T&D reading for Spring 2008

Apparently, we’ll focus on special issues this week. In Noe’s chapter 10&12, he mentioned several issues in training and career management, such as legal issue and balance between work and life. Noe mentioned cross-cultural training in chapter10 which is the topic of my final paper.

At early time, cross-cultural training is designed for preparing people who are going to live and work in another culture. Brislin and Yoshida (1994) defined cross-cultural training as “formal efforts to prepare people for more effective interpersonal relations and for job success when they interact extensively with individuals from cultures other than their own”. Noe introduced Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity, power distance, and time orientation. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck provided more variations in culture, such as activity orientation and nature of knowledge. 

There are three basic modes that contribute to people’s accomplishment; thinking oriented, doing oriented and feeling oriented. In thinking oriented culture, people typically learn by thinking. They believe that one can only grasp knowledge, skills and attitudes through thinking thoroughly and clearly, such as Chinese culture. In doing oriented culture, people value practices; they believe that practice makes perfect. In feeling oriented culture, learning environment is viewed as the most important factor in learning. People believe they can grasp the things they want to learn in learning environment (Yang & Wang, 2006).

Moreover, different cultures hold various beliefs about the nature of knowledge. In a culture where knowledge is believed to be objective, people tend to figure out objective reasoning behind the phenomenon in order to accomplish learning process. In a culture where knowledge is believe to be subjective, people believe knowledge should be accumulated through experience and attitude rather than through thinking and reasoning.

Noe mentioned personality characteristics as an important factor related to the success and performance of expatriates. Expatriates who are extroverted (outgoing), agreeable (cooperative, tolerant), and conscientious (dependable, achievement-oriented) were more likely to want to stay on the assignment and perform well (p. 329). I didn’t do much research on this aspect. I think this is very interesting and important. We should provide personality test before trainees enter into cross-cultural training program in order to see whether their personality characteristics fit into cross-cultural environment.

Noe’s chapter 2 mainly talks about strategic training. From the company’s perspective, training is strategic for business goals related to human resources as well as productivity, customer service, and innovation (p.39). Therefore, training should align with company’s business strategy or goal. Employees, managers and executives play different work roles in the organization.

Traditionally, employees are responsible for performing tasks and administer services according to the manager’s directions. Today, employees are involved in many management roles, such as hiring, scheduling work and interacting with customers. Managers are in charge of individual performance, developing employees, planning and allocating resources coordinate interdependent groups, monitoring the business environment, ect. The CEO is responsible for a clear direction for learning, strategic learning, developing new learning programs, promoting company’s commitment to learning, ect.

Noe also provided four business strategies. The concentration strategy focuses on increasing market share, reducing costs, or creating and maintaining a market niche for products and services. The internal growth strategy focuses on new market and product development, innovation, and joint ventures. The external growth strategy emphasizes acquiring vendors and suppliers or buying businesses that allow the company to expand into new markets. The disinvestment strategy emphasizes liquidation and divestiture of businesses.

Grugulis (2007) talks about emotion control. Emotion control is an essential but difficult part for employees in customer service department. I am an emotional person. I think emotion control for me is super difficult. If I feel bad today, or I experience frustrated events, I cannot concentrate on what I’ll do in the rest of the day. I try several times to separate my negative emotions from work, but failure always becomes the final result. I think one’s personality decides the extent to which one can control his/her emotion. Emotion control ability increases with age and experience.

Apparently, I mess up last week’s reading; I did “resistance to evaluation” by mistake. This week, we’ll continue discussing evaluation.  Evaluation can be viewed as a decision-making process (Russ-Eft & Preskill). Kirkpatrick (1959) introduces four levels of evaluation model which has served the HRD profession for over 35 years (Phillips, 1995). The four levels include reaction, learning, behavior and results. Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model probably is the very basic one. Hansen (2005) summarized 6 types of evaluation models: results models, process models, system models, economic models, actor models and programme theory models. Different evaluation models focus on different aspects which can be easily seen from its name.

