CORPORATE TRAINING FOR KNOWLEDGE SECTORS

The growing global meltdown is creating reverberations across the world. Recession is the talk of the town across the globe. With collapse of investment banker, Leyman Bros the apprehensions of recession is firming up thereby causing jitters for employees. Whenever there is drop in revenues the unkindest cut would be on training and development of precious human resources. The focus should be shifted else where rather than minimizing expenses on training. Any spend on training should be treated as investment rather than as an expense.

The corporate training needs to be focused to tide over the organizational problems arising out of global recession. Usually during the highs, the employers do not focus on training and development as things are going smoothly. At the time of lows like recession the employers should lay more emphasis on training their precious human resources. It helps in upgrading employees’ skills, abilities and competencies that are essential for performing their jobs effectively and efficiently. It helps in shedding their flab and makes the companies lean and thin.

According to U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The number of 35- to 44-year-olds in the work force, the so-called ‘key leader age,’ will drop by 15% over the next decade.” There is growing shortage of leadership talent among the employees and that is hindering the growth of the organizations. It is necessary to stress on corporate training programs to develop leadership talent among the employees. When employees are equipped with the requisite skills, abilities and competencies then they would be able to face the challenges squarely and motivate their subordinates for achieving organizational goals and objectives.

Corporate training is slightly different from regular training. Training involves in equipping skills and abilities among the people. When we talk of training it can be for students, employees or professionals. But when we talk of corporate training it is a kind of training provided to the employees in various corporations and organizations. It is aimed at upgrading the skills and competencies among the employees so that they can deliver their goods with competence and confidence. During corporate training there is more stress on developing soft skills where interpersonal skills, team building skills, presentation skills and communication skills are focused for ensuring organizational success.

Diversity training is another area to be addressed by the corporate trainers. When the training is provided to employees of diversified cultures, languages, gender, nationalities under one roof so as to make all employees to work under common objectives and goals within the organizations is known as diversity training. This training focuses by encouraging the employees to look at the similarities rather than differences. The training imparts knowledge and awareness of others’ cultures and the need to respect in the larger interests of the organization. It connects the common link and thread running across all the employees for ensuring better productivity and performance.

Virtual teams integrate the dispersed talent and knowledge to achieve organizational competency. Virtual training is imparted to the employees in the virtual teams where they work on a common project from various cultural backgrounds, countries and time zones without any physical proximity. With the mushrooming IT, BPO and KPO and other knowledge sectors the employees can not be brought under one roof to work in teams due to various reasons like cost and other related organizational problems involved. It is reported that over 2, 50,000 people are working in BPO sector in India, and it is closing one million by 2008. This sector contributed $3.6 billion in 2007. The rapid growing technology has brought many changes and challenges at the organizational front for both employees and employers and of which working in virtual team is one of the major challenges. Therefore, the companies realized in providing virtual training so that the members involved get to know one another for effective and efficient functioning for achieving desired results.

Stress is one of the major reasons as a fall out of work pressures arising in various sectors. The stress is widely prevalent in knowledge sectors especially in IT, BPO, KPO sectors where customer interaction is high. The deadliness, work pressures and demand from the superiors and from clients due to stiff competition is leading to stress and that further leads to attrition. Burn out stress syndrome (BOSS) is a major problem among the employees in these sectors leading to fatigue, and sleep disorders due to the complete alteration of biological rhythm of the body.

For coping up with various challenges in knowledge sectors like stress, diversity and multicultural teams, corporate training is the only solution. It also helps in developing leadership talent among the employees and addresses several challenges in the corporate world. It is high time organizations took serious note of relevance and importance of corporate training to address all these issues. There is no point in cutting the training budgets. Budget cuts are required elsewhere not in training domain to beat recession.

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