Questions:
1. Methods to identify learning needs of the organization?
2. Reason for rejecting alternatives?
3. Learning and development intervention tools?
4. Reasons to reject other alternative learning intervention tools?
Answers:
Introduction
Learning and development of the employees is an integral part of organizational development. The employees are the only responsible for initiating the activities that lead to success of the organization. Therefore, lack of skills among these employees would hamper the success of the organization. The manager of the organization would be capable enough for identifying the required skills needed for a specific project and the skills of the employees who will do the project (Burke and Noumair 2015). Learning needs are the gap between required skills for a particular job and the current skills of employees. The study will analyze various methods for identifying the learning and development needs of the employees in the organization. Not all the methods will be suited for the organization. Therefore, the study will also analyze the reason for rejecting other alternatives of identifying learning needs. The study will demonstrate various learning and developing intervention tools that meet the learning needs of the organization. Reasons for rejecting other alternatives are also analyzed in this study.
1. Methods to identify learning needs of the organization
Learning and development is a very essential process for achieving the success of the organization. The scope of learning and development may also be seen in developing the output of the organization. Learning and development acts as a bridge between the gap of organization’s current capability and the needed skills to meet the future objective. Furthermore, it also enables the employee of the organization to develop their skills for achieving better organizational success (Cummings and Worley 2014). The organization needs to make sure that identification and development of skills and knowledge would be cost effective. However, some methods would determine the learning and development needs of the organization. Some methods would be effective for the organization and meet all the policies of equal opportunities and organizational factor, whereas some method would not be perfect for the organization as it would not clearly identify the learning needs. The methods to identify the learning needs are described below:
Critical incident
In this method, employers arrange interview and questionnaire for getting detail information of a particular task done by a particular employee. It is actually observing a particular employee in his workplace, which is related to his job performance. Critical incident method is advantageous as it is task-oriented (Yu et al. 2015). It is focused on important duties of the employees and how well that employee is performing his/her duties. It is based on direct surveillance of manager and not by second hand observant. There is no scope of organizational politics in analyzing the learning needs of the employees.
Learner centre analysis
It is a method in which individuals and groups more frequently participate in their own learning need analysis process. The employees of the organization asses their own learning needs with the help of some human resource development consultants and professional. This method makes better collaboration with the management of the organization. It is a strategic process and HRD professional shows executive control over the employee as they regulate the thoughts and behavior of the employees in a specific aspect of learning process (Hawk and Zand 2014). The benefit of learner-centre method of identifying learning needs may include increased motivation of the employees and greater satisfaction of job. These two factors lead to greater achievement for the organization.
Performance appraisal
Performance appraisal is a kind of performance review method through which the strengths and weaknesses of the employees are documented. The senior managers take interview of the employee with their experience over a particular job area. Thus, they can identify the learning needs of the employees in those particular job areas (Cummings and Worley 2014). There are equal marking criteria in the performance appraisal form for all the employees. Therefore, the employees get equal opportunity while appraised by the senior manager.
2. Reason for rejecting alternatives
Test
Tests are sometimes taken by the organization by way of either examination or by taking interview for assessing the learning needs of the employees. There are different types of employees in different departments of the organization. It is not possible to asses all the employees of the organization by equal test in the organization (Senge 2014). The expertise of each employee is different from other employees. Therefore, test method of assessing learning needs does not maintain equal opportunity policies of the organization. Therefore, it should be rejected in assessing the learning needs of the organization.
Review of document
It is the method of reviewing the organizational written document about the performance of employees. However, it cannot identify the potentiality of the employees, science the employers do not see the employees in their workplace. On the other hand, it is also a hectic process as the employers are to check each document carefully for assessing the performance of the employees (Moon 2013). It makes delay for all other activities in the organization. Therefore, this method of identifying learning needs should be avoided.
