To what extent can we attribute high individual performance to employee training, learning and development.

To what extent can we attribute high individual performance to employee training, learning and development.

Modern organizations are faced with dynamic pressures such as changing technologies, global competition, and organizational restructuring. Such demands require workers to be adaptable and demonstrate the capacity to quickly learn. To address these issues, researchers and practitioners in industrial/organizational psychology and related fields have sought to define, measure, and build interventions around the psychological concepts of trainability and adaptability. Trainability can be generally defined as the capacity to learn and be trained, and adaptability can be thought of as an effective response or change to meet demands of the environment, an event, or a new situation. Both trainability and adaptability can be considered from two different perspectives. First, we can consider how trainability and adaptability can be behaviorally manifested and measured in terms of demonstrated task or job performance. Second, we can investigate the underlying characteristics of people, such as their abilities, personality, and motivation, that make them more or less trainable or adaptable.

TRAINABILITY, ADAPTABILITY, AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

In terms of behavioral or observed evidence of trainability, trainability has been measured via the use of work samples. A work sample is a simulation of actual training or job content in which individuals are assessed in terms of their ability to effectively perform a given set of tasks. As an example, consider a work sample in which candidates for a construction job have to learn via a short course how to interpret a specific type of blueprint or construction plan and then demonstrate use of this knowledge during an actual construction task. There is convincing research evidence that individuals who can perform well on a representative sample of training will improve more during an actual, full-scale training program. Thus, an individual's ability to acquire knowledge and learn job tasks can be observed and measured to some extent directly.

When looking at adaptability, initial research evidence suggests that various types (or dimensions) of adaptive performance can be identified, including (a) solving problems creatively, (b) dealing with uncertain or unpredictable work situations, (c) learning new tasks, technologies, and procedures, (d) demonstrating interpersonal adaptability, (e) demonstrating cultural adaptability, (f) demonstrating physical adaptability, (g) handling work stress, and (h) handling emergencies or crisis situations. Furthermore, researchers have demonstrated that such dimensions of adaptive performance can be measured directly by using behavioral scales that tell observers what to look for on the job to ascertain whether someone is performing adaptively. In addition, it may be possible to measure adaptive performance using the same type of work samples and simulations mentioned for measuring trainability.

TRAINABILITY, ADAPTABILITY, AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Although the concepts of trainability and adaptability can be measured in terms of observed task or job performance, as discussed previously, a more fundamental question is, What are the underlying characteristics of people—the individual differences—that enable some individuals to train or adapt more quickly or more effectively? Although these are still active areas of research, ...