Training And Development For Honda Motors Limited

Literature review

Discuss about the Training and Development for Honda Motors Limited.

Every company or organization usually has its own policies and their own unique way of doing things. That is made possible by the instilling of this knowledge to the company’s stakeholders through training and development. This knowledge and unique way of doing things in a particular company are very crucial as it enables a company to achieve its competitive advantages by using their internal resources. This paper is aimed at exploring training and development of a chosen company. It seeks to unveil the training methods used by the company, its competitors and their effect on performance and competitiveness. The company that was chosen is Honda Motors Limited. Honda Motor company is “a Japanese public multinational conglomerate corporation primarily known as a manufacturer for automobiles, aircraft, and motorcycle and power equipment” that has approximately 300, 000 employees, located in Japan. This organization serves as a global supplier of automobiles and is known for quality products as well as a reputed brand. It is one of the companies whose products have joined almost every country of the global market. While many can’t trace it success, it is important to know that proper training method is one of the factors behind its success. It has put into place good training techniques for its employees and consequently maneuvered.

The unique knowledge instilled in the employees of any given company has several effects on the wellbeing of that particular company. Companies that regularly train their stakeholders on key issues usually do better in the market than those who do not. Training is a major factor affecting the development of an organization and its maneuvering (Parer, 2016). According to another school of thought, raining concerns the betterment of job performance of its stakeholders. Another author argues that training pertains the improvement of skills for in the struggle of achieving productivity (Mkude, 2016). However another school of thought views training in the perspective of instilling particular knowledge to an individual or a group of individuals. Similarly, according to (Harris, 2017), training is provision of knowledge with a purpose. This purpose could be intending to use the knowledge to reach some long-term goals.

Training methods are divided into two major categories: on the job training and off the job training. The choice of the training method to use is majorly dependent on the probability of that method to meet the proposed needs of the training. That implies that companies usually have to do a research to be able to make a decision on the most appropriate training method. These two categories of training methods are further classified into different methods. Some of other commonly used training methods are coaching, lectures, role playing, and management games, among others (Olaniyan, 2017).

On-the-job training

On the job training means a training method where an employee learns the job when he/she is actually doing it in the workplace (Aguinis, 2017). In this case, a professional trainer or a more skilled employee acts as the trainer. According to (Lynch, 2013, pp. 45-56), “a person works on a job and learns and develops expertise at the same time.” There are different forms of on the job training. One of them is understudy where a supervisor trains their employees. In this case, the trainee is usually an assistant of the trainee. A good example of the same is when an assistant manager works for a few months under the manager being trained to become the manager. Job rotation is another form of on the job training. It means “shifting of an employee from one job to another on regular intervals” (Buick, 2017, pp. 34-54). Another form of on job training is special projects where a trainee requests to work on a special project that is related to the goals of the department. This form of training enables the trainee to be in a position to acquire the necessary information on the assigned task and be able to work on other similar projects in future.

Experience is another form of on the job training. It is one of the earliest forms of “on the job training” and it involves “learning by doing.” While this form of training is considerably effective, it takes a lot of time and it is wasteful and thus should be considered after all the other forms of training. Another form of on the job training is the committee assignment where the trainees form the committee (Tahir, 2014). These committees are given a problem to discuss after which they should present recommendations. Coaching is another form of on the job training. In this form of training, the senior acts as the trainer of the junior. This form of training pertains a mass illustration and evaluation of knowledge acquired. One of the importance of on the job training is that it improves productivity by improving performance (Paroutis, 2016). It also reduces the time and cost of training. Its major limitation is that it is not as effective is off the job training in that less time and resources are allocated. Contrary to a popular view, on the job training is also very important and bears good fruits (Gibbs, 2016). In few words, off the job training surpasses on the job training in the sense that trainees focus all their attention on the training as opposed to on the job training where trainees are getting trained and working at the same time.

Off-the-job training

Off the job training is the other broad category of training and development. This method “requires the trainees to leave their workplace and concentrate their entire time towards the training objectives. (Dearden, 2016, pp. 56-78)” This method is said to be the most embraced method in these days due to some flaws with on the job training such as limitation of facilities and convenient training environment. This type of training primarily focuses on the development of trainees. Like on the job training, this job training method takes several forms. One of these forms is special courses and lectures. In this form, “special courses and lectures” are planned by the management. The company then takes the responsibility of sponsoring its trainees to attend them. This form is one of the most convenient, easy, fast and simple way to pass knowledge to a large number of people. Off the job training may also take the form of conferences and seminars. In this form participants give their views and thoughts (Mark, 2016). In this form, the trainers look at problems at different perspectives and angles since the trainers are of different fields.

