Carol Bergeron Training Strategy

Question 1

Carol Bergeron (2004) explains a successful company as ones that make their talent strategy part of their strategic planning. Training and Development employees to better understand the customer and their environment is key to a competitive HR strategy. Richard Branson said “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don 't want to….If you look after your staff, they 'll look after your customers. It 's that simple”. There can be no doubt for any organisation that their most valuable asset within the company is their employees. More and more organisations are operating in a continuously changing global market. This new environment means organisations are facing constant challenges such as tougher

Training may be defined as the “planned effort by a company to facilitate employees’ learning of job related competencies. These include knowledge, skill or behaviours that are critical for successful job performance” (Noe et al, 2008: 267). Grobler et al (2006: 300) identify training as being task oriented and focused on improving the learner’s job performance. Development, on the other hand, can be defined as “creating ongoing learning opportunities so that employees can improve over a longer period of time and learn skills other than those required in the current job” (Kleynhans et at, 2007: 117). Noe et al (2012) explains the six steps involved in developing a training

Better technical skills in sales and stock management mean that staff can use the store to better advantage resulting in higher sales and profitability.

• Providing good customer service to look after customers. If staff have improved skills in, for example, communication, this can have a positive impact on customer service. (Source: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk).

Training and development programmes must not only be effective in terms of productivity and service but must also be in line with the competitive strategic of the organization. The people-based competitive advantage is difficult for competitors to pinpoint and even imitate due to the advantage not being easily identifiable.

Training and development can help firms achieve a knowledge-based competitive advantage. Companies that perform better consider their employees a source of competitive advantage (Bergeran, 2004). Business strategy need not be too tedious or cumbersome for an organisation to implement. Instead it should be simple steps similar to the ones M&S have taken; Quality, value, and service. These three simple steps talk to the customers core needs which result in customer