Training And Development In Uk

1 INTRODUCTION

It is increasingly acknowledged that human resources constitute essential and vital asset of business and organization like capital and equipment resources. What fine ideas, the newest technologies, the most favourable external conditions were, without well prepared and qualified personnel it is impossible to achieve the high efficiency of work and to meet an organisation's objectives. That's why human resources become a long-term factor of competitiveness and survival of a company.

Today organisations have its own human resource departments which are responsible for all polices and activities that impact employees. The human resource department is a crucial area of business success, as talented employees are a company's most important asset. Thus, human resource executives are tasked developing strategies that ensure employees contribute to the company's success. This is a difficult challenge, given that they must also increase efficiencies and reduce operational costs while administering a mountain of recordkeeping. The human resource departments are responsible for tasks such as recruiting and attraction capable employees; evaluating, creating and administering compensation and benefits programs; training and professional development of employees.

As was written above success of organisation depends on their employees. That's why organisations should as much as possible spend time and money on training and development of their employees which result in better they will perform their jobs qualitatively better.

The following paper focuses on training and development of employees in Great Britain. The paper begins with general description of the country. Further it describes the cultural dimensions which are inherent to Great Britain and have an influence on training activities in British organisations. The following chapter provides general information on changes at education system of Great Britain. Based on the facts given in survey report of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development are presented the basic effective training methods which are used today by British enterprises. It also showed distinctions the average spends for training per employee in private and public sectors. Subsequently I made analysis of weakness' sides of training and development in Great Britain. Especially will be compared differences training activities of executive and manual employee staffs.

2 DESCPRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY

Great Britain is a constitutionally monarchy with a unitary state, which consists of England, Scotland and Wales. The country is one of the leading trading power and financial center in Western Europe. The financial service such as banking, insurance and account compiles essential part of economy. Agriculture covers the food needs with only 2% of labor force. The United Kingdom is the largest manufacturer of armaments, technical and petroleum products in Europe (The World Factbook, 2005).

The population of Great Britain is related to the one of the largest in the European Union (after Germany and France). It compiles 59,8 million people, of which 17,7% children at 0-14 years, 66,5% people at 15-64% years and 15,8% 65 years old and over (National Statistics, 2005). Beside the Britons there are also another minority of nationalities such as Indians, Pakistanis and etc.

The population of Great Britain is estimated in the year 2004 the following:

Population Percent of total UK population

England 50, 093,100 86,2

Wales 2, 952,500 5,1

Scotland 5, 078,400 8,7

Great Britain 58, 124,000

TABLE 1: The population in the United Kingdom (National Statistics, 2005)

The statistic shows that the trend in the employment rate in the last years is flat and compiled 74,7% people of working age in the year 2005. Although the unemployment rate compare with other EU-countries is low, it may have started to rise. The unemployment rate was 4,9% in the year 2005. The number of unemployed people increased by 72,000 over the quarter, and by 97,000 over the year, to reach 1,49 Mio. To this group belong unemployed people especially at the age of 18-24.

The following graphic shows the changes of the employment and unemployment rates at the period of three months (August, September and October) from 2003 till the year 2005:

GRAPHIC 1: The employment and unemployment rates quarterly in 2003-2005

(National Statistics, 2005)

3 THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

Every nation has its own cultural backgrounds which are not always the same in each country. The distinction in cultural background can lead to misunderstood or conflicts specially in international organizations. A Dutch scientist Geert Hofstede has classified and compared cultural dimensions in 53 countries such as Power Distance (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) and Long-Term-Orientation (LTO) (Mathis, Jackson, 2000: 115-117).

FIGURE 1: World Average for Hofstede's Dimensions (Hofstede, 2005)

The world averages which are shown above correspond: 55-43-50-64-45

The dimension of Power Distance shows inequality among the people in country's society. The increase of Power Distance indicates a greater status and authority between superiors and subordinates. The lowest ranking dimension for Great Britain is Power Distance at 35, compared to the world average of 55. This indicates of a greater equality between social levels, including government, organizations, and even within families in Great Britain (Hofstede, 2005).

FIGURE 2: Cultural Dimensions of the United Kingdom (Hofstede, 2005)

In this research Great Britain was included in the group of countries with the highest Individualism