The human service industry has become a complex industry in which agencies must respond to the demands of the marketplace. To respond to these demands, agencies must develop and maintain their knowledge capital by offering an extensive array of learning opportunities related to their business goals. The corporate university, a contemporary…

Global technological and demographic changes have established the need for vocational training and labor force development. The problems begin in defining the type of training needed, its effectiveness, how to fund it, and how to ensure benefits for the trainee, the employer, the national economy, and society. Four pitfalls to training should be…

The nation's largest and most effective educational system is the job training provided by private business. Subsidies and financial aid for postsecondary education should be channeled directly to students and away from any particular institution. Workers should be encouraged to make their own decisions about their job training needs. (SLD)

Describes a survey of manufacturers in a midwestern state conducted to determine why businesses utilize postsecondary institutions for corporate training. Indicates that there was broader use of community colleges than of universities and that businesses used postsecondary education for emerging technology training, job training, personal…

Training and development professionals play a unique role in helping people improve their performance by using all aspects of the work environment to make those improvements occur. These professions are currently debating the existence of an integrated theoretical framework and how it might support practice in their field. Human performance…

The perceptions of 226 (of 262 contacted) industrial trainers in Tennessee were analyzed to identify the competencies needed by human resource specialists and to determine the competencies that need further development. Respondents were asked to provide various demographic data (including job title, formal education, military experience, amount of…

Very little is known about how companies make decisions about budgets for training. Previous research on employee training has focused on the impact of training on an individual's success in the labor market. Economists have also studied why employers are more likely to train certain persons than others. This study, on the other hand, uses a…

This volume is a resource for those who want to explore opportunities in training and development careers. Chapter 1 covers the evolution of training and the future of education at work. Chapter 2 considers trainers' roles; program design and development; needs assessment; development of program objectives; program content, training methods,…

A study examined employee training policies and their implementation in four or five large companies in five countries (Belgium, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). Data were gathered through interviews by an expert in each of the countries using an interviewer's guide developed for the project (resulting in approximately 30…

In Italy, all responsibility for vocational training has been delegated to the regions. At the regional level, three types of training are available: training for work, on-the-job training, and training under special state legislation. No obligation is placed on employers to train the work force. Most worker training is informal and conducted…

Presents the proposals to improve workforce preparation from the report "America's Choice": (1) require attainment of high national standards of educational performance; (2) create learning environment that ensures this attainment; (3) establish professional certifications for non-college bound persons; (4) have employers allocate 1 percent of…

German legislation contains provisions on both initial and further vocational training. Three types of continuing training are distinguished: retraining, updating training, and upgrading training. Industries contribute the largest share of funding and participants to continuing training. In-company continuing training differs greatly according to…

Three presentations are provided from Symposium 36, Knowledge Management, of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD) 2000 Conference Proceedings. "Corporate Knowledge Management and New Challenges for HRD" (Hunseok Oh) identifies new challenges for HRD: training and developing knowledge workers, developing managers and team…

Describes the Fund for Appalachian Industrial Retraining (FAIR) program, which has trained over 14,000 multiskilled workers in Appalachian manufacturing in the last four years. FAIR works with firms in 18 Appalachian Ohio counties, arranging onsite and offsite programs and providing matching funds for customized training. (SAS)

Profound changes in the economy and the labor market have an effect on the role of employer-sponsored training in preparing and educating the country's work force. On the demand side of the labor market, these changes include the increase in international trade, the changing economic status of the United States relative to its trading partners,…