Development Human Potential

The evaluation procedure in today’s times requires a lot of attention from the organizations as people usually have neglected this area. The companies are seen spending huge amounts on the training interventions but do not pay attention towards their evaluations and usually an informal committee is set up in order to take the feedback on the random basis. The organizations cannot ignore the evaluation phase as it is the most integral factor in assessing the resources that have been spent in the training and development of the human resources.

A lot of organizations refrain from going through a proper evaluation because they feel that the process is faced with a lot of challenges and is relatively difficult to incorporate in the routine training procedures (Huque & Vyas, 2004). Answer # 3: Evaluating the training and development interventions have become equally important as the procedure itself as the evaluations provide the organization with a better understanding of the trainers and the trainees.

The organization cannot assess the success or failure of the training interventions until there has been an evaluation for that (Pont, 2003). The evaluation itself is a complete procedure for the organization to follow and has to go through a lot of challenges in order to get the procedure done. The organizations today are spending a lot of their resources in evaluating the intervention procedures in order to make sure that their training and intervention procedures are effective and result oriented (Phillips & Phillips, 2004).

The foremost challenge that is in front of the management is the criteria for measurement. The evaluation is basically a way to measure the success of the training and development interventions. Thus it has become a huge challenge for the organizations as it is very difficult to set the criteria for the measurement. The organization has to be very prudent when identifying the variables that would be required in gauging the efficiency of the training interventions.

The importance for this factor can be assessed from the fact that if these measurement criteria have been set incorrect the organization would have to pay in the short run and even in the long run. The organizations base their future training programs and the future training objectives on the results of the evaluation which is considered a valuable asset by various organizations (Gatewood, Feild, & Murray, 2007). Thus if the criteria selected is incorrect the organization may come up with the future program which may contain factors which are incorrect and based on erroneous results.

The organization therefore has to pay a lot of attention while identifying the measurement criteria for the evaluation of the training and development interventions to make sure that they are on the right path and the resources are not wasted but channelized in the right direction (Ivancevich, n. d. ). Measurement remains the first issue but one of the other most integral issue which the organizations are facing today is in regard with the proper resources and trained staff that could do an in depth evaluation of the program (Brostek, 2000).

In the days of recession the organizations have to face a lot of criticism by the stake holders in spending huge amount on the employee development. A lot of critiques consider it to be a waste of resources to invest labor and capital in the training of the employees. Today companies have become pretty weak in terms of their financial position due to which they are not in the position right now to spend ample amount in the training of the employees.

Thus, there is a huge challenge in front of the management to get an approval for spending resources in training their human capital by the other stakeholders of the organization (Brostek, 2000). Companies today are faced with a major challenge in terms of their spending patterns with respect to the employee training. Companies do realize the importance of the training of the employees and want to spend more for it but are restricted immensely by their financial conditions and the slowing economy. Organizations have a set budget for the development of their human resources beyond which they are not allowed to spend.

Thus this has become a huge challenge as they have to channelize the limited resources that they have very efficiently in order to get the maximum out of the evaluation (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006). Other than that the organizations today are facing problems in acquiring highly skilled employees who would be able to do an in depth evaluation of the training interventions. As already mentioned above the evaluation itself is a complete procedure, thus organizations need to hire highly skilled employees who should be well trained in the evaluation procedures and may get accurate and correct results for the organization (Bramley & an, 2003).

The evaluation phase does not only end once the data has been gathered properly by the skilled professionals but a thorough understanding is also required in order to assess and evaluate the data properly. The correct result depends upon the correct understanding of the data that has been gathered. It is a huge challenge for the managers to make sure that the data that has been gathered is not misunderstood or misinterpreted in any way because this may make the whole evaluation procedure a failure (Armstrong, 2003).

Evaluation refers to the feedback from the trainers and the trainees. Getting a feedback at times is not easy and the organization has to go through a lot of difficulties in order to get the correct feedback. A lot of participation and co operation is required form all levels of employees in the organization. Any sort of rigidness form any one in the organization may make it difficult for the firm to get the feedback (Training and development evaluation in Jordanian banking organisations, 2009).

