12 Sep Key characteristics of organizations

Prior to beginning work on this discussion,

· Review Chapter 15 from your textbook, Applied Psychology in Talent Management.

· Review the article Starting From Scratch: The Assignment: Form a Talent Development Function That Balances Strategic Priorities, Regulatory Training, and Employee Career DevelopmentLinks to an external site..

· Review the article Design Tactics for Training Transfer: Maximize Learning Transfer to the JobLinks to an external site..

Your boss has asked you to design an effective training program. Using the course materials and any additional resources, identify how you would include the following:

· Key characteristics of organizations

· Key characteristics of individuals

· Learning and individual differences

· Principles that enhance learning

Guided Response: Your initial response should be a minimum of 200 words. Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ or instructor posts in a substantive manner and provide information or concepts that they may not have considered. Each response should have a minimum of 100 words. Support your position by using information from the week’s resources. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum.

Reply 1 Benjamin Oakes

· Key characteristics of organizations

· “In addition to technical skills, employers are looking for people who can interact satisfactorily with customers and who demonstrate responsibility, flexibility, initiative, critical thinking, and a collaborative spirit. If most new recruits are not ready to “plug and play,” however, then the burden shifts to employers to develop the kinds of technical and interpersonal skills they need to compete and win in global markets” (Cascio & Aguinis, 2019, p.378).

· “companies are coming to regard training expenses as no less a part of their capital costs than plants and equipment. Organiza[1]tions that provide superior opportunities for learning and growth have a distinct advantage when competing for talented employees” (Cascio & Aguinis, 2019, p.379).

· Key characteristics of individuals

· “Growing demands for personal and professional development. Among young adults, the most important feature they look for in a new job is the opportunity for continuous learning” (Cascio & Aguinis, 2019, p.378).

· Learning and individual differences

· Individual Development Plans – have employees complete a self-evaluation and define their own roadmap for self-development. “Individuals often construct their own IDPs, with assistance, in career-planning workshops, through structured exercises, in the practice of management-by-objectives, or in assessment centers. They provide a blueprint for self-development” (Cascio & Aguinis, 2019, p.387).

· Principles that enhance learning

· clarity of expectations – establish what trainees are expected to learn and what they will be able to achieve with that knowledge

· content relevance – use “content as a foundation for hands-on learning experiences” (Martinelli & Weinbauer-Heidel, 2023)

· active practice – apply what trainees learned in real life situations

· transfer planning – plan of action to implement what was learned to trainee’s job

Resource

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H. (2019). Applied psychology in talent management.Links to an external site.Links to an external site. (8th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Martinelli, M., & Weinbauer-Heidel, I. (2023, September 1). Design Tactics for Training Transfer: Maximize learning transfer to the job. TD Magazine, 77(9), 20.

Reply 2 Eliseo Capellino

Being tasked to design an effective training program I would need to ensure that we first have the sign off and backing from the from the top of the organization. If the senior leadership is not bought into training, then it will be an uphill battle as the culture starts with the leaders. According to Cascio and Aguinis (2019), “Training is tied to business strategy and objectives and is linked to bottom-line results. Organizational environments are “feedback rich”. They stress continuous improvement, promote risk taking, and afford opportunities to learn from the success and failures of one’s decisions. There is commitment to invest the necessary resources, to provide sufficient time and money for training” (p. 381).

Next, I would investigate the key characteristics of the individuals. According to Cascio and Aguinis (2019), key characteristics of individuals are their “(trainability- that is, the ability to learn the content of the training- personality, age, and attitudes)” (p.381). These characteristics are important as they can determine how we design our training program to meet the needs of the users and more importantly, that the training is effective and helps the users retain the information provided to make them efficient in their positions.

Once we have identified the characteristics, we will then move to learning and individual differences. We are all unique and there is not just one way to teach and learn so there are different learning methods to consider. There is verbal learning, kinesthetic learning and trial and error experiential learning, visual learning and vicarious learning. When determining which methods to implement we would have to consider the difference in abilities, interest and personalities that would be factors when deciding. We would also look into the initial skill level, experience, and motivation of the employees. Once we have this in place we can determine what tools to use and how to deliver the training material to the learners in order to make it meaningful.

When learning new skills there are certain principles that enhance learning. According to Cascio and Aguinis (2019), “Skill learning should include four essential ingredients: (1) Goal setting. Goal setting is founded on the premise that an individual’s conscious goals or intentions regulate his or her behavior (p.393)., (2) Behavior modeling. Social-learning theory holds that we learn by observing others (p.395)., (3) Practice. The active use to the training content (p.397), and (4) Feedback. Provides information that enables a learner to correct mistakes (as long as the learner is told why he or she is wrong and how he or she can correct the behavior in the future) and reinforcement (which makes the task more intrinsically interesting, thereby motivating the learner)” (p.399). Lastly, as mentioned above, training is important but ensuring what was taught is retained and transferred to the real world is critical. We want to make sure that there is a positive transfer of knowledge to help improve the overall performance of the individual and the company.

Eliseo C.

Resource

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H. (2019). Applied psychology in talent management.Links to an external site. (8th ed.). SAGE Publications.