Human Resource Development Report: Learning Styles and Training

This report delves into the core aspects of Human Resource Development (HRD), examining various learning styles such as Kolb's and Honey and Mumford's models, and their application in designing effective training programs. It explores the significance of the learning curve in assessing employee performance and the importance of transferring learning to the workplace for optimal utilization of resources and problem-solving. The report also analyzes the role of the UK government in supporting training and development initiatives, including providing analytical skills, focus, and record-keeping training, and its contributions to generating public norms, developing HR policies, and allocating funds. Furthermore, it discusses the impact of competency development on both public and private sectors, emphasizing its role in enhancing performance and maintaining a competitive edge. The report provides insights into the training initiatives of the UK government and how these initiatives influence HRD.

HUMAN RESOURCE
DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Different learning styles...........................................................................................................................3
1.2 Role of learning curve and its importance...............................................................................................5
1.3 Contribution of learning styles and theories............................................................................................6
4.1 Role of government in training and development....................................................................................7
4.2 Impact of development of competency....................................................................................................8
4.3 Training initiatives introduced by UK government.................................................................................9
TASK 2........................................................................................................................................................10
2.1 Training of staff at different level..........................................................................................................10
2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of training methods..............................................................................11
2.3 Approach of planning and development................................................................................................11
3.1 Preparation of training event evaluation................................................................................................12
3.2 Carry out of the evaluation.....................................................................................................................13
3.3 Review the success of evaluation method..............................................................................................13
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Human resource department (HRD) is an approach which helps individuals in an
enterprise to develop their skills, abilities and knowledge. It plays an important role in providing
training and development program. This report presents different learning styles, theories, role of
learning curve and importance of transferring to actual workplace. It also represents various
training needs and methods used by Sun Court Ltd. to improve its working efficiency. People R
Us is a small consultancy firm which advises Sun Court Ltd. on various issues regarding HR
department (Fee, 2014). Through this study learner will be able to understand process of
development of training and evaluation to know its effectiveness. It will also describe the role of
UK government in various training and development events of Sun Court Ltd.
TASK 1
1.1 Different learning styles
Learning means acquiring and modifying skills, knowledge, attitude, behavior,
preferences and values. Learning styles are such methods through which above things are gained
by human beings. Different styles are used by different companies to educate their staff or
employees to achieve their targets. These are as follows:
Kolb’s learning styles
There are four styles which are suggested by David Kolb i.e. converging, diverging,
assimilating and accommodating. These are discussed as under:
 Converging: This learning style does not focus on people but use the abstract concepts,
practical and experimental ideas.
 Diverging: Under this people first observe things rather than implementing them in real.
This focuses more on people instead of practicing it.
 Assimilating: Here, human beings gain a logical knowledge of doing work effectively at
workplace. It is used for those individuals who are engaged in research and inventions.the
drover's wife by Henry Lawson summary

 Accommodating: It is totally different from all above styles because in this learners learn
things by looking and observing other persons (Kehoe and Wright, 2013). This learning
style does not required any practical, experimental and logical explanation.
Honey and Mumford’s styles
They also suggested four different learning styles such as activists, reflector, theorist and
pragmatist which are explained as under:
 Activists: This style is used to educate those persons who want to practice new things and
are ready to face any consequences or issues involved in that.
Illustration 1: Kolb learning style
(Source: David A. Kolb on experiential learning. 2013)

 Reflector: It is generally used by many organizations because it includes learning things
not only collecting data from their own but also from different opinions of other
individuals.
 Theorist: Persons who want to formulate their own theories by their observations and
experiments follow this style of learning. It is quite similar to assimilating learning style
because here also people think logically.
 Pragmatics: Here, new ideas, thoughts and theories are experimented and implemented.
Solutions are made to overcome from various difficulties and problems.
Illustration 2: Honey Mumford learning style
(Source: Learning styles. 2017)

