Assignment: Using and Applying Badrul Khan�s Web-based Framework
Use and apply Badrul Khan�s Web-based Framework to evaluate an online course offered by a
corporate organization for training purposes, academic course, or a virtual high school course.
Describe and evaluate the selected online course offered by a corporate organization for training
purposes, academic institution, or a virtual high school, including: (a) type of course, (b) length, (c) target
learners, and (d) delivery method(s) (text, audio, video lecture, etc.).
Describe and evaluate the selected online course offered by a corporate organization for training
purposes, academic institution, or a virtual high school, including: (a) interactivity, (b) types
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 2
Contents
Abstract 3
1 INTRODUCTION 4
1.1 Background to the study 4
1.2 Statement of the problem 5
1.3 Research objectives 5
1.4 Research questions 5
1.5 Justification of study 6
1.6 Scope and Limitation 6
2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 3
2.1 Training and development as a human resource strategy 6
2.2 Types of training 8
2.3 Impacts of training and development on performance 8
2.4 Training needs 10
2.5 Challenges facing employee training and development 12
2.6 Theoretical framework 13
2.6.1 Action Theory 13
3 METHODOLOGY 14
3.1 Introduction 14
3.2 Research Design 15
3.3 Research Population and sample size 15
3.4 Primary Approach 15
3.5 Data Analysis approach 16
3.6 Sampling Procedure 16
3.7 Validity & Reliability 16
3.8 Expected conclusions and recommendations 16
3.9 Ethical Issues 16
References 17
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 4
Abstract
The current nature of training and development is taking the shape of traditional education as
more firms realize its role on performance. The organization’s strategy towards training and
development is an essential part of the business operation that when well planned, can contribute
to the success and further enrichment of the organization. The purpose of carrying out this
research is to identify and explore the human resource strategies that influence employee
engagement within organizations in Qatar. The objectives are to identify the best strategies to
ensure an efficient training and development procedure and look at some of the challenges facing
implementation of training and development. This research will be based on Action Theory
which is founded on the concept that action is as a result of goal-directed behavior. This
approach looks at how training and development is regulated and how employees can be made to
change their behavior to meet the goals and objective of the firm (Bartlett, 2001). The research
will employ an exploratory approach to using information from secondary and primary sources.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 5
To carry out this research, semi structured interview and questionnaires will be administered to
100 employees from Qatar. This research could be significant in presenting meaningful strategies
and add up to the existing knowledge on training and development analysis.
Keywords: Training and development, performance, workforce, skills
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
Training helps in the achievement of organization goals by constantly polishing the
workforce skills. It increases the efficiency of a firm and has been described by Khan et al. as
the most important factor of employee performance (2011). According to Dzogbede at al. (2015),
improving job performance requires that training skills and development behaviors are put into
the workplace, and sustained over time. Since education has no end, the highest level of one’s
understating is a personal choice that is dependent on financial and non-financial situations.
Rowden and Conine (2005; Chiaburu &Tekleab, 2005) note that gaining relevant skills must not
be an organizational choice only, but rather a personal choice made by the employees. These
workers come to the job market with knowledge and certificates from schools, but it takes
training and development to insert the much-needed skills. However, investing in training and
development is not fully embraced by all individuals and organizations because cost benefits and
performance cannot be measured with absolute certainty. It’s a statutory endeavor funded by
employees and involves a planned intervention designed to improve the determinants of
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 6
individual job performance. When looking at training and development separately, training
becomes a means to an end while development refers to the process and outcome of training
1.2 Statement of the problem
The role of education and development in business settings is changing towards a more
education type. It has become common for firms to tailor human resource to fit the goals of the
organization by impacting skills and knowledge unique to the firm. This research seeks to
identify problems in employee training and development and suggest strategic measures ensure a
cost-friendly and meaningful training.
1.3 Research objectives
- To explain the role of training and development on the performance of organizations in
Qatar. - To identify the strategic measures organizations can pursue in training and development.
1.4 Research questions - How do training and development impact an organization’s overall performance?
- What are then challenges encountered by both the firm and employees in training and
development?
