Employee Training and Development During a Crisis

Our attitude is the primary force that will determine whether we succeed or fail- John C Maxwell

Business setups today are changing and evolving due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has preempted the need for leaders to be innovative, creative and effective in strengthening employee engagement mechanisms during difficult times. Organisations which have employees who are committed to the company’s goals and values will lead to productivity in the place of work. This will generate higher customer satisfaction and increase in sales and profit of the company.

It has been noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused organisations to set new visions and missions. This allows institutions to align its strategic and annual plans to survive in the current market.

Hence, those in leadership roles have a more critical role during these times as they must be responsible for ensuring a trained workforce for current and future needs.

Human capital is valuable and when properly utilised, stimulates the growth of the company’s market value. In the long run, this also proves to be much more important than the possession and use of material resources and financial capital.

Technological developments and organisational change have gradually led employers to the realisation that success relies on the skills and abilities of their employees.

Thus, training and development play a significant role in enhancing preparedness by ensuring that employees have the proper knowledge and skills to guide them during a crisis. Employee trainings increases confidence and motivation and maintains high morale.

Trainings also eliminate risks because trained personnel can make better and more economic use of material and equipment, thereby reducing and avoiding waste, and brings a sense of security to the workplace, which reduces labour turnover and absenteeism.

It helps to manage change by increasing the understanding and involvement of employees in the change process and provides the skills and abilities needed to adjust to new situations. Training also includes recognition and enhancing responsibilities and the possibilities in improving the availability and quality of staff.

Training and development needs occur at three organisational levels, namely;

■ The strategic level where needs are determined by top management while considering the organisations goals, mission, strate,gy and problems, which need to be resolved or fixed.

■ The tactical level, where needs are determined with middle management while considering developments needs to the coordination and cooperation between organisation units and

■ The operational level, where needs are determined with lower executive management and other employees while considering problems related to operations such as performance problems of individual workers and departments in the subject.

To enable an organisation to formulate human resource training and development goals that will allow both formal and informal human resource training, it is important to provide proper coordination and incorporation of the needs within the three levels.

The first issue is identifying the needs relevant to the organisation’s objectives, training, and development needs. These include resolving problems, which focuses on workers’ performance, improving certain working practices, focusing on improvement regardless of the performance problems and changing or renewing the organisation’s situation, which may arise due to innovations or changes in strategy.

It is worth considering that during the identification of training needs, there is a need to create, develop, maintain, and improve any systems relevant to contributing to the availability of people with the required skills. Moreover, training programmes are to cater for different needs. Further to this, the training programme, content and the trainees’ chosen depend on the objectives of the training programme. These are the problemcentred (performance gap), and profile comparison (changes and skills) approaches.

The two most traditional approaches are the problem-centred and profile comparison approaches. The problem-centred practice focuses on any performance difficulties. The corporation analyses problems due to insufficient skills, hence the need to develop to solve the problem.

On the other hand, the profile comparison approach focuses on matching the competencies with the job filled, whether in a new or an existing position. Some changes in strategy and technology may also require other or additional skills.

Employee performance is seen in terms of outcomes. However, it can also be seen in terms of behaviour. Employee performance is measured against the performance standards set by the organisation. A number of measures can be taken into consideration during a crisis when measuring performance, such as productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, quality, and profitability. Profitability is the ability to earn profits consistently over some time. It is expressed as the ratio of gross profit to sales or return on capital employed. Efficiency is the ability to produce the desired outcomes by using as minimal resources as possible, while effectiveness is the ability of employees to meet the desired objectives or target. Productivity is expressed as a ratio of output to that of input. It measures how the individual, organisation and industry convert input resources into goods and services. The measure of how much work is produced per unit of resources employed. Quality is the characteristic of products or services that bear an ability to satisfy the stated or implied. It is increasingly achieving better products and services at progressively more competitive prices.

It is the responsibility of company leaders to ensure that the organisations achieves high-performance levels. This management process will encourage employees to get involved in planning for the company and therefore participate by having a role in the entire process, thus creating motivation for highperformance levels.

It is important to note that performance management includes activities that ensure that organisational goals are consistently met effectively and efficiently. Performance management can focus on the performance of the employees, a department, or processes to build a product or service. Satisfied workers and management find it easy to motivate high performers to attain firm targets.

In the real world, organisational growth and development are affected by many factors. Employee training plays a vital role in improving performance and increasing productivity during a crisis. This, in turn, leads to placing organizations in better positions to face challenges and stay at the expected level. Therefore, this implies a significant difference between the organizations that train their employees and organizations that do not. Employee performance is a function of organisational performance since employee performance influences general organisational performance. Employee competencies change through effective training programmes. Therefore, it improves the overall performance of the employees to perform their current jobs effectively and enhances the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the workers necessary for their future careers, thus contributing to superior organizational performance.

Training has been proved to generate performance improvement related benefits for the employee and the organisation by positively influencing employee performance and developing employee knowledge, skills, ability, competencies and behaviour. Currently, bridging the performance gap due to crisis refers to implementing relevant training intervention programmes to develop particular skills and abilities of the employees and enhance employee performance. Organisations need to have continuous policies of training and retaining employees and not wait for occurrences of skill and performance gaps.

Planned training consists of the following steps: Identify and define training needs, Define the learning required in terms of what skills and knowledge must be learned and what attitudes need to be changed. Define the training objectives, Plan training programmes to meet the needs and objectives by using the right combination of training techniques and locations and deciding on who provides the training evaluation.

The Fiji National University’s (FNU) Department of Executive Management of the National Training and Productivity Centre (NTPC) offers a Training of Trainers programme.

It develops individuals’ knowledge and skills in respective roles in formulating planned training programmes to assist in the business continuity plan to achieve the organisation’s strategic goals. Training and HR personnel, supervisors, and Managers are encouraged to undertake this cause to overcome fear, and risk and have a survival mindset. Upon completion of all the TOTs modules, individuals can register as training instructors OR Officers in Fiji under the Levy and Grant Scheme.

“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try” – John F Kennedy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the author and do not In Any wAy rEflECt or rEprEsEnt the position of the Fiji National University com.fj