CIPD - Training: an overview

Learning, training and development

Revised February 2008

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

defines the terms ‘training’ and its links with ‘learning’ and ‘development’
provides brief definitions and issues to consider for the various training techniques used.

Audience for this factsheet

‘Training’, ’learning’, and ‘development’ are terms that are often used interchangeably. This leads to some confusion, especially as the way the terms are used has changed gradually over the years. This factsheet focuses on training. There is a separate factsheet giving an overview of learning and development.

Go to our factsheet on Learning and development: an overview

Managers in small and medium sized organisations have responsibility for developing their employees among a host of other activities. Similarly, managers in larger organisations are increasingly responsible for developing staff and need to understand the terms and techniques used, not least to help them in discussions with their colleagues who are involved full-time in learning and development and training.

This factsheet is aimed mainly at managers who are not specialists in the area of learning, development and training, and who may need help in understanding the various terms and techniques. However, students and professionals who need to refresh themselves quickly may also find it useful. It defines ‘training’ and ‘learning’, and then provides brief definitions of the various terms and techniques used and issues to consider. Our definitions are taken from our 2005 Change agenda Training to learning.

Go to the Training to learning Change agenda

Definition of training

Training is defined by CIPD as ‘an instructor-led and content-based intervention leading to desired changes in behaviour’, and which, unless it is on-the-job training, involves time away from the workplace in a classroom or equivalent. In some contexts and (the armed forces are a notable example), it implies teaching specified skills by practice. Until relatively recently, the implicit assumption was that most, if not all, development of employees would be of this nature.

Definitions of learning and development

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a gradual shift in the techniques and language used to describe the steps taken by employers to help employees to perform their jobs more effectively. Until the closing years of the last century, ‘training’ would have been the word most frequently employed, whether to describe a job (‘training manager’) or a development technique (which would probably have been a classroom-based event). Now ‘learning’, often linked with ‘development’, is the key term. The shift from the use of ‘training’ as a catch-all term to ‘learning and development’ has followed the realisation that there is no one route to learning; different individuals have different learning preferences. For example, some may prefer to read books, others to attend courses. Most learn best from experience.

CIPD’s definition of learning is ‘a self-directed, work-based process leading to increased adaptive capacity’; in other words, an environment where individuals ‘learn to learn’ and possess the capabilities that enable them to do so to help their employers to build and retain competitive advantage. Various authors have somewhat different definitions, but what the definitions have in common is that they link the enhancement of the performance of individuals with that of organisations.

The term ‘development’ is usually used in a wider context than either ‘learning’ or ‘training’ and covers both of these. It tends to refer to a longer process of learning, acquiring skills or knowledge that may include a number of elements such as training, coaching, formal and informal interventions, education or planned experience. It can be structured by HRD professionals, or created as a personal plan. For example, ‘career development’ is a planned process of different learning experiences that may last for some months or years, and ‘management development’ is the entire structured process by which managers learn and improve their skills. But ‘development’ may be also used as a synonym for training, for example in senior management training, where it can be viewed as a more acceptable term for those who still view ‘training’ as a rather basic or even remedial activity.

The limitations of a purely training-based approach

CIPD research¹ has demonstrated that in our rapidly changing and increasingly knowledge-based economy, competitive advantage is built where individuals actively seek to acquire the knowledge and skills that promote the organisation’s objectives. The limitations of the traditional training course are increasingly apparent in this context, because ‘training has a tendency to react to present needs, rather than build capabilities for the future; to transfer large amounts of information rather than build on the knowledge of participants; to remain detached from the context in which work is produced; and to lack the supporting processes needed to put new ideas into practice’.

Training as part of learning

Nevertheless, CIPD believes that ‘training has an important complementary role to play in accelerating individual and organisational learning alongside other, less directive, activities like coaching, mentoring and peer group learning’ (see the Change agenda linked to above). Training (that is, an activity which is instructor-led and content-based) is therefore part of learning and development, and various types of training are among the tools available for developing people. But other tools are available. All this has become increasingly recognised, with the result that there is now a much greater variety of what might be called ‘learning and development (rather than ‘training’) interventions’ than there was in the past. (An ‘intervention’ can be defined as any event that is deliberately undertaken to assist learning to take place.) CIPD characterises the shift from training to learning ‘as the progressive movement from the delivery of courses to the development of learning capabilities as a people development strategy’. This makes the job of the developer (whether a learning professional or a line manager) more complex and challenging than it was, but it also provides the possibility of better outcomes.

Our companion factsheet on learning and development (link given above) briefly describes the various types of learning and development interventions and related terms. This factsheet focuses on training interventions – those which are instructor-led.