1.5 Justification of study
The impact of training and development has received an overwhelming research and
pragmatic strategies to help businesses empower their workforce with the latest skills. However,
learning is a regular and continuous activity that needs new techniques and plans. To remain
competitive in a changing world, managers and leaders must remain relevant regarding skills and
knowledge. This study seeks to add to the current literature novel concepts and approaches in
training and development.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 7
1.6 Scope and Limitation
The research will be limited in the number of participants used for the study due to the
complexity of conducting semi structured interviews. They researcher will only use 200
respondents to represent organizations in Qatar. The study will therefore be prone to a small
amount of sampling error.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Training and development as a human resource strategy
A lot of companies provide training and development programs to their employees to
improve their skills. It’s an important procedure that ensures the workers remain productive in
the organization and adapt to the changing job needs (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013). However, there
is no particular strategy that can be ruled out as more efficient in training and development,
although there are methods that have been measured to produce outstanding results. These
methods incorporate knowledge, goal setting and career development. The training not only
supports the employee’s financial career, but also helps manage various aspects of their lives.
The management cannot fully guarantee job security but with adequate training and
development, the employees get opportunity to polish their career, knowledge and skills so as to
remain relevant in the market place (Moses, 1999; Frazis & Spletzer, 2005.). Conversely, many
organizations find it difficult to commit to this practice of training and development, without
which, some employees may quit the job and look for opportunities outside the organization. For
firms that put considerable efforts in training and development of staff, there are several benefits
that all lead to organization development.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 8
Training and development of employees refers to the planned activity meant to develop
the skills and knowledge of workers. According to Harvey (2001), it’s a process that
encompasses all training ranging from basic to advanced skills. These skills include
management, supervisory, professional and technical, occupational, safety, communication,
marketing, and computer skills. Current workable strategies used in training and development
vary from training, coaching, lateral training, written job aids and mentoring while training can
be orientation, job classrooms, e-learning and train the trainer (Tannenbaum &Yukl, 1992; Yang,
2010).Research has shown that development has various benefits to the organization such as
improving productivity, enhancing workers skills, improving safety, minimizing errors in
handling technical jobs, reducing absenteeism and increasing employee motivation ( “Labour
Market Report,” 2015). Having a trained and fully developed workforce is the key strategy to
ensuring workers has latest skills that can improve production while cutting time used incretion
of goods and services and build confidence.
2.2 Types of training
Understanding the different types of training is important in planning for development
procedures. On- the -job training is type of trading that carried out within businesses workplace
during work days (Chand, 2015).This type is carefully planned and structured at the employee’s
workplace, but can be carried out in a special trading field. The managers, staff and other leaders
spend quality time with employees to instill the needed skills and knowledge. It further enables
the employee to learn and apply new knowledge in a controlled and safe context. Off the job, on
the other hand, is done off site and line, and is the most common type of training and
development. An unplanned off the job training helps organizations shorten the time spent on
employee hiring, promotion, and transfer. Its utilized to ensure the time spend away from the job
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 9
is fully recovered and is suitable in large number of employees. Off the job can involve group
discussions, tutorials, lectures and training courses Chand, 2015).
Team training, on the other hand, involves trains people on how to solve unique problems
in the group, and feedback is required in the process. This method requires observation from the
team leader and is usually applicable in industrial escorts, army and government institutions.
Some of the specific strategies used in team training include self-correction, leadership training,
cross-training and coordination training. Mentoring training type uses the ide oaf problem
solving, conflict resolution to impact knowledge and skills. Other than mentoring, a common
trading approach sued in businesses, educational sector, and the military is called simulation. It is
popular method of delivery training where simulators mimic movements and equipment’s
2.3 Impacts of training and development on performance
Employees learn technical skills required by their jobs through training and development.
In recent years, the rate of unemployment in global measures has gone down thanks to
companies that offer opportunities for growth. Fresh graduates and young professionals join
organizations knowing they have insufficient skills and experience; hence they look out for
companies that provide training and development (Feldman, 2000; Noe, 2002). These young
professionals make use of development programs to prepare for the future and develop their
abilities to cope with technology. The need for blue collar jobs has been on a constant rise,
where different companies are requiring looking for competent workers who can appraise their
profession capabilities and sustain employment. Also, workers previously used to prepare for
many years for blue collar jobs only to change the plan after two or three years due to changes in
technology and business practices. To ensure firms do no lose workers who cannot adapt to new
ways of business operations, organizations offer training and development to not only keep the
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 10
existing workforce productive but also ensure the employees are satisfied in their job
descriptions.
Training and development leads to employee satisfaction. According to Harvey (2001)
employees tend to feel withdrawn and isolated in organization that fails to care about their career
needs. However, companies that recognize the need for employee satisfaction by spending
money on them have higher productivity. The money and time spend on improving employees
skills eventually benefits the firm by increasing the organization’s reliability. The workers feel
wanted and valuable, and therefore feel obliged to stay in the organization. When they feel the
firm is giving priority to their efforts and skills, they become satisfied and develop a belief that
their work and effort is important in the organization. The training has an effect on the behavior
of employees and their skills which result in constructive changes in the firm. More so,
employees who take training are more likely to perform better in different tasks than those who
do not (Jagero, Komba & Mlingi, 2012). Training is an official, and structured modification of
behavior through learning which when done effectively can save organizations money spent on
cheap human labor. Quality services dependent on the employee performance can only be
offered through education, instruction, planned experience, and development.
