Impact of training needs assessment on the performance of employees: Evidence from Bangladesh

Abstract The prime objective of this study was to assess the impact of training needs assessment (TNA) on the performance of the employees who were employed in the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh. Primary data were collected from the employees of the commercial department of two telecommunication companies. A total of 136 employees were selected using the Simple Random Sampling (SRS) technique. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique was applied to assess the impact of TNA on employees’ performance. This study showed that TNA played a positive role in improving employees’ performance.


Introduction
Training is a process that is a key to improve one's skills, attitudes, and knowledge, and it also helps build awareness on socio-economic aspects (Epstein & Yuthas, 2017;Hilton, Mahmud, Kabir, & Parvez, 2016;Kabir, Mahmud, Hassan, Hilton, & Islam, 2018;Khan & Masrek, 2017;Oppenheim & Weintraub, Kazi Tanvir Mahmud ABOUT THE AUTHORS Kazi Tanvir Mahmud is an Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He authored a good number of articles focusing on the issues of women empowerment, food security, agricultural training, and microfinance. He also worked as a Senior Researcher with the reputed NGOs and international research organization like BRAC and WorldFish. Ishraat Saira Wahid is a PhD student at the Institute of Management, University of Bolton, UK. She is an HR professional and an adjunct faculty at Business Adminstration Department, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her research interest includes Human Resource Management (HRM), training and development, and microfinance.
Ishtiaque Arif is an Assistant Professor, Southeast Business School (SBS), Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research mainly focuses on HRM, service quality, tourism, and microfinance.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Training is one of the effective tools for increasing employees' knowledge and skills; as a result, higher organizational performance can be achieved. However, training programs in developing countries have also become unsuccessful in bringing the desired outcomes owing to the failure in identifying the training needs of the employees. TNA is a process that assists the managers in explaining "what", when, "where", and "how" the training programs will be conducted for the employees. This study confirms that the performance of the employees serving in the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh has increased because of conducting TNA. This study also reveals that financial incentives and training have a vital role in improving employees' performance while excessive workload has an opposite impact on their performance. 2017; Walk, Zhang, & Littlepage, 2018). Training also plays a pivotal role in increasing profit, production, and rate of technology adoption (Gautam, Schreinemachers, Uddin, & Srinivasan, 2017;Nakano, Tanaka, & Otsuka, 2018;Schreinemachers, Wu, Uddin, Ahmad, & Hanson, 2016). Employees' skills can adequately be improved through training, which results in achieving better organizational and human resource outcomes (Aragon, Jimenez, & Valle, 2014;Carlisle, Bhanugopan, & Fish, 2011;Dessie & Ademe, 2017;Dhar, 2015;Oppenheim & Weintraub, 2017;Seidle, Fernandez, & Perry, 2016;Sung & Choi, 2014;Ubeda-Garcia, Marco-Lajara, Sabater-Sempere, & Garcia-Lillio, 2013). However, training programs are not flawless (Kataike et al., 2018). Training programs have also been criticized by some researchers for failure in bringing about the expected changes (Bharti, 2014;Horng & Lin, 2013;Iqbal, Malik, & Khan, 2012;Khan & Ali, 2014;Mahmud, Parvez, Hilton, Kabir, & Wahid, 2014a;Nazli, Sipon, & Radzi, 2014). The short duration of training program; selection of inappropriate trainees; failure to provide adequate financial support to the trainees; and lack of proper assessment of training needs have been identified as the major causes of such failure (Bharti, 2014;Denby, 2010;Khan & Ali, 2014;Mahmud et al., 2014a;Tao, Yeh, & Sun, 2006). In fact, the needs of the trainees should be analyzed critically to make the training programs effective (Hilton et al., 2016;Kataike et al., 2018;Mahmud et al., 2014a;Sahoo & Mishra, 2019). For example, in India, Lal, Sharma, Sharma, Sharma, and Singh (2012) observed that the beekeeping training program satisfied the trainees because of properly addressing the needs of the trainees. Undoubtedly, Training Needs Assessment (TNA) assists in selecting the right persons to impart the training programs (Khan & Masrek, 2017). Iqbal et al. (2012) reported that the appropriate training topics could be selected through the process of TNA. It is, generally, believed that the training managers should focus on the needs of the trainees before launching training program to lessen the failure risks.
TNA is an important step (which occurs at the initial planning stage) in the training and development process (Carlisle et al., 2011;Khan & Masrek, 2017;Tao et al., 2006). TNA is a strategic process that involves identifying the organizational goals, competency gathering and analyzing the information, determining the gaps between the current situation and the future requirement (Carlisle et al., 2011;Denby, 2010;Horng & Lin, 2013;Khan & Masrek, 2017;Priyadarshini & Dave, 2013). TNA is indeed a useful tool for the managers to design the training programs properly as it focuses on the actual needs of the employees. TNA helps explain where, when, how, and what types of training activities are given to the workers (Khan & Masrek, 2017).
Organizations have to emphasize conducting TNA for the best use of the training resources since such resources are limited to the organizations (Tao et al., 2006). The authors indicated that conducting TNA could play a vital role in improving the competitiveness of the organization. For example, in the Islamic Banking Sector (IBS), conducting TNA helped in deciding the training timeliness, determining the employee number needed to be trained and also identifying the availability of resources to conduct the training programs successfully (Mirza & Riaz, 2012). According to the authors, conducting TNA for an organization is an integral part of the performance analysis and job analysis. Iqbal et al. (2012) argued that in the context of Pakistan improvement in Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes (KSA) among the medical representatives would not be ever attainable unless their training needs were properly determined. In fact, training programs may not be consistent and fruitful in bringing desired outcomes without practicing TNA properly in the organization (Carlisle et al., 2011). It is generally believed that conducting TNA would be an effective strategy to make the training programs effective. However, fund crisis, lack of time, lack of human resource experts, and the unwillingness of the managers are considered major obstacles for conducting TNA. Carlisle et al. (2011) indicated that the practice of TNA in the organizations was still low in most of the countries because conducting TNA is timeconsuming and costly too. For example, in Pakistan, the managers are unwilling to do need assessment because they find it difficult and time-consuming; instead, they prefer to do the performance analysis (Iqbal et al., 2012).
It is noteworthy that employee performance can be influenced by various factors, which includes: (i) firm-related factors (e.g. training, management support, etc.); (ii) job-related factors (job autonomy, job communication, etc.); and (ii) employee-related factor (proactivity, adaptability, skills, commitment, etc.) (Diamantidis & Chatzoglou, 2019). Thus, there is no denial of the fact that employee's performance does not merely depend on TNA but it can also be influenced by the socioeconomic factors such as employee's age, educational status of the employee, types of training received by the employee, and employee's mobility. Undoubtedly, age is one of the important demographic factors, which is closely related to task contribution, monetary rewards, and satisfaction level of the employees (Kollmann, Stöckmann, Kensbock, & Peschl, 2019). Similarly, Bertolino, Truxillo, & Fraccaroli (2013) rightly reported that employee performance could be significantly influenced by the age factor. For example, employee's performance decreases with the increase in the age of employee (Saks & Waldman, 1998;Stripe, Trullen, & Bonachi, 2018). However, diversity in the age of the employees could create positive as well as negative impacts on their productivity (Meulenaere, Boone, & Buyl, 2016). According to some researchers, schooling is highly correlated with the performance of an employee and the increase in the level of educational status of the employee can play a vital role in enhancing his/her performance (NG & Feldman, 2009;Sluis, Praag, & Vijverberg, 2008). According to Campbell, Ganco, Franco, and Agarwal (2012), employee's mobility is one of the important factors which can influence the firm's performance. Mobility of an employee from one to another organization can also influence the performance of the former employees because of sharing knowledge gained from new organizations among his/her former colleagues due to strong social ties (Kim & Steensma, 2017). Similarly, moving an employee to a new organization can create opportunities for sharing the former employee's knowledge with his/her new colleagues (Kim & Steensma, 2017;Shipilov, Godart, & Clement, 2017).
Recently, in Bangladesh, some of the major telecommunication organizations have started practicing TNA with the expectation that TNA would have a positive impact on improving employees' performance. Thus, logically the question can be raised whether the practice of TNA increases employees' performance in the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh. It is important to note that studies have mainly been conducted to assess the impact of training programs on the employees' skills, productivity, and firm growth. However, in the telecommunication sector of Bangladesh, the study on the association between TNA and the employees' performance is less documented. In this study, an effort has been made to assess the impact of TNA on the employees' performance in the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh.

