Training and development

Three related ideas:

• Training: raising a person's skills for a specific job.
• Development: the overall growth of a person, for a career. It includes training.
• Education: building understanding and knowledge in general.

Benefits of training. To the organisation: systematic learning (no costly trial and error); higher productivity; a supply of future managers; better morale; and a quicker response to change. To the employee: a better career, higher earnings, fewer accidents (because they handle machines well), and more satisfaction.

On-the-job methods: learning while doing the actual job.

• Apprenticeship: working under a master worker for a set period (common for plumbers and electricians).
• Coaching: a superior guides the trainee.
• Internship: a joint programme of educational institutions and firms, combining study and work.
• Job rotation: moving the trainee from one department to another.

Off-the-job methods: learning before doing, away from the workplace.

• lectures, films, case studies and computer modelling;
• vestibule training: a training centre with the same equipment as the real workplace, but away from the shop floor. It suits costly or sophisticated machines, which beginners should not practise on during production;
• programmed instruction: learning in small units, arranged from simple to complex, with questions after each.