2.4 Training needs
It’s not possible to engage in training and development without seeing the importance of
training needs. Training need is the shortage of skills and abilities that could be minimized by
means of training and development (Merchant, 2010). Therefore, one of the core purposes of
training other than improving performance is to bridge the gap created by lack of skills in an
organization. Without training, the organization is faced with employees who cannot fulfill their
job requirements and responsibilities. The firm fails to achieve its goals caused by the
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 11
employee’s lack of knowledge, skills, understanding or motivation that may arise from changes
in workplace. Analyzing training needs will help any firm identify the needs of the works,
departments and other levels of organization to aid in performance (Marshall et al. 1995). The
purpose of training needs analysis is to make sure that development, once complete, has taken
care of the existing gap, and the employees are fully tailored to the organization’s goals and
objectives. The analysis involves monitoring of current performance techniques such as
observation, interviews and questionnaires, and anticipating for the future shortfalls and
problems. Besides, training needs analysis identifies the specific type of training needed and
examines how an organization can offer this in an efficient manner. Training needs can be
categorized into: those needs that an organization can anticipate, needs that arise from
monitoring empires and needs that arise form unforeseen problems.
The first step to ensuring proper training and development is to allow for an integrated
development across the organization. If one training and development need is discovered in one
department or level of management, there’s is possibility that it also exists in other departments.
Moreover, it’s time consuming and costly for managers to put limited resources at each problem
as it arises, which results to duplication of efforts. Instead, firms have established personnel
function which puts in order training and development needs (Khan & Khan, 2011). Although
they are responsible for organization needs, they may not be solely responsible for coordinating
the system, he/she has unimportant role in collecting relevant information for training needs. The
mangers need to work with other managers in determining training needs and measures that
allow a wide range of training and development activities. Furthermore, there is a rationale for
managers to anticipate for future needs (Huang, 2001). The need for training always manifests at
organizational level while in some cases, some training needs go unnoticed. Together with
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 12
anticipating for future needs, there is need to develop monitoring techniques to spot these
unnoticed needs and make valuable contribution to the processing of information on performance
needs.
One common technique that is widely used is the Variance Analysis to monitoring that is
used to mentor budgets and translates well to the identification of needs (Jehanzeb & Bashir,
2013). When a budget is approved, a monthly expenditure is detailed and any variance, either
upward or downward form the forecast calls for investigation into what happened. When probing
for training need in an organization, it’s paramount to look at the level of the need. There is a
possibility for the training to be limited to just one employee or only a few. It could also be that
training need is limited to a whole department or across the organization.
It is a good practice to analyze training need by investigating the unexpected problems
with care. Monitoring will help indicate where gaps exist although it’s a common mistake to
make wrong assumptions when confronted with a particular situation (Frazi & Spletzer, 2005).
Investigating unexpected problems should be followed by considering the most appropriate
training to offer employees. Management looks at whether training should be done using internal
expertise or using foreign assurance (Harvey et al. 2001). Other considerations include whether
the training and development should formal or informal, and where should be the training be
hosted. After making these deliberations, the next step is to take the right action. If the needs are
within an individual manager’s control and jurisdiction, he/she can take the appropriate action to
meet the need. However, if the needs are enormous, he/she can make recommendations to the
senior management responsible for planning and implementation of training needs in the
organization. While analyzing training needs, managers should avoid making hasty assumptions
about the organization performance problems, and avoid training without establishing a need.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 13
The managers should further take an approach that meets the needs of diverse employees, and
finally, stop aiming at obvious training and devilment needs at the expensive of those which have
been identified via systematic monitoring
2.5 Challenges facing employee training and development
One of the major challenges in training and development is handling a large workforce. The
sheer volume becomes problematic when the staff works on hourly basis in a seven days a week,
making it impossible to update on any case on regular manner. This is especially difficult in
accommodation, food, arts and entertainment industries that manage the staff in routine and
regular ways. Sometimes managers find it challenging to make the employees understand the
value of training (Chiaburu & Tekleab, 2005). While firm’s find it easy to enroll juniors for
training, convincing managers and other top officials to attend tarring sessions is much harder.
