1 Introduction

Many organizations invest a lot of time and money in developing their people. The methods used vary between organizations but will include things like training courses and coaching. Obviously organizations expect their investment to pay dividends in terms of increased productivity and profitability. So what can an organization do to ensure that it gets the results it wants from its training? This workbook sets out the steps that should be taken to ensure that the right training is given to the right people at the right time.

In order to do this it is essential that we first clarify exactly what we mean by training. Although it seems to be a simple enough concept, many aspects of training do appear to be frequently misunderstood. Some people have trouble in defining exactly what training is and is not. The benefits of training, both to the organization and to the individual, are sometimes underestimated.

Training is not just sending someone away on a course. Although sometimes external training courses are exactly what individuals need to improve their skills, there are many other effective development methods that can be used. Coaching or mentoring time given by an experienced person to a less experienced person can bring about impressive results and has the added benefit of being delivered internally.

We will start to explain some of these processes to you by introducing you to the training cycle. This will then prepare the ground for the rest of this workbook.

2 What Do...