Education

Although education is normally defined as consisting of those activities which develop knowledge, skills and understanding required in all aspects of life, not simply work, for young people in particular (but also older people involved in management education – see below), there is an overlap with training (and of course learning). For example, are people doing a bricklaying course at a further education college or studying medicine at a university being trained or educated? The answer, clearly, is a bit of both, probably with the training element (especially the practical, on-the-job component) increasing as the courses advance.

Common training terms and techniques

Classroom training

Classroom training is, according to CIPD surveys, one of the most used forms of development. It may involve only people from one employer, for example to train them in new equipment or procedures specific to the organisation, or it might be held externally with people from other organisations. Our most recent annual learning and development survey is available on the website, with links to earlier surveys.

See our most recent survey

While this form of training may be among the most used forms of development, the same CIPD surveys have shown that it is one of the least popular with learners - on-the-job training (see below) is the most popular. This is not to say that there is no place for classroom training, but it may be more effective if married with the other forms of development activities listed below and in our learning and development factsheet. Managers may be tempted to think that an obvious solution to an individual’s development needs is to send him or her on a course, but they also need to consider other options.

If the decision is to go for classroom training, consideration needs to be given as to whether courses should be internal (an important consideration will be numbers of people available) or external. Internal courses will give the opportunity to focus on organisation-specific problems, increasing the possibility of learning transfer, while courses involving people from other organisations may help individuals see things in a different context and learn from others who do things differently.

Our factsheets on leaner-centred training courses and creative training methods both offer more information on formal training interventions.

Evaluation

Training courses are expensive and organisations need to ensure that they have worked. Attempts are therefore made to evaluate them: in other words, to assess their effectiveness.

Evaluation is not easy. It is relatively simple, by means of the traditional ‘happy sheet’ issued at the end of courses, to assess for example what learners thought of the trainer, but this does not measure whether the learners returned to do their jobs better, still less the training’s impact on the learners’ departments or on the organisation as a whole. The further down the line one goes, the more difficult evaluation becomes.

Despite the difficulties, it is increasingly accepted that at least a sample of training needs to be evaluated. Setting learning objectives helps, as does involving line managers before and after the training has taken place, but the process can be complex, and is far from an exact science.

For more information, see our factsheet on the evaluation of training.

Go to our factsheet on Training evaluation

Management education and training

Management training is a subject in its own right. Here, the reference is to tutor-led training or education as a part of management development. There are formal training courses of various kinds, from very specific courses on technical aspects of jobs to courses on wider management skills. The term also covers education, which might range from courses for (perhaps prospective) junior managers or supervisors at NVQ Level 3 held at further education colleges to Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees held at universities.

Management education and training need to be linked with other means of development to maximise success. Usually management education will involve students in activities based on solving problems at work to maximise learning. However, there is continuing criticism that courses like MBAs are over-academic and not sufficiently based in the real world.

For more information see our factsheet on management development.

Go to our factsheet on Management development

On-the-job training

On-the-job training (OJT) is an activity undertaken at the workplace that is designed to improve an individual’s skills or knowledge. It has the following characteristics:

being delivered on a one-to-one basis and taking place at the trainee’s place of work
requiring time to take place, including potential periods when there is little or no useful output of products or services
being a specified, planned and structured activity.

OJT is the most popular method of learning, perhaps because it is seen to be immediately relevant, but on-the-job trainers themselves (who may be work colleagues or line managers) need to be trained as trainers; otherwise, the learning might be less effective than it could be and bad practice may be passed on. Trainees also need to be able to practice what they have learned immediately or the learning may be forgotten. And too much instruction should not be given at once or there may be ‘information overload’. Finally, feedback needs to be given by the trainer to encourage the trainee.

For more information see our factsheet on-the-job training.

Go to our factsheet on On-the-job training

Outdoor training

This offers teambuilding, problem-solving or leadership exercises, usually in the open air and in different or challenging circumstances. Although it is increasingly called ‘outdoor development’, it is included here because exercises and the reviews which should follow them, are very much instructor-led, and indeed preparation for and follow-up of the outdoor elements may take place in a classroom.

Taking people out of their normal environments and comfort zones can be rewarding, but some may feel uncomfortable. The emphasis should not be too much on physical challenge and exercises should be seen to relate back to the work environment.

For more information see our outdoor development factsheet.

Go to our factsheet on Outdoor development

Training needs analysis

Training needs analysis (TNA) is the systematic gathering of data to find out where there are gaps in the existing skills, knowledge and attitudes of employees. It involves the gathering of data about existing employees’ capabilities and organisational demands for skills, and the analysis of the implications of new and changed roles for changes in capability. For more information see our factsheet on training and learning needs.

Go to our factsheet on Identifying learning and training needs

References

REYNOLDS, Jake. (2004) Helping people learn: strategies for moving from training to learning. Research report. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Training: an overview