More so, a lot of firms have employees who lack basic skills forcing human resource
managers to look for partnerships with schools. The nature of the workers who, for example,
cannot communicate using English as second language means they have to be trained. Location
sometimes makes it difficult to carry out training and development activities where taking
employees for training becomes costly. For firms that lack training locations and rooms, they are
forced to book hotels and school facility which are highly expensive. Finally, programs,
procedures and policies are changing rapidly. There are some many employees of diverse origins
and varying skills who require enrolment to training programs. To train these people, there is
need to tailor the sessions to their unique needs- developing such strategies and programs are
difficult.
2.6 Theoretical framework
2.6.1 Action Theory
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 14
Over time, organizations have changed the way they used to conduct training and development.
It used to be job-focused and limited to technical skills (Bartlett, 2001). As the nature of training
has changed, new literature and approaches have come in place to explain the role of training and
development in enhancing performance. One of these theories is the Action Theory put forward
by Frese & Beer (2007). The theory attempts to explain how learning is controlled and gives
insight on how people can change behavior to meet the requirements of the firm. Unlike the
cognitive and information processing theories, Action Theory links behavior and specific
working outcomes (Milhem, Abushamsieh & Aróstegui, 2014). It is concerned with the process
involved in the interaction that exists between the environmental inputs and behavior and how
cognition regulates this behavior.
The theory is a systematic tool for explaining how knowledge of cognitive process in
performance is regulated by using focus and structure components. There are systemic beliefs
that managers trying training and development can possess to ensure a mutual learning
environment. The firm should believe in the unlimited potential of every employee regardless of
his/her position and abilities, and belief in building the capacity in leadership among in the
workforce. The managers should have the confidence in the value of collaboration and
communication among the departments, and also commit to and implement a regular employee
performance. Finally, it’s important for the organization to belief in the power of personal
connections and relationships among the staff.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 15
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter provides an in-depth look at how the research will be conducted, area of study
in which the research will be undertaken and the population to be covered in detail. This chapter
further provides the sampling procedure, sample size, methods of data collection, data analysis
and legal and ethical framework.
3.2 Research Design
This study will be done using a semi-structured interview research design and open ended
questionnaires. These two designs will help collect relevant data needed to understand how a
human resource strategy influences the employee engagement. A semi-structured interview helps
answer several key questions and define areas for further exploration. This design will help
research get useful information about training and development in Qatar and further allow the
interviewee pursue more details that arise from respondents.
3.3 Research Population and sample size
The study will use purposive sampling to choose the sample that will offer the
appropriate data on how the human resource strategies influence employee engagement in Qatar.
The study will target 100 employees in Qatar since it’s a region with a vibrant business
environment and renowned human resource practices. Data will be collected by issuing
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 16
questionnaires to 70 employees while 30 will be subjected to a structured interview. The
questionnaires and interviews will as questionnaires to determine employees reaction to training
and development on their performance, and how such programs influence their career. It is
hoped that the sample will provide a general idea of what is happening in training and
development in business organizations.
3.4 Primary Approach
This study will adopt an exploratory approach to study the problem of training and
development that has not been well documented by existing literature. Since this study looks at
performance of an organization and how training plays out, exploratory research will seek to
draw definitive conclusions using secondary sources and review of existing knowledge on the
subject. Furthermore, this research is qualitative in nature, and using approaches such as
questionnaires and semi-structured interviews will help explain how a firm benefits from
strategic training and devolvement of its workforce.
3.5 Data Analysis approach
Once all the relevant data has collected, researcher will rely on a combination of excel
spread sheets, tabulations and, pie charts and tables. Statistical analyses will be performed using
Microsoft Excel.
3.6 Sampling Procedure
This research will target 200 employees from Qatar to get useful data for analysis and
conclusions. Two methods of sampling procedures will be used; random sampling and simple
random procedure.
3.7 Validity & Reliability
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 17
To ensure the research findings are valid and reliable, the researcher will eliminate all
possible threats such as testing, maturation, communication barrier and history.
3.8 Expected conclusions and recommendations
This interpretive research shall strive to explore how human resource strategies devised
and implemented by human resource management (HRM) professionals as well as managers of
organizations in Qatar can influence employee engagement subsequently leading to increased
employee commitment, satisfaction as well as retention in their respective groups. Some of the
recommendations include; organizations in Qatar should improve their current HRM strategies to
improve employee engagement and consequently increase productivity and profitability of their
respective companies
3.9 Ethical Issues
The research will be conducted using legal framework that pertains to research and
collection of information. The sample and interviewees will be in no way coerced to take part in
the study. Also, the personal information collected was treated with utmost confidentiality.
Impact of Training and Development on Performance 18
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