However, Hansen didn’t give any concrete example of each evaluation model. I know one of the economic models, ROI model, which is developed by Philips (1995). This model is based on Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation and it includes reaction & planned action, learning, job applications, business results and return on investment (ROI). There are four main steps in this model: collecting post program data, isolating the effects of training, converting data to monetary value and calculating the return on investment. The ROI model reflects the benefits and costs of the program, and can be used as an economic source to evaluate the effectiveness of HRD.

When facing various evaluation models, professionals should be able to choose the right one which best fit with their programs. Hansen provided three criteria. First, the purpose of evaluation determines the design of evaluation model. If the purpose is control, the recommendation will go with results models, especially the goal-attainment model. However, if the purpose is learning, it is recommended to use stakeholder model. Second, characteristics of the evaluand should determine design. Hansen listed two variants of this reasoning: 1) cholice of models should be determined by what is possible in view of the characteristics of the evaluand; 2) choice of models should be determined in view of what the characteristics of the evaluand justify. The last one is that evaluation design should be determined on the basis of the problem to be solved.  This reasoning is based on a programme theory rationale.

It is easy to see that we’ll discuss evaluation this week. Preskill and Torres talk about history of evaluation and various types of evaluation models in their chapter2. In Preskill and Torres’ point, evaluation has existed since the appearance of human race.  This is a very interesting point to me. I just wonder how they know that? At the very beginning of human being, people don’t have language; they only make knots to remember certain events. How people at that time evaluate? I think evaluation at that time or at early time of human being is a kind of social recognition; people compare what they do with certain standards in order to get acceptance or approval from others.

Evaluation evolved from focusing on individual’s performance to educational assessment, and finally being used as a tool to “improve programs’ effectiveness, to enhance organizational learning, and to make resource allocation decisions in a wide variety of both public and private organizations” (Preskill & Torres, p.46). Preskill and Torres list 11 most influential evaluation models and approaches, such as behavioral objectives approach, responsive evaluation, etc. Mirza et al. gave a case for using participatory evaluation.

However, I don’t plan to summarize how they conduct and evaluate the program. What interests me and attracts my attention are those who are with disabilities. This group of people is defined as minority or disenfranchised group; they don’t have or have limited access to the internet or computers. The main barriers for people with disabilities to join in community are economic, social and political. I think this is a universal issue all around the world. When I came to USA, I found there will be easy access for disabled people at each building. However, you’ll seldom see these easy accesses for disabled people in China. I don’t mean that we don’t care about this special group of people. But I think from this minor matter, we should rethink about ourselves; action speaks louder than words.

Secret et al.’s article mainly talks about resistance to evaluation. Authors clarify roots resistance from psychological perspective, in other words, I think, these resistances are from nature characteristics of human being. It’s very important to realize the resistance of evaluation when we design and implement evaluation program. The resistance is not only a problem which needs to be resolved, but also can be used as “an important source of information” to improve the effectiveness of evaluation. Secret et al. provide 5strategies to address resistance: attitudes toward evaluation, personal cost-benefit analysis, control and reactance, power and conflict, and performance feedback and self-esteem. “Resistance is related to development and change”, therefore, I think properly dealing with resistance can ensure the success of any programs, not only for evaluation.

Noe’s chapter 7&8 mainly talk about traditional and nontraditional training methods, and e-learning. He introduced several training methods, and discussed advantages and disadvantages of each training method (a kind of boring…). I am interested in Buch’s article which talks about the relationship between learning style and training delivery mode preference.

Buch used Kolb’s model of learning styles as his instrument. Kolb defines learning as: the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience (Kolb, 1984, as cited in Buch & Bartley, 2002, p.6). Kolb introduced four learning styles based on the differences of grasping information and transforming experience into meaning:

1)      Convergers who prefer concrete experience and active experimentation

2)      Accommodators who prefer concrete experience and active experimentation

3)      Divergers who prefer concrete experience and reflective observation

4)      Assimilators who prefer abstract conceptualization and reflective observation

After examination, authors conclude that learning style should be taken into account in decisions of delivery modes. Convergers are most receptive to computer-based learning, while assimilators are most receptive to print-based learning. Divergers feel comfortable with face-to-face classroom-delivery. The authors also found that all learners, regardless of learning style, prefer the traditional face-to-face classroom-delivery.

