Future Training: A Roadmap for Restructuring the Training Function

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0963582216 ISBN 13: 9780963582218

Publisher: AddVantage Learning Press, 1995

Examine the future challenging role of corporate training and development- from a top management perspective. Transform the training department into a credible source of sustainable competitive advantage. Capitalize on the untapped potential to leverage the human capital investment.

About the Author:

James S. Pepitone is the retired Chairman and CEO of PEPITONE BERKSHIRE PIAGET Worldwide, an international management consulting firm. He specializes in performance improvement of human-dependent business operations and is considered a pioneer in the whole-system design of human work and organizations. Jim continues to consult, teach, research, and write.

Review:

The audiences for this book are Training Managers and Training Practitioners. The purpose of Future Training is to put many of the theories, concepts, and practices used to explain work-related aspects of human behavior, learning, performance, and productivity into perspective. This book "offers managers and practitioners a somewhat more integrative alternative that takes up the full complexity of this subject and provides the reader with a guide for better understanding and for taking appropriate action through both a descriptive and prescriptive approach" (p. 14).

Future Training fulfills its purpose. The organization of the book is excellent. Pepitone convincingly lead the reader, almost inductively, to understand and embrace his ideas.

The book is divide into four parts. Part One provides a historic perspective on Training from the perspective of economic analysis. Part Two outlines a path for moving the training function "back to its roots,"-the goal of improving human performance. Part Three introduces a process for integrating the scientific knowledge that can be accessed to improve human behavior, learning, performance, and productivity to develop interventions that maximize the human component of business performance. Part Four focuses on transforming the training function into a source of competitive advantage.

Pepitone concludes his book with a chapter on consulting. Moving training back to its original purpose of improving performance will give training professionals more status when it demonstrate the value it adds to the company. Then trainers will be in a position to become consultants to the customers they serve and their customers will come to them to help determine direction. Becoming and remaining connected to the total organization is both the means and the end for the training function attempting to demonstrate value. The main benefit will be the mutual respect between the training function and its customers that comes from mutual understanding of what each does and contributes. (William W. Lee, EDS, Performance Improvement Quarterly) -- William W. Lee, EDS, Performance Improvement Quarterly