Define training and differentiate if from education.

Define training and differentiate if from education. List out the various methods of training and briefly describe the training methods followed in your organisation or an organisation you are familiar with. Describe the organisation you referring to.


Ans. The forms and types of employee training methods are inter-related. It is difficult, if not impossible, to say which of the methods or combination of methods is more useful than the other. In fact, methods are multifaceted in scope and dimension, and each is suitable for a particular situation. The best technique for one situation may not be best for different groups or tasks. Care must be used in adapting the technique/method to the learner and the job. An effective training technique generally fulfils these objectives; provide motivation to the trainee to improve job performance, develop a willingness to change, provide for the trainee’s active participation in the learning process, provide knowledge of results about attempts to improve and permit practice where appropriate.
On the Job Training
Virtually every employee, from the clerk to company president, gets some “one the job training,” when he joins a firm. That is why William Tracly calls it, “the most common, the most widely used and accepted, and the
Most necessary method of training employees in the skills essential for acceptable for job performance.”
Trainees earn as they learn under the watchful eyes of a master mechanic or craftsman. Receive immediate feedback. Practice in the actual work environment, and associate with the same people they will work with after training. Under this technique, an employee is placed in a new job and is told how it may be performed. It is primarily concerned with developing in an employee a repertoire of skills and habits consistent with the existing practices of an organisation, and with orienting him to his immediate problems.
Special assignments or committees are other methods used to provide lower-level executives with first hand experience in working on actual problems. Executives from various functional areas serve on “boards” and are required to analyse problems and recommend solutions to top management. One the job training is made more effective by the use of a variety of training aids and techniques, such as procedure charts lecture manuals, sample problems, demonstrations, oral and written explanations, tape-recorders and other aids.
Job Instruction Training
This method is very popular in the states for preparing supervisors to train operatives. The JIT method requires skilled trainers, extensive job analysis, training schedules, and prior assessment of the trainee’s job knowledge. This method is also known as “training through step by step learning.” It involves listing all necessary steps in the job, each in proper sequence. These steps show what is to be done. Along side each step is also listed a corresponding “Key point”, which show how it is to be done and why.
The actual training follows a four-step process, beginning with (i) the preparation of the trainee for instruction. This includes putting him at ease, emphasizing the importance of the task and giving a general description of job duties and responsibilities; (ii) presentation of the instructions, giving essential information in a clear manner. This includes positioning the trainee at work site, telling and showing him each step of the job, stressing why and how each step is carried out as it is shown; (iii) having the trainee try out the job to show that he has understood the instruction, if there are any errors they are corrected; and (iv) encouraging questions and allowing the trainee to work along and the trainer follows up regularly.
Vestibule Training
This method attempts to duplicate on the job situations in a company classroom. It is a classroom training which is often imparted with the help of the equipment and machines which are identical with those in use in the place of work. This technique enables the trainee to concentrate on learning the new skill rather than on performing an actual job. In other words, it is geared to job duties. Theoretical training is given in the classroom, while the practical work is conducted on the production line.
It is a very efficient method of training semi-skilled personnel, particularly when many employees have to be trained for the same kind of work at the same time. It is often used to train clerks, bank tellers, inspectors, machine operators, testes, typists, etc. It is most useful when philosophic concepts, attitudes, theories and problem-solving abilities have to be learnt.
Training is generally given in the form of lectures, conferences, case studies, role playing and discussion.
Training by Experienced Workmen
By this method, training is imparted by experienced senior fellow-workers. It is particularly adaptable where experienced workmen need helpers. It is useful for departments in which workmen advance through successive jobs to perform a series of operations.
Training by Supervisors
Such training is imparted on the job by the workers immediate supervisors. It provides to the trainees opportunities for getting acquainted with their bosses. The bosses, too, have an opportunity to judge the abilities and possibilities of trainees from the point of view of their job performance.
Demonstrations and Examples (or learning by seeing)
In the demonstration method, the trainer describes and displays something, as when he teaches an employee how to do something by actually performing the activity himself and by going through a step by step explanation of “why” and “what” he is doing.
Demonstrations are very effective in teaching because it is much easier to show a person how to do a job than to tell him of ask him to gather instruction from the reading material.
Teaching by example is effective in mechanical operations or interpersonal relationships, for job duties and responsibilities, for informal group standards, supervisory expectations, and the like.
Simulation
Simulation is a technique which duplicates, as nearly as possible, the actual conditions encountered on a job. The vestibule training method or the business-game methods are examples of business simulations. Simulation techniques have been most widely used in the aeronautical industry.
Trainee interest and employee motivation are both high in simulation exercise because the actions of a trainee closely duplicate real job conditions. Training is essential in cases in which actual on the job practice might result in a serious inquiry, a costly error, or the destruction of valuable materials or resources. It is for this reason that the technique is a very expensive one.


Apprenticeship
For training in crafts, trades and in technical areas, apprenticeship training is the oldest and most commonly used method, especially when proficiency in a job is the result of a relatively long training period of 2 years to 3 years for persons of superior ability and from 4 years to 5 years for others. The field in which apprenticeship training is offered are numerous and range from the job of a draughtsman, a machinist, a printer, a tool-maker, a pattern designer, a mechanic, carpenters, weavers, fitters, jewelers, die-sinkers, engravers, and electricians. A major part of training time is spent on the job productive work. Each apprentice is given a programme of assignments according to a pre-determined schedule, which provides for efficient training in trade skills.