I try to find Kolb’s learning styles inventory online to see what kind of learning style I have, but I fail to find it. Based on Kolb’s definition, I think I belong to divergers who prefer concrete experience and reflective observation and like traditional face-to-face classroom delivery mode. I take Dooley’s management of distant learning this semester. Professor Dooley gave us 3 learning style inventories which are Kiersey Temperment Sorter, VARK (learning preference), and Find your strengths. I took all three assessments in order to see whether they produce similar results.  My Keirsey Temperament Sorter results indicate that my personality type is Artisan who tends to be fun-loving, optimistice, realistice, ect. My VARK scores are : Visual: 5,Aural: 10, Read/Write: 1 ,Kinesthetic: 5 and indicate that I have a strong aural learning preference. My strengths scores are Musical 3.86, nature, 3.71, self,3.57, Social, 3.29, Language 3.14, spatial 2.86, body movement 2.29, logic/math 2.

The strengths scores describe me best. Other two only describe me a little bit. I agree with Buch’s conclusion: “learners take responsibility for determining their own skill acquisition agenda. Learners who are knowledgeable of their personal approach to learning can make more intelligent choices and have more realistic expectations for enjoyment and maximize learning outcomes.” I think these learning style inventories are not only useful for trainers to design training program, but also helpful for learners to realize their own learning styles in order to choose best way to learn.

Buch mentioned in his conclusion that experience influences the satisfaction of certain delivery format. I wonder whether these experience, positive or negative, can change one’s learning style? Barnes’ article concluded that discussion is the best method to trigger adult students learning. I think when it comes to training and learning, the main point is that how the instructors lead the discussion and how to get all students involved in discussion, especially for on-line training and learning.

Noe’s chapter 5 mainly talks about transfer of learning. Transfer of learning refers to trainees’ effectively and continually applying what they learned in training (knowledge, skills, behaviors, cognitive strategies) to their jobs (p.169). It is influenced by trainee characteristics, training design and work environment. Holton (1996) reveal factors that affect transfer of training which are motivation to transfer, transfer climate and transfer design. Holton used different name to describe factors, however these factors are the same as Noe mentioned; motivation to transfer—trainee characteristics, transfer design—training design, transfer climate—work environment. Transfer of learning, I think, can be used to measure the effectiveness of training. Wognum (2000) provided a model of HRD effectiveness. In his model, the strategic HRD aligning decides HRD effects. HRD aligning is defined as decision-making process (Wognum, 2000). Moreover, the effectiveness of transfer of learning or the extent of transfer of learning influences the HRD decision-making process.

Noe’s chapter4 and Merrian and Caffarella’s chapter mainly talk about learning. Learning, as defined in Noe’s chapter 4 (p.125), is a relatively permanent change in human capabilities that is not a result of growth processes. The factors attributing to occurrence of learning include: 1. providing opportunities for trainees to practice and receive feedback, 2. offering meaningful training content, 3. identifying any prerequisites that trainees need to successfully complete the program, and 4. allowing trainees to learning through observation and experience (Noe, 2002, p.125). The interesting things, or in other words, new things (new knowledge to me) I found in this chapter are learning outcomes and learning styles. Noe categorized learning outcomes into 5 types: verbal information, intellectual skills, motor skills, attitudes and cognitive strategies. And he emphasized that “learning outcomes influence the characteristics of the training environment that are necessary for learning to occur” (p.125). Why I say this is new to me? Because before reading this chapter, I only focus on how training can produce certain outcomes, however I never think about outcomes can impact training. Therefore, when I design a training program, I should take training outcomes which I pursued into consideration to provide comfortable environment to ensure the occurrence of learning.

