Aims and objectives of in-company training.

Source: Image by wirestock on Freepik

The competitiveness of any business is primarily based on the quality and skills of its employees. Staff training can improve their performance and productivity and ensure that they have the skills required by the business. Effective training can be critical when recruiting new employees or in the process of changing business practices or in other situations, for example in the production of new products. Also, as a business grows, the skills required to remain successful may potentially change. (Rosenwald, 2000), which means that its employees need to acquire them in order to maintain their position and for the firm to achieve its goals.

Workforce training and development activities have attracted the interest of both the business and academic communities. This fact is demonstrated by recent data revealing that organizations spend over $30 billion annually in this area (Saharan, 2011). As the statistics show, the investments that organizations and businesses are making in training their workforce are constantly increasing. Increasingly, companies today are designing and implementing training plans in a systematic manner, identifying the training needs of their staff, resulting in training activities being crowned with success and having measurable positive consequences for the company (Black et al., 2001). For example, as reported by Milhem et al. (2017), the number of hours of training and in-company training that organisations and firms devoted to their workforce increased on average from 4,000 hours in 2009 to 4,670 hours in 2016.

The purpose of in-company training can be considered to be the acquisition, development and maintenance of the stock of human capital that an organisation or enterprise needs to conduct its activities. In the broadest sense, in-company training is undertaken in order to improve work performance. Hence, training refers to the planned and systematic efforts of the firm to change or develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of its employees by providing them with learning experiences. As an activity, in-company training takes, as will be discussed below, several forms, including the distinction between education and training, on-the-job and off-the-job training, and formal and informal training through work experience (Dearden et al., 2006).

Training and education have grown significantly in recent years, particularly in terms of their importance and influence in various market sectors. Consequently, companies seem to be well aware that investing in training projects for their employees has a significant impact on the success and realization of their strategic objectives and in this light they now perceive training as the tool to gain a competitive advantage in the market.