Training and Development in Small Businesses (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Name and Number Date Submitted Employee Training and Development in Small Business Key Elements of Training and Development Silver Trucks LLC. is a small logistics and warehousing business consulting for employee training and development. The company seeks advice on the best employee training program to improve its performance and increase the employees' competency and skills. Training and development are essential to improve the employee's skills and ability to deliver high-quality work, positively influencing the business's productivity and performance. Before initiating a training and development program, it is fundamental to identify the key elements in the training and development program to ensure it is targeted toward boosting the business's performance. The first key training element of training and development is the assessment of learning needs. Training and development aimed at improving the employee's skills and proficiency. For a training program to be successful, it is essential to identify the skills gaps in the employees (Allen 110). Identifying the training need in the business will identify the performance gap between the current and the required training for the employees. It will determine the skills the training program will aim to impart. Further, the business managers should identify the employees that need the training. For instance, if the business managers identify a reduced customer retention rate and increased unsatisfied customers, they may conclude that the employees need a customer service skills training program. Thus, identifying the employees that need the training and the targeted skills, they will develop after the training and development program is essential to ensure its success. The second key element of a training and development program to improve the business's performance is aligning the training to the business needs. Although a needs assessment to identify the performance gaps is necessary before conducting a training program, ensuring that the program gears towards achieving the business goals is also essential (Dipboye 583). Thus, the training program should be in tandem with the set business initiatives to ensure the training program addresses the business problems and supports the business goals. Thus, a training and development program should be aligned with the business goals to improve its performance. The third key element is identifying an effective training mechanism to increase the employees' understanding. Training is essential to increase the employees' proficiency and skills. Nevertheless, it is essential to select effective training tools to ensure employees enjoy and understand the training material. Further, the training program should provide relevant and modern content targeting the required skills to close the performance gap after the training program. The training content and methods must be timely and applicable to help the employees gain the targeted skills to improve the business's performance (Dipboye 582). Modern learners are easily distracted, making it fundamental to use creative ideas and techniques to improve the training program's success. For instance, the training program can have a theme and a logo. It will make the training program more fun and enjoyable, thus increasing the chances of impacting the employees. Hence, identifying an effective training mechanism is essential to improve the business's performance. Setting goals and metrics to track the success of a training and development program is essential in ensuring it improves the business's performance. It is challenging to quantify the outcomes of a training program. However, setting metrics and goals that the training program should achieve eases quantifying the training program's success. The metrics should analyze the success of a training program in terms of quality, quantity, cost, time, and effectiveness. For instance, the business may set a metric to identify the success of customer service training skills as the customer feedback and retention rate. If the business receives more customer feedback and a higher customer retention rate after the training program, it indicates its effectiveness. Thus, identifying metrics and goals to assess the training program's success is essential in improving the business's success. Potential Challenges When Addressing Organizational Performance Improving organizational performance is essential for the growth of a small business. Thus, business managers and owners are keen on improving business performance. However, they may face some challenges in the quest to improve the business's performance and need to implement mitigation challenges to hinder them from reducing the business performance. Some common potential challenges that business owners and managers may experience when addressing organizational performance include poor communication, inadequate tools and resources, and unfocused appraisals. Poor organizational communication is a hindrance when business managers and owners address organizational performance. It may lead to misinformation and increased communication barriers in the business, thus making it difficult for the managers and owners to identify the business problems to be solved (Sabino et al. 271). Moreover, poor communication hinders employee and management communication; thus, the employees do not report their working conditions, and the managers' instructions may be misunderstood. When the business has poor communication, it is likely to discourage employee coordination and teamwork, reducing the business's performance. Thus, managers and owners need to ensure the barriers to communication in the business are eliminated to have a seamless flow of information from the employees to the management team and vice versa. It is easy to address organizational performance with effective communication in a business. Hence, poor communication is a potential challenge when addressing organizational performance. Business owners and managers may face the challenge of inadequate tools and resources when addressing business performance. Adequate resources and tools are required to address business performance effectively. The absence of resources and required tools are a hindrance to addressing business performance. For instance, the business may be on a tight budget, and thus it does not have adequate resources to conduct an effective training and development program. In such a case, the training program will have minimal impact on addressing the identified performance gap, increasing the likelihood of a negative outcome. Thus, inadequate resources and tools are a potential challenge when addressing business performance. Unfocused employee appraisals are a challenge to business owners and managers when dealing with the business's performance. Employee performance appraisals are the traditional method of evaluating employees and assessing their performance and functioning in a workplace. However, employee appraisals have challenges that misalign them with a business's strategic objectives. For instance, employee appraisal is conducted periodically, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually. Thus, it takes longer to identify an issue and misalign it with the business's strategic objectives. It creates a gap between employees' objectives, daily tasks, and job requirements. It challenges business owners and managers as they address business performance since they have to deal with issues that have occurred for a while. It is difficult to identify the current issues. Thus, business managers and owners may face the potential challenge of unfocused employee appraisals when addressing business performance. Organizational Gaps Organizational gaps represent an actual business's performance and its targeted performance. A gap analysis enables a business to identify its organizational gaps and thus improve its operations. Identifying organizational gaps includes improving a business's efficiency and performance, improving employee satisfaction, improving customer satisfaction and retention, and increasing business sales and revenues (Allen 109). When a small business conducts a gap analysis, it identifies the hurdles that reduce its performance. The information enables business managers and owners to implement mitigation strategies to curb such hurdles. For instance, if the marketing team at Silver Trucks LLC. has inadequate negotiation and marketing skills, they cannot bring more customers into the business, affecting its growth. However, identifying the gap and conducting employee training will improve their negotiation and marketing skills, increasing the number of customers they bring into the business. Increased customers will increase the business's performance via increased revenues. Thus, it is essential to identify and detect the organizational gaps as it enables the managers and owners to fill them and promote a small business's performance and productivity. Competitive Training Strategy A competitive training strategy is fundamental to improving the business's logistics industry position. The logistics industry is competitive, and customer retention effectively grows a business. The training program will be implemented via a formal seminar with private trainers and coaches during the weekends when the employees are not working. The training program will run for eight weekends, two months, to ensure the employees have time to synthesize and understand the lessons and, most importantly, use them in their jobs during the training. The training program will incorporate different instructional strategies to keep the training program enjo...