"Why Training Employees Is Always a High-Wire Act"
Not long after the turn of the 20th century, companies started to use Frederick Taylor’s principles of “scientific management” to train workers. In Bloomsberg Businessweek, Rick Wartzman, spoke on the issue reporting that, “They analyzed tasks and broke them down into individual, unskilled operations that could then be learned quite quickly” (2011). "America stopped using this training during WWII and the Japanese and Koreans made it the basis for their countries’ phenomenal development", noted Wartzman (2011).
The article continues stating that training workers in the 21st century is much more complicated. Workers do not have the desire to learn the other knowledge, skills, and functions of the company, considering the work outside his or her discipline as “excess baggage”. Companies today need to create a training program that is flexible, “one to fit the person rather than the bureaucratic convenience or tradition” says Wartzman (2011). It needs to do two things at once:” provide people with highly specialized knowledge and ensure that they don’t lose sight of how their specialty fits with an array of other specialties to meet the overall mission and objectives of the business” (Wartzman, 2011). “By designing courses of sufficient depth and breadth, building in both theory and practice, and tailoring programs to individuals—is difficult and expensive” but, “there’s no better way to make your business take off", Wartzman announced (2011).
- This article informs readers of where training stood in the early 20th century and where it is today. It gives reason as to why change needs to take place as well as ways to implement that change. The article is current information regarding the characteristics of workers today and describes current training techniques.
- This source is helpful to my research by describing the workforce in the 20th century compared to the mentality of today's workers and it also lists ways to train employees who are either entering the workforce or who are lacking the skills needed for the position they are in. I can use this source by describing how training was done in the past or by listing training techniques that workers today can better relate with and learn from.
Wartzman, Rick. (Nov. 18, 2011). “Why Training Employees Is Always a High-Wire Act”. Bloomberg. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-11-18/why-training-employees-is-always-a-high-wire-act.