… as he pushes for establishment of a Training Development Authority
It is about time the country invested in the establishment of a National Training Development Authority (NTDA) which would be mandated to plan and pay for training for the nation’s workforce, the Director, Consultancy Directorate at the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), Dr. Theophilus Adomako, has said.
According to him, the lack of periodical training after employment among workers in the country is a danger to sustainable economic growth; as many employees stay stale for years, sticking to an old working regimen while employers find it difficult to innovate and move operation of the organisation to the next level.
In some instances, some companies spell it out categorically in appointment letters that further training is a personal responsibility of the staff and not the organisation.
Speaking to the B&FT, Dr. Adomako said the situation has a tendency to, in the long-run, affect the working attitude of Ghanaians; which will invariably take a negative toll on the economy.
“According to the World Bank, across Africa, Ghana tops countries which have the least number of training-hours people have been exposed to. In other words, many people have worked for years – some 15, others 20 – and they have had no or little training on the job since they were employed.
“I have had occasions when people I am training confess that they have worked for over a decade with no training,” Dr. Adomako said.
He further explained: “The more one gets trained, the more you are repositioned to do the work in another way that you may not have been exposed to. It’s because we do not have finances to pay for the training that employers do not train their staff as often as it should be”.
He said the country can take a cue from Nigeria, Togo, Kenya and South Africa, who are among some African countries which have set up something similar to a National Training Development Authority (NTDA) that is constantly training the workforce on modern operational and managerial skills, to improve their productivity and contribute significantly toward nation-building.
“In other parts of the world, they have come up with a national pool wherein, by law, each employee contributes for training purposes. Say, 0.5 percent of your salary goes into that training fund; and out of this, training is scheduled and paid for by the state body.
“It means the money is not from the employer but from a fund that every employee contributes to. For this system, all employees contribute to their training; so the employers lose little if after training the employee moves on. Through this, the nation’s workforce will be exposed to regular training to help them upgrade their operations,” he said.
Importance of training
Employee training and development programmes are critical for enhancing employee performance. In fact, a 2019 report published in The International Journal of Business and Management Research indicates that 90 percent of employees surveyed agreed, or strongly agreed, that training and development programmes improve their job performance.
Companies can offer many kinds of in-person or online training and development opportunities for employees. And they can use in-house training, third-party training, or off-site activities to provide those opportunities.
The prime motivator for employee-training is to improve productivity and performance. And when executed well, it does just that. It provides employees with the expertise they need to fulfil their roles and make a positive impact on your business. The skills they learn empower them to deliver a better quality of work with a fast turnaround rate.
It also gives hires a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities within the organisation. They know their targets and they’re equipped with the tools to effectively meet them.
