The Hindu Business Line : Corporates, beware the training robbery

THE word management is generally understood in two different connotations. It is used to denote a group of people in the higher level in the hierarchy who get things done in an organisation. It is also used to describe the process of managing — the action of achieving a specific goal by coordinating the activities of several people in an organisation.

One of the major responsibilities of management is to make employees well-trained and multi-skilled in various jobs and assignments in which they may be engaged from time to time. Training is an improvement in the skill and competence of employees. It is addressed to bridge the gap between the inherent talents and capability of an employee vis-à-vis the skill requirements of the job in which he may be placed.

Two types of robbery are commonplace in our country: One is train robbery; and the other, relatively less publicised malfeasance, is the training robbery. People who have travelled in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh will vouch for the former threat, especially during night journeys.

Even in Chennai, passengers are exposed to train dacoits, who are described by the media as biscuit bandits, because they lure innocent fellow passengers into eating intoxicant biscuits, as a result of which the victims become unconscious, and the miscreants vanish with their valuables.

Coming to training robbery, a chief concern for companies now is the poor quality and standard of training offered by external agencies. While management consultants are available dime a dozen, it is difficult to distinguish the phoney from the bona fide. Unfortunately, in this game, there is no money-back guarantee for the buyer, whereas there is always a bit of marketing oversell by the vendor.

Anyone who has retired (sometimes voluntarily and prematurely, or more often, superannuated), and has a self-styled business card proclaiming his image, and has the gift of the gab, and is fairly familiar with the stock-in-trade of the industry seeking him, will invariably fill the bill. The Devil's Dictionary published by Penguin in 1983 defined the consultant, in a lighter vein, as "A tipster disguised as an oracle, especially one who has learned to decamp at high speed in spite of the large briefcase and heavy wallet."

It is not easy to secure the services of someone precisely apposite and appropriate to the training needs of a company. There are companies that want to introduce a training programme, just because it is the latest fad and fashion in the field; or bring it in as the "flavour of the month" strategy. Under such circumstances, training will beget nothing but cost and chaos. Managements will get only the consultants they deserve.

Are there any guidelines to select the right type of consultants? If a consultant is readily available and willing to start straight away, the client company must be wary and beware; because a really good consultant is likely to be busy, and not on call. Another check is to ascertain his effectiveness from his earlier customers. It is always better to get a feedback from someone who has had the benefit of his advice for at least a year. "If you do not know where you are going, it does not really matter which way you go" (Alice in Wonderland). All it seeks to say is that if a company cannot identify its objectives, it may not make much progress. Training in any field of endeavour is about improving performance. Whether the performance is short-term or long-term; whether it is one-off or recurrent — it is the objective that will determine the nature and structure of training. To optimise the benefits from any investment in training, there ought to be a clear linkage with the objectives of the organisation.

`Objective' is a simple word. In spite of this, it has created confusion and doubt in the minds of people who need to use and understand that word in the training context. An objective is a statement of intent. When the statement is translated into action, the resultant is performance, which is the fulfilment of the objective.

There are consultants and trainers who design training programmes without any objectives, or with objectives which are so vague and general, that they are virtually out of focus. They are the perpetrators of training robbery, and the managements who engage them are, also, accomplices and accessories to that crime.

To pre-empt such pitfalls in training, and to create a congenial climate for HRD efforts to succeed, it is essential to recruit and appoint only the right persons for different jobs in the organisation. By training, a horse may be made a better horse; but a donkey cannot be converted into a horse. Therefore, the initial process of recruitment itself must be made pucca and scientific.

This requires two important components — a clear job description and person specification. These documents must be broad and comprehensive such that they include not only the immediate job needs but also the potential job needs. The knowledge and skills of a candidate, when he comes through the door, may just equip him for the specific job for which he has been selected. But it is imperative that he must have the basic capability to assimilate further skills and competencies, as and when required to meet any future enrichment of the job, which training can confer on him.

Academic qualification is never an index of the actual ability of a person to perform. An essay on how to bake a cake is no evidence of the capacity of the candidate to prepare one. Every job can be broken down into a series of tasks.

Each task requires specific skills to perform and each skill may be executed with varying degrees of efficiency. Hence, there is a need to develop performance tests in order to determine the differences in the proficiency of different people.

Any performance test must meet and satisfy three criteria — validity, reliability, and suitability. Validity is simply the extent to which a test measures, what it is designed to measure. Reliability refers to the extent to which such a measure guarantees the same relative result each time the test is conducted. Suitability refers to the degree of ease with which the test can be applied, measured, and evaluated. In other words, when a performance test is developed, it must vouchsafe uniformity of application for all the candidates.

The capability of an organisation to compete and survive in the market place depends on the performance of its people. Training is a development process, focussed to improve the performance and productivity of its human resources. "Lathes and steel presses do not walk out of the door, if they receive a better offer — they don't because they are bolted down. And neither will people leave an organisation, if they are trained and developed," wrote Shirley in The Times from London, in 1989. People cannot be bolted down, but if training and development stand out as significant features of the organisational culture, the workforce will acquire professional acumen and responsibility; they will retain ownership for the objectives of the organisation; and they will generate a collective commitment to improve the overall performance and productivity.

Finally, every organisation must provide a mechanism for evaluation of the training programme. Generally, companies have anchored their evaluation process on the feedback and reaction from the candidates attending the programme. Reaction merely highlights the degree of satisfaction or enjoyment derived from the event, whereas it must focus on learning - the extent by which the participants have acquired the specified competencies — whether they have assimilated the promised knowledge, skills, and attitude.

Acquisition is one thing and application another. The scheme of evaluation must include an assessment of the extent to which training has led to improved performance and productivity on the part of the trainee. Further, to sustain and guarantee a continual and consistent performance of a higher degree, consequent to such training, the candidate must develop and display a "can-do" ethos on an enduring basis.

Training evaluation, therefore, is a process, which conducts assessment and measurement of learning; it refers to the collection of information at various stages of the process, to ensure that the prescribed objectives have been realised and concretised; and that the envisaged competencies have, in fact, been achieved and applied by the trainees. Corporates which adhere to and carry out such procedures will never run the risk of being ambushed or waylaid by the training bandits masquerading as pundits.

(The author is a Chennai-based freelance writer.)

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