I took Adult Learning class at my first semester, therefore I am familiar with adult theories, and I realize that every adult has their own learning styles. But I am not sure what kinds of learning styles adults have. Noe introduced learning cycle and provided four types of learning styles: diverger, assimilator, converger and accommodator. Noe believed that “these learning styles combine elements of each of the four stages of the learning cycle” (p.137) and different people value or perform certain stages of the learning cycle. I think this is very useful for trainers to modify their training during training process. Because sometime we can hardly tell trainees’ learning style at the very beginning of training, however through observation or communication based on the knowledge of learning styles, we can identify trainees’ learning style and make appropriate adjustment to meet their needs. Noe also mentioned AmeriCredit as an example of creating a database to track each employee’s learning styles. This deeply impressed me. This method does not only increase the effectiveness of training, but also (I think) will in turn enhance trainees’ loyalty and commitment. Because trainees’ can truly feel being a part of organization and treated as a human being rather than a kind of production tool.

In Merrian and Caffarella’s chapter, authors introduced four perspectives of learning theories which are behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist and social learning based on a conceptual framework of the individual learner, context and learning process. Mesut and Simone (2006) categorized five perspective of learning theories which are behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist, constructivist and transformative learning. (I only list constructivist and transformative learning below, because other three are the same as in Merrian and Caffarella’s chapter).

Darrah’s chapter 2&3 still mainly talk about skill requirements, but this time he incorporated concrete case study. The author begins with the assumption that “work can be fully analyzed by decomposing jobs and their incumbents into constituent skills” (p.25). However, the reality in Kramden Computers challenges the concept of skill requirements: 1. focusing on how work is organizaed in the workplace is more important than catching up new technology. 2. team concept forced workers to embrace the fortunes of the firm which they resisted doing due to their own lack of job security. 3. skills are socially constructed in the workplace. And author also argued that “skill requirements rest upon the idea that some skills are more critical or important in order to perform tasks; sometimes, a skill is an important factor in being hired for the job, although it is relatively unimportant for job performance and alternatively, a skill can be important for career advancement” (p.29).

I like the quotation author provided “They know how they think they are built, or they know how they should be built, but they don’t know how they are actually built”. This is a ubiquitous phenomenon in workplace. In order to avoiding turn-over or other so-called security reason, many companies only let employees know how to do certain tasks and assign them parts of big project. Employees don’t encourage or prohibit asking why.

Concerning reducing training cost, many companies recruit workers who have related work experience and let higher-status workers train them on the job. Like author said, “knowledge like a commodity, it brings power to those who possess it, and it may be reduced in value by sharing” (p.37). Therefore, some higher-status workers are reluctant to share their knowledge with new comer for the purpose of maintaining their current positions. And those lower-status employees feared being evaluated their ability based on their performance of unprepared tasks.

Darrah also introduced the concepts of “community of practice” and “legitimate peripheral participation”. He explained that “mastery is not simply a matter of task performance, nor is it based upon internalization of knowledge but rather upon becoming a full participant in a diverse community of copractitioners” (p.48). These two concepts give me insight on training; we should pay enough attention to employees’ soft skills (as mentioned in G’s book), such as interpersonal communication, and give trainees’ opportunities to practice what they’ve learned in workplace and coordinate with each other.

Needs assessment plays an important role in training design process. In other words, needs assessment, I think, fuels the training program. Because it reveals skills gap or training needs in the organization, ensure upper-level managers with evidence to give finance resource or policy support in training program, and evaluate whether the training is the best solution to the problem before implementing the intervention. Noe’s Chapter3 mainly talks about needs assessment. In this chapter, author mainly examines three elements of needs assessment: organizational analysis, person analysis, and task analysis.

