Most of the organizations prefer internal manning of position than external hiring for the obvious motivational benefits and cost effectiveness. Even though training, prima facie, puts emphasis on increasing the performance level of an employee, a continuous training function enables the organization to develop employees for the future responsible positions in the organization itself.
The needs for manpower training in an organization may be categorized as follows:
1. Updating Knowledge:
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Technological advancement, business environmental changes and new management philosophies have now made it imperative for the organization to renew and update the knowledge and skills of the employees so that they do not become redundant for the obvious functional incompetence. The first and the foremost need for manpower training, therefore, is to renew and update knowledge and skills of employees to sustain their effective performance and so also to develop them for future managerial positions.
2. Avoiding Obsolescence:
Recent economic liberalization programmes of Government of India are necessitating organizational restructuring, which inter alia, calls for training the employees, irrespective of their functional level, for their redeployment in restructured jobs. Therefore, the second important need for training is to avert functional obsolescence.
3. Improving Performance:
Continuous training is required to renew and update knowledge and skills of employees. It makes them functionally effective. The third need is therefore, to make employees effective in their performance through continuous training.
4. Developing Human Skills:
Apart from emphasizing on technical and conceptual skills, new training programmes also put emphasis on developing human skills of employees. Such human skill is necessary for effective interpersonal relations and sustaining healthy work environment. This heed for training, therefore, also cannot be altogether ignored.
5. Imparting Trade Specific Skills:
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In industrial employment, the convention is to recruit workers and employees through compulsory apprenticeship training. Such apprenticeship training enables an organization to impart industry-and trade-specific skills to workers. This also, therefore, is an important need for manpower training.
6. Stabilizing Work Force:
Throughout the world, the importance of training is now increasingly felt for stabilizing the workforce to withstand the technological change and for making the organization dynamic in this changed process. Management theorists now unanimously agree that it is the responsibility of the organization to train and develop their manpower as a continuous process.