The Catalyst of Organizations' Success (Third Cut)
Training that Extracts the Best Out of a Cross-Cultural Workforce
The retention of employees in a company is not only dependent from how they aligned their skills with the needs of the position they hold (job fit) but is also dependent on how well they manage to interact harmoniously with their cross-cultured colleagues (organization fit). Aside from the language barriers, the different beliefs and values systems may hinder an employee to stay in an organization and to perform at his best because of maladjustment and culture shock. In this era of globalization, you might be teaching a customer service program but because you are rendering it to a global audience, some of your points might be misunderstood as impolite or inappropriate. Neil Payne, Managing Director of Kwintessential in United Kingdom, cited four major benefits of providing an organisation with intercultural training. The global workforce avoids misunderstanding, propels company’s productivity and efficiency because of collaborative cultural efforts of employees, poses a more competitive advantage because they can capture more target consumers’ profile and provides long-term benefits because of limitless opportunities the heterogeneously cultured manpower can create.
Training as a Core of Succession Planning
The successful transfer of learning from a competent leader to a subordinate was proven by McCormick & Co. (MKC). In a featured article of Bloomberg Business Week, Robert Lawless groomed Alan Wilson for five years so he can equally performs his role as a CEO. On the other hand, Robert Lawless still stands by his well-renowned spice company as a non-executive chairman of the board of 2008. Training has been a paramount feature in succession planning. Organisations are paralyzed every time a key officer of the company leaves because of unprepared successors for the demands of the position. The succession planning through training ensures continuity in leadership and preserves information and knowledge in the different sections of the company. It allows the Management to identify and prepare high-potential employees to take over their immediate supervisor or manager should the position become vacant or should a position be available in one of the company’s managed properties or branches. The identified employees undergoes a Leadership Academy wherein each of them has an assigned mentor. They are provided with training outline that constitutes the needed training programs they need to complete either formal or informal training as well as in-house or field work just so they have an extensive and comprehensive experience about the roles and demands of the position. This outline also includes various problem-solving skills and behavioural traits to be addressed for each business incidence.
Training as a Solution to Lower Hiring Costs of a Company
The ongoing company’s on-the-job training programs as college students’ externship shows so much potential in recruitment. This answers the difficulty of looking for the right person to a vacant position. When a graduating student is immersed in the operation of the business with the maximum required number of hours, this practitioner is being trained to acquire the skills set needed for the position. He also gets accustomed to the culture of the organization and least likely to leave the company compared to a newly-recruit who still needs to adapt by knowing every person and their working styles so he can produce more outputs. While the company pays minimum for the students who complete school requirements as an intern, the return of investment is great as he becomes a potential candidate for the vacant post. Larry Crumbley and Glenn Summers wrote in Internal Auditor that, “The organization has the opportunity to observe the student at work and review work habits, technical ability, interpersonal skills and adaptability before making a full-time commitment.” Thus, this does not give the company so much risk in absorbing a newbie in the organisation because they have enough time to assess the intern.
Training truly encompasses every growing opportunity of an organisation. However, training can be an expensive investment to employees. Imagine pulling them out for a day to complete a whole course training and leaving their work stations just to bridge and solve their skills gap. The Management should be able to decide the right person to conduct the training, the right program flow with its data tailor-fitted to the needs of the company and the right time to render this to employees. An effective training must be an avenue for change and organizational development. Although Learning Managers are immersed with a wide variety of researches, they must be able to prioritize which training solutions support the business targets the most and equally answers the needs of the employees. There might be cost restrictions in completing a training program but there are various options on how it can be delivered to all employees. Training trends such as e-learning, video conferencing, one-to-one job induction, training e-library, learning buddies, developing department trainers - can provide cheaper training solutions. The beneficial effects of training is so immense that it can lead to creating new policies and procedures in replacement of outdated ones and just like a chain reaction, can produce further projects for the company such as change management or brand management. The commitment of the Management to a learning community produces promising results – creating a happy and productive workforce, high profitability, longer business life operation and flexibly committed to various consumers. Training preserved creativity in confronting business challenges that in effect provides outlandish but viable customer service solutions.
