Assessment Practices and Challenges of Training and Development at the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute(ETIDI)

Abstract

Employees are considered as the key determinants of the success of an organization that shall have different training and development so as to cope up with the fast-changing business world. Training and development programs are essential for every organization for its long term planning that requires careful preparation if they are to be successful and help to achieve its objectives in time and enhance the knowledge, skills, and competencies of its workforce. The overall objective of this study is to assess the practices and challenges of training and development at the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute(ETIDI). The study adopted a mixed approach and used both primary and secondary data sources. The primary data collected from ETIDI through self-administered questionnaire for 116 selected operating employees and middle-level managers using a purposive sampling method to make sure that they have gone through the training program or understand the training and development program in the institute and semi-structured interview question employed for top managers(directors and deputy directors and training coordinator) through interview. The collected data were analyzed by using statistical tools (SPSS-Version 22). Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the data analysis. The descriptive statistics such as frequency and percent were used for describing the demographic characteristics of respondents and the dependent and independent variables. Qualitative data obtained through interviews were analyzed using content analysis. Inferential statistics like Pearson correlation coefficient(r) and multiple linear regression were used to determine if there is a relationship existed between independent and dependent variables. The study shows that 62.5% of the variation in the dependent variable was explained by independent variables. The findings also indicated that the relationship between the dependent variable was positively correlated and claimed to be a statistically significant relationship with the independent variables. The findings of the study indicated that there is no series of attention to allocate enough time, sufficient budget and resource for the training and development; in ETIDI there is no SMART manual and instrument of need assessment; training and development need assessment is not prepared by considering the need of prospective trainees; the organized training by the Institute is for the sake of refreshment or to collect allowance with less attention to the outcome of the training; training and development objectives are not set in advance; training and development program of the organization is not designed in line with the actual job to be performed and training and development program not followed by a reward. Hence, the researcher recommended that the management of the institute, the board, and other stakeholders should define an appropriate training and development policy and programs that bring or capacitate the organization as well as the employee, Staff in the institute should be helped to grow into more responsibility by systematic training and development rather than consider it training as means to make themselves free from staff routine and receive allowance without considering the objective and benefits of training for themselves and for their institute so that they will be confident enough to carry out the responsibility of the job and the management of the institute, the board, and other concerned bodies should come up with training and development practices and policies for their ETIDI because they are the strategic link between the institute’s vision and its day-to-day operations. Keywords : SMART manual, training and development, reward DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/68-02 Publication date: September 30 th 2020