The managers face a huge challenge in terms of getting co operation form the trainers and the trainees as the people may not be very comfortable sharing their response or may not want to tell others due to any reason. At times people may even manipulate the results of the evaluation by providing biased data to the managers which may pollute the whole study. The managers have to make sure that the purpose of the evaluation has been communicated properly within the whole organization and every one in the company understands how important the evaluation is for the training procedures.

This would help the managers in getting the support from all over the organization without which the managers may not be able to accomplish their mission (Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains – Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor Domains – design and evaluation toolkit for training and learning, n. d. ). Proper evaluation is only possible in the case when both the trainer and the trainees are ready to co operate and give the correct feedback. At times either of them may be biased in their response due to any personal factor which may contaminate the complete evaluation and mislead the management.

The management before going for the evaluation has to make sure that the evaluation is unbiased and no personal factors are included in the results. This is practically impossible thus the organization has to make sure that it minimizes the biasness to the maximum level (Rae, 2002). The managers have to make sure that the data they gather from the evaluation is sufficient to provide correct finding and is able to achieve the objective of the evaluation. Otherwise the whole process may become nullified and would be a waste of resources and time.

The managers have to ensure that whatever tools are required to gather the evaluation data have provided enough data which to validate the study (Donovan & Townsend, 2004). Selecting the right tools to gather the data is another challenge in front of the managers. Today managers have various different tools to gather data for the evaluation of the training programs. It is very difficult for the organization to decide on which tools are the best in the given conditions for the organizations to gather data.

The managers have to be very prudent while deciding on how to get the data for the evaluation (Evaluation Tools, n. d. ). The organizations have various tools like focus groups, questionnaires and one on one interview and observations. All these tools have their specific characteristics which may be advantageous for the organization at various times. The criteria for choosing the tool may differ from organization to organization and may even depend on the personalities of the respondents for the evaluation.

Where the managers may feel that their respondents would not be able to communicate their ideas properly they would go for observation and try to gather data via either their own observations or the expert’s observation (Knox, 2002). The tool itself has a lot of impact on the result of the study as the level of biasness may vary in each tool. For example observation may be very biased as the observer may be paying selective attention and ignoring things that he may not want to. Focus group may also be biased as it has a moderator who may play a major role in manipulating the discussions in the focus groups (Clarkson, 2001).

Thus the managers today have a lot of pressures in terms of selecting the right tools for gathering the data as the tool has to be the most appropriate one and has to match the conditions and the type of respondents. Evaluation is a complete procedure which the company has to follow. It is not easy for the managers to formulate the evaluation process and a complete and thorough insight is required by the managers to formulate the evaluation procedures for the training and development interventions.

The managers today are facing a lot of difficulties in deciding on the various steps that are required to initialize the procedure at the beginning and then come up with a step by step procedure. Other than that the managers also have to ensure that the steps that they follow are in the right order so that the evaluation procedure is correct. The formulation of the procedure also requires the managers to have a thorough insight of the training and development interventions so that they may make sure that the process is not leaving any loop holes during the evaluation phase. (Training Evaluation, n. d. )

Answer # 4: Training and development interventions have become very important for any organization. Training allows the employees to be at pace with the changing employing conditions in the world. The training though remains incomplete without the evaluation phase where the organization can benefit by taking feedback from the trainers and the trainees. The evaluation completes the training and development intervention procedure as it enables the organization to get an insight on the objectives, the loop holes and other aspects of the training and development intervention procedure (George & Snell, 2007).

By evaluating the training and development interventions the company is able to exactly know hoe successful it has been in implementing the interventions. Since all these interventions requires a lot of time and money to be spent by the company, thus it is of very importance to the company to analyze how beneficial the strategies have been for the company and what are the points where there were certain loop holes that can be taken care of (Evaluating Training, n. d. ). The training and development interventions are required to modify the ongoing training within an organization.

