Industrial and Organizational PsychologyTraining Employees

Copyright Paul E. Spector, All rights reserved, March 15, 2005

Training In Organizations

• Organizations spend $billions on training their employees•  Training can be very valuable by

– Increasing employee competence and performance– Increasing employee motivation– Increasing employee adjustment and well-being

•  Not always effective because training– is for the wrong thing– given to the wrong people– uses the wrong methods

•  Characteristics of organizational training– 1. Field dominated by nonpsychologists practitioners.– 2. Much training crisis motivated.– 3. Much training frivolous‑‑no particular goal.– 4. Many fads & fashions.– 5. Nontheoretical. Few principles are applied.

Selection Vs. Training

• Which Do You Prefer?

Selection Training

Find person with KSAOs

Train KSAOs

Typically American Typically European

Presumes supply of capable applicants

Presumes supply of trainable applicants

Find right person Develop right person

Main I/O Training Activities

• Need assessment

 

• Design

 

• Evaluation

 

• Delivery of training usually (but not always) done by non-psychologist trainers

Needs Assessment

• Determining what training should be done

 

• Major methods– Job analysis: KSAO's necessary for the job

– Critical incidents: E.g., hospital incident reports

– Performance appraisal: Can be part of a performance management system (see chapter 4)

– Employee surveys

Training Program Design Principles• Goal: Transfer of training to job• Principles

– Feedback‑necessary for learning– General principles: Cover the basic principles involved in the

training.– Identical elements: Between training and job situation– Overlearning--practice– Whole vs. part (depends on complexity)– Distributed or spaced vs. massed (distributed better)– Ability– Motivation– Supportive environment increases motivation– Anxiety: Yerkes‑Dodson

Evaluation: Did the Training Work?

• Criteria: Ultimate vs. actual• Training criteria

– Reactions– Learning

•  Performance criteria– Behavior– Results

• Design of evaluation studies– Posttest only– Pretest‑posttest– Control group

Training Utility

• Is training worth the money?

• Study of training– 18 training programs, single organization– 16 showed positive training effects– 13 had utility, although some were marginal

• (Morrow et al. 1997)