In simple terms, training and development refer to the imparting of specific skills,

abilities and knowledge to an employee. A formal definition of training and development is - it is any attempt to improve current or future employee performance by increasing an employee’s ability to perform through learning, usually by changing the employee’s attitude or increasing his her skills and knowledge.

The need for training and development is determined by the employee’s performance deficiency, computed as follows:

Training and development need= standard performance-actual performance





Training, Development, and Education





HRD programs are divided into three main categories: Training, Development, and Education. Although some organizations lump all learning under "Training" or "Training and Development," dividing it into three distinct categories makes the desired goals and objects more meaningful and precise.

As discussed earlier -
Training is the acquisition of technology, which permits employees to perform their present job to standards. It improves human performance on the job the employee is presently doing or is being hired to do. Also, it is given when new technology in introduced into the workplace.

Education
is training people to do a different job. It is often given to people who have been identified as being promotable, being considered for a new job either lateral or upward, or to increase their potential. Unlike training, which can be fully evaluated immediately upon the learners returning to work, education can only be completely evaluated when the learners move on to their future jobs or tasks. We can test them on what they learned while in training, but we cannot be fully satisfied with the evaluation until we see how well they perform their new jobs.

Development
is training people to acquire new horizons, technologies, or viewpoints. It enables leaders to guide their organizations onto new expectations by being proactive rather than reactive. It enables workers to create better products, faster services, and more competitive organizations. It is learning for growth of the individual, but not related to a specific present or future job. Unlike training and education, which can be completely evaluated, development cannot always be fully evaluated. This does not mean that we should abandon development programs, as helping people to grow and develop is what keeps an organization in the cutting edge of competitive environments. Development can be considered the forefront of what many now call the Learning Organization. Development involves changes in an organism that are systematic, organized, and successive and are thought to serve an adaptive function.

We can make a distinction among training, education and development. Such


distinction enables us to acquire a better perspective about the meaning of the terms. Training, as was stated earlier, refers to the process of imparting specific skills. Education, on the other hand, is confined to theoretical learning in classroom.