Difference: Training and Development | HRM

It is useful to distinguish among training education and development. Such distinction allows us to acquire a better perspective about the meaning of the terms.

Training refers to the process of imparting specific skills. It is a process of learning a sequence of programmed behavior. It is application of knowledge. It gives people an awareness of the rules and procedures to guide their behavior. It attempts to improve their performance on the current job or prepare them for an intended job.

Training is a learning experience in that it seeks a relatively permanent change in an individual that will improve his or her ability to perform on the job. Training can involve the changing of skills, knowledge, attitudes, or social behavior. It may mean changing what employees know, how they work, their attitudes toward their work, or their interactions with their co-workers or their supervisors.

Development is a related process. It refers to those learning opportunities designed to help employees grow. It covers not only those activities which improve job performance but also those which bring about growth of the personality; help individuals in the progress towards maturity and actualization of their potential capacities so that they become not only good employees but better men and women.

In organizational terms, it is intended to equip persons to earn promotion and hold greater responsibility. Training a person for a bigger and higher job is development. And this may well include not only imparting specific skills and knowledge but also inculcating certain personality and mental attitudes. In this sense, development is not much different from education.

Though training and education differ in nature and orientation, they are complementary. Education is the understanding and intervention of knowledge. It does not provide relationships among pertinent variables and thereby character, and understanding of basic principles and develop the capacities of analysis, synthesis and objectivity.

Usually, education is outside the scope of an organization’s functions. It involves a range of skills and expertise which can be provided only by educational institutions. An organization can and does make use of such institutions in order to support and supplement its internal training and development efforts.

“Training is a short term process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure which non-managerial personnel learn technical knowledge and skills for a definite purpose. Development is a long-term educational process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure by which managerial personnel^– learn conceptual and theoretical knowledge for general purpose.”

Training applies primarily to operative employees in the organization such as pri-production, clerical, and maintenance workers who do not supervise the activities of others.

“Training refers only to instruction in technical and mechanical operations, while “development” refers to philosophical and theoretical educational concepts. Training is designed for non-managers, while development involves managerial personnel. In the words of Campbell,” training courses are typically designed for a short-term, stated set purpose, such as the operation of some piece(s) of machinery, while development involves a broader education for long-term purposes”

Training and development different in four major ways:

i. “What” is learned;

ii. “Who” is learning;

iii. “Why” such learning takes place; and

iv. “When” learning occurs