Whether training aligns with business strategy is the main concern of upper-level managers, who control the destiny of training, implementing it or not. One of important things HR professionals need to do is to let upper-rank managers realize the necessity of training which will in turn convince them to allocate finance or other resource to support training program. Organizational analysis can provide concrete evidence of relationship between training and business strategy for managers. Even though, sometimes managers hardly have any evidence from organizational analysis, person analysis can also reveal certain skill gap or training needs from employees.

Many studies reveal that positive attitude and motivation to learning and training are important when doing training. How can you expect a trainer or trainee with negative attitude or low motivation to do their best to perform in training? I think this is an important issue when we design training program; the training program should be a kind of reward which benefits managers, trainers and trainees in organizational environment.

When it comes to training resources, author provides three ways organizations always use; internal consultants, reassigning jobs and external consultants. We talked about the situation in OD class, when company prefers external consultants instead of using existing internal consultant, resistance will probably arise from inside. Sometimes, when you work in an organization, you can hardly realize the raising problem or you can hardly tell the exact root/cause of the problem. However, external consultants can provide an alternative sight to the problem and help the organization find the solution to the problem. When hiring external consultants, internal consultants always feel dissatisfied. The most comment or question they made is why you spend much money on hiring external consultants instead of using us (internal consultants) for free? I think when the company decides to rely on external consultants, the upper-level managers should explain the reason to internal consultants and let both internal and external consultants work together. If they can coordinate, problem can be fixed quickly; internal consultants can view things critically and external consultants can get more information they need from internal consultants. I think if upper-level managers can outsource training properly, it can be used as an incentive method to simulate internal consultants and cultivate their competitive spirit.

For person analysis, author emphasizes trainees’ motivation to learn and readiness for training. The aim of training or other intervention is to “ensure transfer of learning in the workplace” (Dooley, Lindner, Dooley & Alagaraja, 2004, p.316). The transfer of learning, I think, represents: 1. the materials or context presented in training can be transferable. 2. trainers use appropriate method to present knowledge and ensure learning happened. 3. trainees should have competencies to absorb what they’ve learned and apply it in workplace. Trainees’ competencies are the basic element attributing to success of training. In this chapter, author introduces some ways to determine trainees’ certain abilities, such as tests and literacy audit. I read an article about competency-based behavior anchors which can be used as an evaluation tool for training via distance. The competency-based behavior anchors aims to evaluate the training from individual’s perspective. The anchors list core competencies and behavioral anchors, and give number range 0 (novice)-7 (expert). Such as core competency: adult learning theory, behavior anchors: show someone how to do a literature review on student-centered learning; present a short workshop on the theory of andragogy. Each trainee is given the instrument on the first day of the training and again after completion of the program. The result shows the growth of trainees’ certain competencies which is used to evaluate the training program. I think this tool is very useful when we design training program. Learning is the most important part in training, however, learning is a competency which can be increased. The goal of training, I think, is to let trainees’ “learn to learn” and trigger far transfer of learning which means trainees can apply what they’ve learned to a set of related work tasks. Therefore, I think every training program should incorporate competency-based education instead of only focusing on certain skill deficiency.

Grugulis’s chapter 5 talks about soft and social skills, such as communication and customer service. It is difficult to measure these soft skills and how to define these soft skills mostly depends on interviewers or employers. When it comes to social implication, especially for those who are not in the majority, the problem becomes more complex. The thing that most interests me is the gap between emphasis on soft skills and less incentive mechanism to encourage usage of soft skills. I never think about this before. This is a critical issue existing in today’s organization. when we call for or train certain skills, we should have corresponding mechanism to encourage trainees or employees to use what they’ve learned.

Today’s workplace faces several changes, such as rapidly changing technology, workforce diversity and globalization. The implication of technological changes is the business shift from manufacturing era to the service and customer oriented era, which is intertwined with global economy. As mentioned by Noon and Blyton (1997), “workplaces themselves have been transformed by new technologies, new forms of organization and a new generation of management thinking that stresses flexibility, quality, teamwork and empowerment” (cited in Grugulis, 2007, p.1). According to all these changes above, workplace or corporation requires workers to obtain various skills and knowledge in order to keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving workplace environment, especially technological changes. Moreover, skill/job requirements are also changed correspondingly. 

