The United States is experiencing dramatic shifts in the skills required of incumbent workers and new hires. While the recent low unemployment rate was generally good news, it also exacerbated a persistent skill shortage in the region's labor force that has been consistently reported by many employers. A McKinsey Global Survey indicates that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze a new research topic, national human resource development (NHRD) for neglected but critical components of economics foundation and accumulated international development research and practices. Design/methodology/approach: Through a targeted literature review on NHRD writing, major development…

Discusses the role of management in supporting employee training programs for performance improvement. How to identify training needs and develop a plan to support training are described. Promoting management involvement in training by linking training to the organizational plan and establishing an evaluation plan are discussed. (Contains two…

Describes a program through which employees were assigned to positions other than their own for job training purposes. The benefits of such a cross-training program, factors that should be considered prior to program planning, a model for effective implementation, and follow-up to promote retention of new job skills are covered. (KRN)

This paper draws on a telephone survey of 116 independent SMEs to explore the impact of a variety of training interventions on human resource (HR) practices and business performance in Great Britain. The paper investigates the extent to which targeting such interventions on the managers of SMEs affects the impact and the likelihood of changes in…

This book examines the effectiveness and distributive ramifications of the institutions of German skill provision as they functioned at home in the 1990s and as they served as a template for reform in other industrialized countries. The volume relies on multiple sources of data, including in-firm case studies, larger-scale surveys of companies,…

This article reviews recent policies and government initiatives that have aimed to improve the uptake of vocational qualifications amongst hard-to-reach groups in the working population. The Employer Training Pilots and the Sector Skills Pilots have been designed to trial new ways of engaging employers in training and encouraging the take-up of…

Multi-year applied research studied operations and outcomes of six employment initiatives that developed industry-based approaches to workforce development. Findings from the longitudinal survey of 732 individuals indicated participants in sectoral programs improved their position within local labor markets; increased wages, hours worked, and…

Ireland's Industrial Restructuring Training Programme (IRTP) was evaluated to determine its effectiveness as a vehicle for improving the managerial and supervisory skill levels of employees in existing enterprises. Data were collected from the following sources: review of all program-monitoring documents submitted since the IRTP's inception;…

A study examined the experiences of some 1.4 million American defense industry workers, displaced in the wake of the Cold War, as a way of reviewing and evaluating national policies toward worker adjustment and re-employment as they have evolved in the 1990s. The study found that the federal government, through the Department of Labor,…

Inter-firm cooperation has emerged as a key element of competitive business strategy. Firms improve mutual understanding of their complementary competencies and combine them in better ways; improve access to new markets and advanced technologies; and learn more fully and quickly from each other. Challenges of work force development (WFD) can be…

The current state of postsecondary education is reviewed for the following sectors: undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools; proprietary and vocational schools; corporate education and training; labor and union education programs; and the educational efforts of the federal government. Population trends and the effects of ethnicity,…

Ireland's program of specific skills training (SST) Objective 1 courses, which are designed to train/retrain the labor force required for implementation of Ireland's Industry and Services Operational Programme, was evaluated by analyzing program expenditure reports and participant profiles, surveying a random sample of 101 employers, and visiting…

A study examined approximately 130 projects that were conducted in New York between November 1980 and December 1983 as a part of the state's Short-Term Program for Economic Development. During the study, researchers interviewed representatives of the businesses, industries, unions, and educational institutions involved in the training programs in…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) examined private-sector workforce training practices for information technology (IT) and non-IT professionals. Data were collected from the following sources: a literature review; discussions with academic and professional authorities; interviews with executives and managers at leading companies regarding their…