Another form is the selected reading where trainees acquire knowledge by reading several selected trade journals and magazines. Programmed learning is another form of off the job training where trainees learn on their own whereby the medium of learning is textbook or computer (Gibbs, 2016). Another form is brainstorming where employees are given an opportunity to give out ideas openly without fearing to be judged. These ideas are later weighed to establish the ones that are feasible and cost-effective. Another imperative form of off the job training is role-playing where a trainer is assigned an artificial role of a created situation to be able to understand the other person’s situation well.

In-basket exercise is another vital form of off the job training where trainees are provided with information about other firms and required to make notes memos and letters from that information within a certain specified period of time. Other forms of this method of training are business games, business modelling, sensitivity training and multiple management. Of the job training uses highly experienced trainees hence effective. It is also convenient as it takes place outside the working environment. One of its major drawback is that it is costly since it involves mass resource allocation since it involves training outside the company (Waas, 2016).

Methods of influencing business performance

There are, of course, several methods of influencing the performance of a business. Providing enough employee training and development is the major one. Training employees makes them aware of their responsibilities and this influences the way they undertake tasks in the company and this is the distinguishing factor between companies training their employees and those which don’t. When employees know their expectations, they perform their duties well thereby improving performance (Mincer, 2016). Acquisition of the best personnel to complement other resources is important in easing the attainment of business goals. As a result, human resources specialists should be used to hire and retain the best employees.

Another major factor that influences business performance is an accounting. Keeping accurate financial reports and having good procurement systems positively influence business performance (uazi, 2016). Use of modern technology has a positive impact in business performance. That explains why some companies integrate technology with a human resource to improve performance. Use of technology should also be accompanied by employee training to enable them cope up with the transition. Influencing business performance increases productivity improves the competitive advantages of a certain organization.

Honda Motor’s Limited, as an automobile and electronics manufacturing company, uses several training and development methods. It uses both on the job training and off the job training methods depending on the conditions. For instance, the company has for quite some time used the coaching method of training (Smith, 2015). It has used this method to train new employees where their supervisors train them while on the job to adopt the company’s culture. The seniors demonstrate to the juniors how some tasks are undertaken. This method has been mostly employed in the manufacturing section where the new employees need to be shown how some machines work and how they should be handled to produce the best results (Parer, 2016).

In case a senior employee is about to retire, the company uses understudy training. It ensures that the next senior employee works for some time as the assistant of the senior employee to acquire the necessary skills required to become the senior. After the training is over, the junior is then considered fit and up for the task of becoming the senior. The company also plans seminars and conferences so that its employees can get trained. The company values this form of training so much as it offers its employees an opportunity to get the best training. The company sponsors its employees to attend these seminars and conferences. It also uses role-playing training. Employees are assigned temporary roles whereby after playing them they know each other’s situation.

Training and development are quite critical. When dealing with this topic, it is imperative to have a reference from Kirkpatrick’s effective training and evaluation model. His model has four steps which range from learning to results. The first level is reaction where were the reaction of the participants in terms of satisfaction is measured. The second level is learning and involves analysis of whether the trainees understood the training which can be depicted by increase in knowledge and skills. The third level is behaviour and observes whether the trainees have a behaviour change after applying what they have learnt. The fourth and the last step is the results which involves determining whether the training had a positive impact to the organization as a whole. These are some of the steps followed by Honda’s competitors to acquire competitive advantages in both on job and off the job trainings. For instance, in off the job training, the Voxy Wagen Company arranges seminars for its employees and stepwise find out the impact of the training to ensure that it yielded fruits to the company (Mirabile, 2016). Noah Company does the same and sets out a committee that will guide through the four levels of training and come up with a report of the degree to which the training was fruitful to the company. As a result therefore, Honda motors should emulate its competitors and ensure that it goes through all the four levels in a step wise manner and be able to establish the importance of the training to the company.

Conclusion

Training and development are one of the main distinguishing factors between successful and failed business organizations. It determines how an organization will perform depending on the knowledge and skills given to them. It compliments all other resources to ensure that the company performs as it should be and ensure that it succeeds in reaching its long-term goals (Stevens, 2016).

The study has found that training and development is an important practice for any organization, whether small or big. Training takes either the form of on the job training were, as the name suggests, employees are trained in the workplace and off the job training where employees are trained outside the workplace. The paper has also found that there are several methods of influencing business performance among them accounting, employee training, and development as well as technology use. The paper was aimed at exploring the topic training and development and therefore, it is concluded that the practice is very critical of contemporary business organizations. The main findings from Honda Company is that it has done well since it started using aspects of in job training (Mark, 2016). It has also succeeded as a result of using the best methods of influencing business performance.

References

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