Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Training, by contrast, is typically documented in terms of
specifi c training events in which the employee has participated.
Management develops an individual training plan (ITP) for
each job position, listing the various training modules that
incumbents must complete.
The ITP and the associated training can be contrasted to
the employees' educational attainment and work experience
in several ways. First, the ITP tends to foreground short-term
objectives rather than long term. Second, it tends to focus
on enhancing employees' task performance on-the-job,
rather than their more general knowledge and experience.
Third, because of the longer time frames associated with
educational attainment and work experience, these factors
are taken as givens by management. Training, however,
is widely seen as a corrective action for many problems. To
the extent employees manifest performance gaps, those gaps
will typically be remediated by training. Jack Gordon has
pointed out that: “Managers send people to [training]
courses precisely because they want to see observable
behavior changes that will produce observable business
results.”
4
So management's concern is with behavior change, which
necessitates assessment of the effect of training on the
trainee's task performance. Should training not correct
the performance gap, the management will then turn to
the more extreme measures of progressive discipline or
discharge.
This concern is shared by regulators, who want to ascertain
how well the organization's processes are in control. If there
are problems in pharmaceutical manufacturing, let us say,
the regulator wants to know how the organization responded
to the problem. How was management notifi ed? Was an
investigation conducted, and if so, how well? How was the
root cause identifi ed? How was the corrective action