3. Learning and development intervention tools
It is very necessary for an organization to develop the skills of the employee for increasing their productivity. The success of the organization depends on the productivity of the employee. Therefore, lack of skills in the employees may destroy the success the organization. Some employees may have potential for doing better for the organization (Anderson 2013). Learning and development intervention tools provide the employee to enhance their potential skills for developing their career. Various learning and development tools are described below:
Coaching
Coaching is very popular for developing the skills of the employees in the organization. In this learning intervention tools, the employees learn from the learner of the organization. The employees together with the learner set the goal of the coaching and make action plan for accomplishing the goal of the coaching. There are two types of coaching in the organization. One is one to one coaching and another is peer coaching. In one to one coaching senior employees of the organization, individually asses the learning needs of the employees and help them to set the learning needs and action plan (Örtenblad 2015). After making the action plan, the senior employees support the employees for accomplishing the coaching goal of them. In peer to peer coaching an employee can learn from his immediate peers by observing their work process. This coaching process will be cost effective for the organization as the organization need not to pay extra payment to the learner.
On the job training
This is the most effective learning intervention tool for learning and developing the skills of the employees. In this process, the employees can learn from their immediate supervisors in their workplace. The employees can get the help supervisors on each of step in their job. They can discuss all their issues regarding their job with their supervisor in the workplace. All the trainees get equal opportunity for discussing their issue with their supervisors (Creasey et al. 2016). It also creates a collaborative relationship among the trainee and trainer as they always concern for each other regarding the matter of the organization goal. This process is also cost effective for the organization.
Job rotation
Through this training process, organization trains the employees by rotating them through a sequence of related work. In this process, management wants to develop the skills of the employee by acquainting them with different types of jobs. It also reduces the boredom of the employees and the employee can make rapport with many numbers of employees of different department in the organization.
4. Reasons to reject other alternative learning intervention tools
Lecture method
It is very traditional method of providing learning to the employees of the organization. In this method the trainer directly gives instruction about the task of the organization. It is the verbal presentation of the work process to be done for achieving organizational goal (Akkermans et al. 2015). However, the trainer needs lots of self motivation for giving lecture in front of the employees. Sometimes the trainer may not have that much knowledge about the work process and the lecture method may be wasted. Therefore, this method should be avoided.
Role playing
In role playing method the trainer act a key role for solving the key issues of the organization. The employees learn from the role performed by the trainer. The power of role playing is only motivating when it gives a positive feedback to the employees. If the employees get a negative feedback then they become de-motivated. Often feedback from the group members of same level becomes useless (Andrew Cohen 2014). It may create conflict among the employees of the organization. While trainers are interested in role playing, but the trainees may hate them may feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Therefore, this process should be rejected for learning and developing the skills of the employees.
Conclusion
While concluding the study, it can be said that learning and development is a vital process for organizational success. The success of the organization is ultimately dependent on the skills and efforts of the employees. Therefore, it is very important to develop their skills for increasing the productivity of the organization. Critical incident method and learner-centered method identify the learning needs of the employee and these methods also make a collaborative relationship of the employees with their mangers. It gives equal opportunity to the employees for learning and developing their skills. On the other hand, test and review of document are also methods for identifying learning needs but those seem to be hectic process for the organization. Coaching and job rotation are learning intervention tools that meets the learning and development needs of the employees. The employees can be able to gather a wide range of skills through these processes. On the other hand, lecture and role playing intervention tools may lead to conflict among the employees.
Reference List
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Anderson, D.L., 2013. Organization Development: The Process of Leading Organizational Change: The Process of Leading Organizational Change. Sage Publications.
Andrew Cohen, J., 2014. The inseparable nature of working and learning: peripheral management practice that facilitates employee learning. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 28(5), pp.10-12.
Burke, W.W. and Noumair, D.A., 2015. Organization development: A process of learning and changing. FT Press.
Creasey, T., Jamieson, D.W., Rothwell, W.J. and Severini, G., 2016. Exploring the Relationship between Organization Development and Change Management. Practicing Organization Development: Leading Transformation and Change, Fourth Edition, pp.330-337.
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Cummings, T. and Worley, C., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Hawk, T.F. and Zand, D.E., 2014. Parallel Organization Policy Formulation, Learning, and Interdivision Integration. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(3), pp.307-336.
Moon, J.A., 2013. Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice. Routledge.
Örtenblad, A., 2015. Towards increased relevance: context-adapted models of the learning organization. The Learning Organization, 22(3), pp.163-181.
Senge, P.M., 2014. The dance of change: The challenges to sustaining momentum in a learning organization. Crown Business.
Yu, S., Yang, X., Cheng, G. and Wang, M., 2015. From Learning Object to Learning Cell: A Resource Organization Model for Ubiquitous Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 18(2), pp.206-224.
