Planning Not To Invest In Employee Training? First Know The Risks Involved!!

As the global economy is going through a struggling phase, the first thing that most of the companies will put aside is their ‘Training and Development’ department (of course, if they have one). The management strategy of cut, slash and burn might look ‘OK’ in the initial stages but can have drastic effects in the coming future.

Training and a scope to grow is one of the most desired Employee Benefits by workforce of all generations; especially, Gen Y employees, who fear of failing or falling behind in this competitive world, value training and learning as the most critical aspect to advance in their career and make more money.

Moreover, after a considerable time period, employee might get bored of the monotony in work and start looking for other opportunities. If they are given proper opportunities to learn and try new things, this may motivate and engage them to give bring in more innovative ideas and better performance.

Thus, employers should not sideline training and development as it is the key factor in engaging employees. Let’s have a look at few of the positive outcomes of skill training.

Enhanced performance and efficiency – By giving your employees an opportunity to learn new skills will help them understand and fulfill their basic roles and responsibilities in a better way on daily basis. The results will be a boost in employee efficiency, much higher productivity and positive outcomes.

Better employee morale – Every employee has the zeal to advance in their career and training plays a significant role in fulfilling that goal. Neglecting employee training will leave them in a state of distress and with thinking that they don’t have any future within the organization, at least not in the near future, thereby affecting their commitment towards work, morale and performance levels.

Development of potential leaders – Every individual possess the qualities of becoming a potential leader and with proper training and skills enhancement, this quality can be refined. It is the responsibility of the employer to identify and improve their employees’ qualities through proper support and training.

Staying competitive – When you have a high quality workforce, equipped with all the latest skills and technologies, short-term and long-term organizational goals are no difficult task to achieve. This enables the organization to stay ahead of the curve in this cut-throat market competition.

Much higher return on investment – Training programs entail considerable investments initially, but if the program targets a specific business need, it is surely to provide rapid returns. Your initial investment will soon be recouped through a rapid increase in efficiency gains or a power-boost in the revenue.

In addition to better productivity and other benefits mentioned above, organizations that emphasize on their employee development tend to make a lasting impression on them and earn their lasting loyalty.

Learning and upgrading skills must start from the day employee joins a company and should become successive as he/she grows within the organization. It is obvious that the returns will not be visible from day-one but the long-term benefits are definitely going to make a difference, something that is worth investing and waiting for.

Redefining The Traditional Team Model

(By : Prateek Sharma)

From our childhood days, we have been taught to adapt synergism at all stages; sometimes with mutual agreement and sometimes forced, but we all have that spirit running in our veins. 

Being a part of team boosts an individual’s potential to foster a meaningful and fulfilling way of working together. Engaged with a group of people having a common goal, on a worthwhile activity, can prove to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of work. 

But what if the team model we knew from all these years is broken? 

By employing clever behavioral economics and considerable motivation factors, a team successfully works together and every member contributes his/her part to the fullest. But it’s not compulsory that each of the member shares great camaraderie with everyone or, say, “were friends”.

For instance, take the technology industry for consideration, where team structure has been given an entire new meaning with the introduction of agile methodology, regular scrum meetings and iterative development. This, along with social media communities, groups, lists and circles, minimized the need for fixed working routines, forced organizational charts and pre-defined seating plans, for the teams to perform better. 

As a consequence, the team rules have been rewritten and member roles are seeing major shift from a fixed to fluid deployment. 

Now is the era of teams who assemble for a fixed purpose, work according to common vision, analyze, plan, build, test, fix, release and then disassemble and perform the same cycle somewhere else and with someone else. 

Withal, being friends with team members could be difficult in this kind of working environment as people are rapidly moved to various teams as per requirements. However, it is quite possible that if any individual don’t feel comfortable in other teams then his/her performance might degrade considerably.

Thus, the need of the hour is that employees sideline their emotions at workplace to successfully adapt to the current culture. However, the sense of teamwork should definitely exist but it must not be confined to just one team. “Comradeship isn’t de rigueur in team for assured success; the team’s success depends on how its members perform together and arrive at their destined goal.”

Prateek Sharma is the Product Owner @TeamWise ( All in one HRMS Solution ), where he is responsible for technically administering and handling all products and features. With over 6 years of experience in software industry, Sharma is a master in applying product development technologies and devising innovative business strategies.

Is Your Talent Falling Prey To Biased Opinions?

HR professionals are keeping quite busy in compiling talent pool in their organizations! 

Companies are always looking out to identify, nurture, engage and retain employees who have the capability and potential to add real value to the organization, and thus HR teams always have their antennae out to identify those individuals. 

But, what you need to beware of is the single handed opinion of the line managers…

Your process of finding the best one may fall prey to a single biased opinion and that may lead to losing out on a potential candidate. Usually, HR’s have the tendency to take employee feedback from their immediate heads or seniors or line managers. These feedbacks, at times, could be a reflection of the inter-personal relation between the single individual and the manager. This could be quite different from the original one. 

For instance, if you take an individuals’ rating from his current manager, you can get a complete idea of what level of performer he/she is. In many cases, this could be true, but if you take his/her colleagues, team members and clients’ ratings as well, you never know you could have got a completely different rating! 

Thus, to overcome this bias, what you can do is trying using a well-planned talent-identification process where you can involve other colleagues, team members and customers to take an individual’s overall feedback. This should not be taken as an offensive practice, but can be used to identify the blind spots (if any) while judging an individual’s abilities. 

Therefore, HR people must try focusing on using the right data and analytics while making decisions as biased or partial opinions may make you miss out on some hidden internal talent. Talent Management System can be a solution, where employees can showcase their contribution, while their supervisors can rate them on the basis of what they have accomplished and not according to their personal opinions.