Though the implementation alone is not enough, the organization may not want to only spend their resources without any sort of evaluations. The evaluation is a tool that does not only provide ample data to assess the company’s training interventions on the short term basis but is also a tool that can be used to formulate the strategies or the roadmap for the long term (Cummings & Worley, 2008). Evaluation not only identifies the results obtained by the current techniques applied but at the same time gets a feedback from the internal and external audiences.

The feedback can serve as the most important opportunity for the organization as it can use it for the further trainings. The feedback itself would prove to be the biggest opportunity for the organization as because of the feedback the organization would be able to identify all sorts of loop holes that may exist in the current intervention systems of the organization. The company may be able to spot what are the places where the company is lagging behind and needs to cover up (Nilson, 2003).

This would bring the company in a better position to formulate the future learning and development interventions for the employees. Thus the company would then be able to make better strategies that would be the improved version of the intervention strategies adopted by the organization. Evaluation is the best way to measure the success of the organization. By evaluating the development and training intervention strategies the organization may be in the best position to see any mistakes that have been done in the current training sessions.

The human development is a very integral part of the organization where a lot of organizations spend huge amounts just to make sure that their employees are trained in the best manner. Companies can set their goals before the training and development interventions which would then be used in formulating the training program. Later the evaluation would be the best way by which the organization can assess the extent to which the goals have been achieved. This would help the organizations in setting its future objectives and missions based on the past results of the evaluation (Trainee’s Feedback, n.

d. ). Evaluation would give the organization an insight for reviewing, adjusting and revising goals. By evaluation, the organization is in a better state to review its goals and incorporate any required changes. The organization would be able to come up with a revised and an improved training and development interventions which would benefit the organizations and the employees individually. The training process is required to be with minimal errors and maximum results.

The upper management of the organization is very keen regarding the whole training process and any interventions that are done in the organization. Thus evaluation proves to be the best way by which the organization can reduce the amount of mistakes that can be done in the training and development interventions. By evaluation the organization may be able to get the response from the trainers and the trainees and then avoid any mistakes that have been done in the previous sessions (Why Training Evaluation? , 2006 ).

This would help in reducing the organization cost as it would not then waste its resources on committing mistakes but instead would be able to properly channelize the resource without committing any fallacies. The organization by doing constant evaluations can avoid any mistakes and can come up with the training and development interventions with zero error, that is, that would get maximum results which would justify the huge amount that is spend on training the human resources in the organization (Evaluation of Recruitment and Training, n.

d. ). Avoiding mistakes in the training procedure does not only reduce cost but at the same time gets maximum results for the organization. Evaluation identifies the loop holes in the current procedures which can then be rectified in the future. This would help the organization in making the trainings more effective and result oriented. The employees of the organization may be able to increase their productivity which would be very beneficial for the organization. Evaluation is a way of taking response from the trainees.

This is a way of decentralizing the organization by which the employee’s response would be incorporated in the training and development procedures of the organization. This would act as the motivator for the employees as they would know that their response would be considered as very important for the training interventions. The employees would be able to increase their productivity and the whole organization would work together to come up with a better intervention procedures (Employee Satisfaction Survey, n. d. ).

Evaluations provide an organization to prepare a relevant and appropriate training program for the organization which can prove to be the success factor for the organization. Human resource is considered as one of the most important factors in any organization that can become the competitive advantage for the firm. The evaluation might lead to enhance the competitive advantage by providing a correct framework for the training and development interventions. The evaluation may enable to firm to come up with the best training methods for the employees by which the company can train their employees in the best manner.

Evaluation is thus the only way by which the organizations in the modern world can train their employees and make themselves differentiated via that. The evaluation can help in making the work environment better as the employees may feel respected and consider themselves as the most important asset of the organization. Thus a proper evaluation system can lead to a better working environment, improved training interventions which would all lead to an increase in the productivity of the employees and ultimately affect the earnings of the organization which is the key objective of any firm (Becker, 2009).

Conclusion: Evaluating the training and development interventions is not an easy task as it requires a very prudent approach by the managers who are facing a lot of challenges today. The organizations have to be more serious while evaluating the interventions and have to utilize the maximum from the evaluation procedures as they have a lot of opportunities for the organization.