outcomes
  • Outcomes benefit the customers, employees' colleagues or team members and the organization itself
  • Goals, behaviours and activities should be measurable and become part of the employee's job description
  • Based on job analysis and job description
  • Must be specific
  • Should be fair criteria/controllable by employee
  • Quantifiable and measurable standards
  • Communicate performance expectations
• Step 3 Effective Performance Feedback

  1. Organizational support - providing employees with training, necessary resources and tools, and ongoing feedback between the employee and manager that focuses on accomplishments as well as issues and challenges that influence performance

  2. The employee and manager have to value feedback and exchange it on a regular basis

  3. The manager needs to make time to provide ongoing feedback to the employee and learn how to give and receive it

  4. Feedback should be frequent - not once a year

  5. Create the right context for the discussion

  6. Ask the employee to rate their performance in advance

  7. Have ongoing collaborative conversations

  8. Provide balanced and accurate feedback that emphasizes behaviour and goal setting
• Step 4: evaluate performance


  1. The manager and employee discuss and compare targeted goals and supporting behaviour with actual results

  2. Formal performance evaluation or appraisal
• 3 layers of evaluation

  • Attributes: Personality
  • Behaviour - what the person really did, i.e. handled a customer successful
  • Results - outcomes of job - i.e. how many customers the employee handled successfully
• Step 5


  1. The employee and manager identify what the employee can do to capitalize on performance strengths and address gaps

  2. Identifying training needs; adjusting the type or frequency of feedback the manager provides; clarifying, adjusting, or modifying performance outcomes; discussing behaviours or activities that need improvement
• Step 6


  1. Provides consequences for achieving (or failing to achieve) performance outcomes

  2. Pay increases, bonuses or action plans
• Measurement Errors


  • Deficiency Error: error that occurs when you fail to measure important aspects of the performance you would like to measure
  • Contamination Error: error that occurs when other factors unrelated to whatever is being assessed affect the observed scores

  
• Construct - Performance, abstract


  Measurement may be deficient or contaminated
• Errors in performance management

  • People observe behaviour - no practical way of knowing all the circumstances, intentions, and outcomes related to that behaviour-interpret what they see
  • Observers make judgement calls and may distort information on purpose or unintentionally
  • Humans have limitations in their information processing ability (use simplifying mechanisms [heuristics] to make decisions about people)
  • Unconscious Bias: Judgement outside our consciousness that affects decisions based on background, culture, and personal experience
• Types of Errors


  • Similar to me error: People often give a higher evaluation to people they consider similar to themselves
  • Contrast error: underrating people who seem different to themselves
  • Distributional error (strictness, leniency, and central tendency): raters only use one part of the scale
  • Halo error: when the rater reacts to one positive performance aspect by rating the employee positively in all areas of performance
  • Horns error: when bias is in a negative direction
  • Recency: emphasis when an annual rating is based only on most recent work performed
• How is Performance Measured?

  1. Making comparisons

  2. Rating Individuals