Darrah’s article, I mean chapter 1, is very interesting. He argues the phenomenon that using the so-called skill requirements to describe work, such as problem solving skills, communication skills, and interpersonal skills, rather than to reveal the skills gap. In Darrah’s article, he gathers four arguments about trends in job skills: upskilling, deskilling, contingent on many variables, or being polarized into high and low skill jobs (p.7). These trends also reflect different position of education presented in the workplace. However, despite these different opinions about job skills, most employers and educators believe that “training and development may safeguard productivity as well as supporting it” (Grugulis, 2007, p.1). Through training and development, employee’s skills are developed and their performances are improved, therefore, they will have more confidence in their jobs which will in turn increase the involvement and the productivity. Training and development are so important and benefit employers, employees and the organization as a whole. It assumes that organizations should provide enough funds to ensure the training program. Ironically, the fact is that companies spend little money on it and the attendance of the training program is not so good. According to Grugulis (2007), most jobs are created in SMEs which cannot afford the cost of training and seldom train their staffs formally. Some organizations choose to compete on highly skilled workers, but others choose to compete on cost. Another problem is different treatment between professionals and workers. Professionals always have priorities, but workers in low-rank are tightly supervised and their jobs are often fettered by rules. Professionals, or in other words those with high-degree, always have more opportunities to access to training programs. Moreover, many training programs are designed for these professionals and the requirements for entering are very high. I like one of conclusions Grugulis (2007) provides, “skill is embedded in the employment relationship and increases or decreases in skill levels do not rest simply on individuals’ expertise or the introduction of new technology but on the way those skills are used and the technology is designed” (p.33).  

Chapters 1&9 in Noe (2002) mainly talk about how to design effective training program and how to develop employees. Author introduces Instructional System Design (ISD) which is a process for designing and developing training programs. In the training design process, I think, the phrase of transfer of training is very important. Transfer of learning refers to the extent to which individuals can apply the knowledge, skills and behaviors learned in one situation to another situation (Holton, Bates, Seyler & Carvalho, 1997). Based on this concept, I believe that the transfer of learning is a kind of avenue to the performance and behavior change which is the key aim of training. The author also talks about forces influencing working and learning. I read an article about training and developing age diverse workforce. Author categories today’s workplace workers into three types: the ageing workforce (aged 45 plus), Generation X (late 20s to early 40s) and Generation Y (through to mid-20s) (Beaver & Hutchings, 2005). Each of these groups has their own characteristics. The aging workforce is a group of people who possess lots of working skills and experience while they are mostly less creative and more resistant to change; the generation X holds great passions on learning, especially formal learning, incidental learning and action learning, for advancing their skills; the generation Y is better educated, highly skilled and more confident, and they know what they need or not exactly, thus they behavior individualism and want to be treated as different (Beaver & Hutchings, 2005). This age diverse workforce comprises the organization and the group. Therefore, when we design the training program, we need to take their various characteristics into consideration and meet their demands as far as possible.  

An interesting thing is that we talked about MBTI in communication class last semester, which appears in Noe’s chapter 9 under assessment. I took this test last semester, and I am an ESFJ which represents Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages about this test. Advantages include giving us certain standards to describe personalities and discuss them with others in order to understand each other, providing an academic evidence to ensure self-assessment and telling people who you are and why you do things in certain ways, and helping people find surprised elements hidden in their body. Disadvantages include that individual’s personality is complex changed over time and difficult to explore, so the result of the personality test is not 100% accurate, and results may vary due to different environment and condition people are in, and people may cheat if they take the test more than once. 

After reading all the assigned chapters, I feel that no matter what kinds of approaches we use to develop employees and no matter what skills are required in workplace, we should pay much attention to “demand side”; we should realize what skills workers want to have and what skills workers already have, and then develop the training program which can meet both sides, employers and employees, demands and align with business strategy.

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