Training at Compass Group PLC
The purpose of training is to impart to an individual or group of individuals either skills, knowledge, attitudes and/or behaviour. Reid et al extend this definition by saying “training is a planned process to modify attitude, knowledge or skill behaviour through learning experiences to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose, in the work situation, is to develop the abilities of the individual and to satisfy the current and future needs of the organisation”
The type of skills learnt in the workplace fall into three categories. The general or transferable skills such as health and safety, working as part of a team, using initiative and common workplace behaviours such as timekeeping, are not employer specific and relate to any workplace. Other skills are occupationally or sectorally transferable. These are the skills that are relevant to the hospitality or catering sector regardless of the individual employer. They include such things as food handling, food storage and preparation and aspects of customer service. The final area is those that are specific to the employer and would not be of use in other organisations. They relate to the particular products and practices of the company (Hillage et al 1998).
Many activities can be defined as training and/or development and the above definition serves to provide a basis for the accurate classification of activities. A general distinction used by training professional is to class events as being either on-the-job or off-the-job. On-the-job training can be defined as an activity whose purpose is to increase an individual’s skills or knowledge and which takes place at the individual’s work station. To define it as training that is given during the normal course of work could be misleading as it is generally accepted that during the training time there will be little or no provision of service or production of goods. However, its common description as “sitting next to Nellie,” describing a situation where the individual learns through watching someone who is experienced in performing a task, suggests that it is possible for normal work activities to be maintained by at least one party. There are, however, different types of on-job-training. Reid et al discuss what they refer to as “learning by exposure”. This is where an employee is picking things up as they go along through observation and trial and error (Reid et al 1994). There are also the practices of job rotation, work-based projects and coaching which whilst occurring at the workstation, also have elements of off-the-job training. The practice of learning by “sitting next to Nellie” may also be used as a general description for different events depending on whether “Nellie” is actively assisting the trainee to learn or merely completing their own work and being informally observed.
Off-the-job training is seen as a more formal event involving, by definition, the trainee to be removed from their work station to receive instruction. Historically, off-the-job training was typified by a classroom based, instructor led, group training event, but recently, a wider variety of training delivery methods have fallen into this classification.
The 2005 CIPD report highlighted the most common training and development activities as being on-the-job training, instructor-led training delivered off the job, formal education courses, coaching by external practitioners, job rotation, secondment and shadowing, mentoring and buddy schemes, external conferences, workshops and events, coaching by line managers, internal knowledge-sharing events, action learning sets and audio tapes, videos and learning resources (CIPD 2005). However, these groupings can cause some confusion, as the distinctions are somewhat vague. For example, coaching by line managers would probably take place during work activities and may, therefore, also be classed as on-the-job training. Reid et al put forward a more basic differentiation by grouping training interventions under the headings of “training on-the-job, planned organisational experience, in-house courses, planned experiences outside the organisation and external courses” (Reid et al 1994 pg. 273).
Again, the writer would argue that this still does not provide total clarity, as an individual may be unsure of classifying a planned organisational experience as on-the-job training or a separate event. For the purpose of this research, distinction was made between the two, as a planned organisational experience was one where a learner was put into a new situation with little or no previous training and learnt from reflecting on the event himself or herself and through feedback from another person. On-the-job training is where a learner receives detailed instruction before trying the new skill or behaviour on his or her own. The Vision and Values programme being rolled out by the Compass Group is defined as off-the-job as it is carried out away from the place of work and involves using computer based training rather than hands on practice. It is accepted that it is possible to include simulations in computer based training, but was not a major aspect of the programme in this instance.
The benefits to an organisation of training their employees include increased profitability through providing better customer service and products and reducing the incidents of accidents and errors, lower levels of staff turnover, attracting better quality applicants for vacancies as people actively seek employers who can offer development and more highly motivated workforce (Torrington el al 1995). Training is viewed as being separate from education, which was defined by the Manpower Services Commission as being “activities which aim at developing the knowledge, skills, moral values and understanding required in all aspects of life rather than a knowledge and skill relating only to a limited field of activity” (Manpower Services Commission 1981 pp6).
Tags: accurate classification, customer service, effective performance, food handling, health and safety, hospitality, working as part of a team
