As a training consultant, I would like to outline the importance of training initiatives in the following areas: legal requirements, diversity, and employee personal growth. The report emphasizes the importance of these topics to the organization and to the individual employees; describes the major components of an effective training plan; addresses what the organization will gain in offering the training and how the training meets professional and personal employee needs; explain how the programs answer the organization’s and employees’ motivational needs.
The importance of training in legal requirements
The development of a training plan for legal compliance is rather important for an organization to ensure that employers and employees are meeting legal requirements, ensure successful performance, productivity, and high morale within an organization. In the context of legal training, the three areas are necessary, namely: sexual harassment, discrimination, and safety.
The U. S. Supreme Court holds that employers are liable for sexual harassment. This obliges them to take a special care about any instances of harassing behavior within the workplace. Sexual harassment training is a core area because it provides key techniques to address and prevent unlawful instances of sexual harassment. The staff on all positions within an organization is subject to sexual harassment training while the annual programs inform employees about the basics of sexual harassment, liability and legal charges, and instruct employees about the procedures and mechanisms to report infractions immediately.
The issue of discrimination assumes various forms such as age discrimination, pregnancy discrimination etc are subject to federal and state laws as well as corporate policies. The training programs on discrimination relate to identification of vulnerable categories of employees, recognition of employment practices and actions at odds with antidiscrimination laws and policies, establishment and maintenance of non-discriminative and friendly working environment ensuring high performance and positive atmosphere.
In terms of safety, the importance of training in legal requirements consists in overall understanding of safety and enforcement regulations. The training programs emphasize on the steps that help organizations eliminate job-related illnesses, injuries, on-the-job accidents and deaths, and other related claims (Training Today, 2016)
The importance of training in diversity
The issue of diversity is of vital strategic importance for a competitive organization. Successful companies are interested in creating productive and positive working environments that make the staff feel like at home. Thus, through diversity training programs, many employers attempt to develop effective workforce consisting of employees of different ages, genders, ethnic groups, nationalities, races, and religions. The issue of diversity also applies to the employees with disabilities and representatives of the minority groups. Diversity ensures non-discrimination and equal respect to every staff member regardless of his/her specific features or background. This way, by training diversity employers achieve harmonious workplace where everyone knows their job and where everyone’s contribution to organizational success is of equal importance.
Diversity training programs boost collective spirit of collaboration, mutual respect and support. They help HR managers implement informal management initiatives to erase any barriers between the employees of various positions within an organization. Informal meetings, chats, coffee breaks, outside activities and sport games altogether unite people and make them feel like a team. Another important effect of diversity training programs is that they make everyone feel important and respected within an organization. This way, companies achieve loyalty among their employees, reduce dismissals and make everyone’s individual goals comply with strategic organizational priorities.
The emphasis on diversity training saves organizations from unnecessary tensions, controversies and conflicts on the grounds of racial, religious, linguistic, political or sexual disparities that are often the case among the employees. To avoid these strains, the training programs on diversity teach how to minimize biases and prejudices on all levels of organizational structure (Training Today, 2016).
The importance of training in employee personal growth
Above all, the primary commitment of a company’s HR management is to develop their human capital. The strategic focus on HR growth and development ensures a great strategic advantage – flexibility that benefits a company with better competitive edge over the rivals. Thus, many training programs prioritize on management’s commitment to personal growth. Every company changes while it grows and expands. Positive changes are unlikely without employees taking on new challenges, extending their capabilities, cultivating new behaviors, and generating new ideas. Herewith, personal and professional growth of a staff is of ultimate strategic importance (Lipman, 2013).
The training programs in employee personal growth induce company owners spend more not on organizational development but on their personnel. The development of individual capacities within a team ensures overall stability and effectiveness in productivity. The better is inner organizational environment, the more an organization will achieve while serving its shareholders, customers and wider communities. The training programs in employee personal growth also emphasize on individual behaviors of employees as part of corporate morale and ethics. The maintenance of these standards allows organizations to sustain loyal staff and arrange long-term planning. Finally, the training programs in employee personal growth make organizations regard their staff as a community of individuals with unlimited capacities to learn and grow professionally (Lipman, 2013).
It is necessary that such training programs teach HR managers how to identify the roles of individual employees and ensure that everyone holds their right position within an organization. HR managers should spot potential in employees and encourage them with wider perspectives of professional growth. Optimally, the training programs make HR managers create future leaders of an organization. These initiatives are often non-standard and creative encouraging organizations to uncover new skills and talents in their staff members (Management Study Guide, 2016).
- Lipman, V. (2013) “Why Employee Development Is Important, Neglected and Can Cost You Talent,” Retrieved January 18, 2016 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/01/29/why-development-planning-is-important-neglected-and-can-cost-you-young-talent/#2715e4857a0b1552fe662ce0
- Management Study Guide (2016) “Importance of Employee Development,” Retrieved January 18, 2016 from http://www.managementstudyguide.com/employee-development-importance.htm
- Training Today (2016) “Developing a Training Plan for Legal Compliance,” Retrieved January 18, 2016 from http://trainingtoday.blr.com/employee-training-resources/Developing-a-Training-Plan-for-Legal-Compliance
- Training Today (2016) “Employee Training,” Retrieved January 18, 2016 from http://trainingtoday.blr.com/employee-training-topics/Employee-Training
