Job Training in Human Resource Management

Types of Job Training

In recent years, jobs continue to demand employees to have more skills to effectively perform their jobs. Companies can offer employees job training using various methods to increase their workers skills and refine their crafts. Some of these job training methods include cross training, job rotation, and job enrichment. Job training is an important aspect of many quality management systems and is the basis of two of Dr. Edward Deming’s fourteen points (Russel & Taylor, 2017). In general quality management systems are geared to help companies increase overall productivity, reduce variations, and improve quality. Training employees requires investing in employees, which can make a big difference in a company’s performance and quality outputs. Some companies cross train their employees to learn multiple job functions beyond the role they are currently hired to do. Cross training involves giving employees more knowledge, job variety, and potential for advancement by providing them specialized training to do more than one job (Russel & Taylor, 2017). Cross training employees can have many benefits, including increasing an employee’s overall interest in their job and company, improve retention, and give a greater sense of confidence and responsibility. This type of training can be implemented by human resources with many benefits to the employee and company. Cross training also has operational benefits in cases of an employee resigning or is absent from the job because the operational manager can utilize these employees to cover any gaps. One alternative to cross training is job rotation, which involves switching employee’s job positions to give them an opportunity to develop (Heathfield, 2018a). Job rotation differs from cross training in that it requires the employee to change into a new job, whereas cross training requires training for a new position while staying in the same role. The benefits of job rotation from a human resources and operational management standpoint are like cross training. Human resources can also use job enrichment in vertical or horizontal job enlargement to give employees added responsibilities, freedom, transparency, increased complexity of tasks, and encouraging the development of expertise (Russel & Taylor, 2017). Using job enrichment is important from both a human resources and operation management perspective. Human resources can utilize these practices to help make their employees more effective, satisfied, and less likely to leave an organization. Operations management benefits by gaining a greater output from employees through job enrichment, which can be equally beneficial for completing projects.

Empowering Employees through Job Training

Each method of job training involves elements of empowering employees. Empowerment involves the augmentation of employee’s duties, responsibilities, authority, and autonomy (Russel & Taylor, 2017). Dr. Deming also refers to empowering employees in his fourteen points of quality management systems. Job training methods such as cross training, job rotation, and job enrichment all require expanding employee’s knowledge and expertise through specialized training. All forms of empowering employees through job training can come with human resources and operational management benefits. Some of these advantages include a higher level of awareness of product quality, more employees having the skills to solve problems quickly, increasing mutual respect and trust, decreased absenteeism, greater productivity, improved employee satisfaction, decreased conflict with the management team, and less intervention from middle management (Russel & Taylor, 2017). Employees that are satisfied in roles and better educated tend to have less issues that human resources managers must solve. Additionally, a more productive workforce can help operational managers to more effectively do their jobs and complete projects. The efforts of individual employees can be maximized by combining these efforts together through the implementation of work groups and project teams. The most effective teams are synergistic. The concept of modern synergy was first developed by chemists who discovered that individual atoms could be combined into a possibly infinite number of combinations to form a new part that is greater than the sum of the whole (Romero, 2015). In general, an effective team can produce greater results than individuals working in silos. There are many different types of teams that differ in purpose, responsibility, and duration. For example, a team might be established to complete a specific task assigned by managers in human resources, operations, or project management. A self-directed team is a specific type of project team that is given the autonomy to make decisions within a certain set of parameters (Russel & Taylor, 2017). The concept of a self-directed team is based on the premise of employee empowerment to encourage a sense of responsibility, inspire innovation, and help teams to effectively accomplish a given set of tasks. Empowering a team of an employees can give people greater job satisfaction overall, which is an important aspect of human resource management. Effective self-directed teams require less oversight and can produce higher levels of operational performance. Although there are some additional considerations for upper management to evaluate, an empowered team and individuals can improve organizational results.

Instructional Design in Human Resources

The most effective companies utilize human resource management strategies of instructional design, which includes assessing the needs of training, employee’s readiness, constructing training based on needs, implementation of training programs, and evaluating results (Gerhart, Hollenbeck, Noe, & Wright, 2018). Developing an effective instructional design program for employees can help human resources to more accurately identify the greatest areas for improvement and addressing those needs systematically. Providing adequate sources of motivation for employees is important from both a perspective of human resources and operations management. While the principals of both human resource management and operations management have independent reasons for implementing effective employee management systems, both systems benefit when employees are more satisfied in their roles, performing at the highest levels for each worker’s abilities, and turnover is low. For example, employees that are highly motivated, feel fulfilled in their job positions, and are performing well typically means less issues for human resources. Additionally, employees operating under these circumstances tend to perform better and can accomplish operational tasks more effectively.