1.2 Role of learning curve and its importance
Learning curve has a significant impact on the process of learning which reflect
performance of learners. It is very important to transfer learning in real world or workplace to
know its effectiveness. The S shaped learning curve shows that an individual takes time in
learning and acquiring knowledge at beginning. After that steep accelerations shows that the
person has acquired enough knowledge and learning through various channels. The final area is
plateau, which shows the stability in learning. This idealises the normal progression from
discovery of something to learn about followed to the limit of what learning about it.
Role of learning curve
Learning curve is a graphical presentation which shows decrease and increase of
performance and experience of person (Sparrow and et.al, 2016). It is an important technique
through which impact of learning program may be analyzed. Through this graphical
representation, relationship between time spent in learning activities and competency level of
individuals are shown. Therefore, this curve represents progress of people or learners. This curve
Illustration 3: The S shaped learning curve
(Source: Let’s Not Forget the Forgetting Curve, 2016 )

is used by management of Sun Court Ltd. (SCL) to overlook at performance level of their
employees.
Importance of transferring learning to workplace
Every enterprise facilitates training and development program to train their employees to
perform their job efficiently. SCL also provides these learning sessions for their workforce
therefore, it is necessary to transfer this to workplace to know its effectiveness. There are
following importance of this transferring:
 Optimum utilization of funds: Providing training is not so easy task for every firm
because an effective learning program requires lots of funding. If learning is not
transferred to the workplace then all spending on it will go in vain so it is very important
to move it to business operations of Sun Court Ltd.
 Adding value: One of the key objects of learning is to adding value of entity in market. If
enterprise facilitates training sessions and does not transfer it to day to day working of
firm then value of such undertaking will not increase in market place.
 Facing and solving problems: While working in organization employees may face
various problems (Gruman and Saks, 2011). In Sun Court Ltd. also staff of firm has to go
through several problems related to operations and functions of business. To overcome
from such difficulties, they must have prior knowledge of it. Learning sessions help
people at workplace to solve such crisis. Therefore, learning is transferred to workplace
to minimize business obstacles.
1.3 Contribution of learning styles and theories
Role of learning styles and theories is very important while designing and planning
training sessions. Different types of styles are used by different organizations in various fields.
As per the knowledge and field of person training is provided to them. It is the responsibility of
organizer of learning event to use proper style or theory to make learn people with different
categories. For example to train a scientist assimilating learning style is very effective and on
other side to train a new or existing employee in a corporation accommodating style is useful

(Khan, Khan and Mahmood, 2012). Here, both persons are engaged in different types of job so
their technique of learning must also be different to each other.
Similarly, in Sun Court Ltd. various employees work at different level of management.
There are three level of management is Sun Court Ltd., which are;
 Top-level management: This includes the managers, CEO, and managing director of
the company. They are responsible for overseeing and controlling of the whole
company.
 Middle-level management: All the employees of the company comes under this level.
Employees are responsible for the execution of organizational plans. These plans are
in the compliance with the policies of the company. This management serves as an
intermediate management between the top level and low level management.
 Low-level management: This management includes all the workers of the company
which works for them. The focus is on the direction and control of the plans made by
the company.
So, different learning styles help organizer to plan and design training session. Before
organizing learning event, designer required to know working field of learners. After this their
potentiality for respective job is analyzed. The psychology of human being should also take into
consideration that how they behave and perform their job with existing knowledge and skills.
After understanding all these organizer will get clear idea about which style will be suitable to
train them. At last, learning event and activities are held by designer on the basis of chosen
learning style. Thus, learning styles contribute a lot in designing and organizing learning event.
4.1 Role of government in training and development
Role of government of a country is very important in relation to training, development
and lifelong learning. In becoming a professional trader, the employee must have certain skills
which are very essential in trading. The government of UK is providing the special training so
that it can improve the skills of the employees. Few skills are;

a) Analytical skill: The ability to analyze the collected data is a skill every trader needs to have.
The training will be given to the employees so that they can recognize the ongoing trends very
easily.
b) Focus: All the trader of Sun Court Ltd. need to be focused on what they are doing. So that the
company can take the advantage of the market and can gain competitive advantage over other
companies.
c) Record keeping: This is the most important key in trading. The training will be given by the
government, so that the traders will keep all the records neatly and clearly. This will easily show
the progress of the company.
There are following contribution made by the Department of International trade (DIE),
and Department of Education (DIE) in training and development programs of Sun Court Ltd.:
 Generate a public norm: Government plays several roles in success of a business.
Although it includes various provisions, norms, rules and regulations; it helps in initiating
process of generating common culture among people that assists to train and develop
them.
 Develop HR policies: Government creates HR policies for all organization in country
which must be followed by all entities in the nation. It helps in improving capabilities of
employees of every company.
 Allocation of funds: The training and development events organized by an undertaking
are one of the difficult and expensive functions because it required lots of funding.
Government also help Sun Court Ltd. of UK by providing them money for conducting
training and development program (Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014). It
allocates funds for human resource department for both public as well as private sector
enterprises.
 Promoting HRD: Government promotes various activities of HRD which includes
training, development and lifelong learning.

 Developing favorable working environment: To run a successful business it is very
necessary to create an effective work environment within the organization. Government
of UK also plays a vital role in creating positive working atmosphere. It can be done by
several ways. Many laws and provisions are made by government in favor of employees
working in a corporation. For example, by passing law which is consist of rights of
workers and employees and law regarding violation of them.
Thus, by above discussion it is clear that government also play an important role in
facilitating training and development program.
4.2 Impact of development of competency
Competency is an ability to perform a given job. This ability requires some other
qualifications also which helps in finishing specific job or work. Here, competency of workforce
is determined by company to know their performance level. For this, performance management
program is conducted to evaluate performance of employees. The performance based on
competency is evaluated by employee’s core competency. Both public and private sector is
affected by this competency movement (Boxall and Purcell, 2011).
In past this movement was not considered by any company but by passing of time its
importance in business increases. In public sector, competency of public servants is considered
as an important factor. In order to serve public it is required to develop high competency
standards. This helps in facilitating effective training programs for employees and workers to
create them more competent to perform their jobs. Therefore, to maintain competitive advantage
both private and public sector accepted high competency standards.
In present market, very high level of competition exist for companies due to which
enterprises are more interested in performance gap. It describes the difference between current
situation and future situation of firm. Enterprises in private sector generally invest in
performance gap to improve various activities of entity and to get success over other institutions.
This competency movement helped both private and public organizations to improve their
productivity and profitability by offering quality service in market (Fee, 2014). If there is no
competition in market then firms will not try to improve their activities and functions because no

one will be affected by it. But if competition exists in market then each and every establishment
will try to compete with each other this will enhance competency level among them.
4.3 Training initiatives introduced by UK government
UK government took many initiatives which contributed to human resource department
of Sun Court Ltd. The main priority. The department of UK government which is looking after
the human resource is “The Civil Service Human Resource Department”. There are following
government institutions which look after in various activities of HRD:
 Trade and industry department
 Work and pension department
 Education department
 Health and safety department
The above agencies provide following services to private corporations in UK:
 Learning and Skills Council helps in funding and planning education for children above
16 years.
 Small and medium sized organizations receive funds to operate their businesses
 Sector Skills Council facilitates training sessions to enhance skills and knowledge of
people engaged in Sun Court Ltd.
 Create standard workforce of specific sector by National Vocational Qualifications.
 These departments also create skilled workforce for industrial purpose
 Ensures good and effective practice of work by investors.
Government of UK adopted simultaneous training methods which are facilitated to small and
medium size organizations that help in promoting development activities of such firms. It also
promotes the economic growth and stability of country (Luthans, et.al., 2010). Training and
development program provided by Sun Court Ltd. are very much effective which facilitate a
competitive advantage to this entity. Training and development program set by UK government

for employees of Sun court Ltd. helped workforce to adopt energetic changes of market
environment.
TASK 2
2.1 Training of staff at different level
In an enterprise training need for all employees, workers and management are different to
each other. In Sun Court Ltd. there are three types of department exist namely finance and
accounting, production and marketing (Knowles, Holton III and Swanson, 2014). HR
management of Sun Court Ltd. must design training sessions for these department as per their
requirement. Mangers of this entity should monitor training needs of employees in these
departments. Training needs for these are explained below:
 Finance and accounting department: In Sun Court Ltd. learning needs of managers are
different from needs of their subordinates. In this department, managers must be given
training to analyze total availability of funds and other resources from which company
can get funding. While subordinates should be given training for crediting and debiting
amount for various operation of business. Therefore, as per the job of persons their
training is decided.
 Marketing department: In this, managers are trained to become effective leaders and
decision makers. Employees must be facilitates training program so they can execute
decision made by higher authority for effective working of firm.
 Production department: Training is provided to managers so that they can make
effective decisions (Wang and Noe, 2010). For this experts are hired by management to
train such managers of Sun Court Ltd. employees and workers in this department must be
trained so they can conduct better production process which helps enterprise to become
successful in market place.
Therefore, from above discussion it is clear that different departments of Sun Court Ltd.
have different training needs according to their job and responsibility they hold.