Telecommunication sector of Bangladesh
Bangladesh is one of the developing countries with a population of about 163.7 million (Ministry of Finance, 2019). Telecommunication is one of the emerging sectors in Bangladesh which plays a significant role in the economic development of the country (Ministry of Finance, 2019). In the fiscal year 2016-17, the sectoral share of GDP by post and telecommunication sector was estimated at 2.61%, and the growth rate was 6.9% (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2018).
Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), a telecommunication organization, operated by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), earned revenue of about 12,600 million BDT (currency of Bangladesh) in the fiscal year 2017-18. In Bangladesh, the number of mobile phone users has increased dramatically (Ministry of Finance, 2019). For example, in 2018, the total number of mobile phone users was estimated at about 157.0 million while it was 126.4 million in 2016 (Ministry of Finance, 2019). Undoubtedly, the growth of this sector largely depends on providing better services to the clients. Thus, providing training to the employees is a key strategy adopted by the telecom operators to improve the employees' skills and cliental services.

Conceptual framework
The performance of a person or an organization depends on the set of socioeconomic factors ( Figure 1). The performance level of an employee can be influenced by the employee's selfmotivation, his/her characteristics, and types of tasks performed by the employee, and finally by the organizational policies and structures. Thus, socioeconomic factors such as educational status, job experience, training, TNA, financial incentives, working hours, and mobility of the employee should be critically analyzed in assessing the performance of an employee (Figure 1).
TNA plays a significant role in designing effective planning and implementation of the training programs (Carlisle et al., 2011;Horng & Lin, 2013;Khan & Masrek, 2017). It focuses on the organizational analysis, task analysis, and individual analysis (Horng & Lin, 2013;Khan and Masrek, 2017;Sahoo & Mishra, 2019). As a result, TNA can play a vital role in motivating the employees by identifying their actual training needs which ultimately leads to higher performance. Thus, it can be hypothesized that: H1: TNA has a positive impact on the employee's performance Training can be considered as one of the important factors which is correlated to the performance of an employee. According to Hilton et al. (2016) a trained person is more capable than an untrained person in terms of risk management, negotiation, and decision-making. Based on the above arguments, a hypothesis can be drawn as: H2: Training is positively related to the employee's performance Education is closely related to one's knowledge, skills, and analytical power (Habiba, Shaw, & Takeuchi, 2012;Hilton et al., 2016;Mahmud et al., 2014a). Undoubtedly, an educated person performs better than a person with a poor educational background (Hilton et al., 2016;Mahmud & Hilton, 2019). A person can acquire knowledge properly through schooling. Based on these arguments, a hypothesis can be drawn as: It is argued by some researchers that an employee's performance is influenced by the employee's job experience (Chen, Dai, Kong, & Tan, 2017;Uppal, Mishra, & Vohra, 2014). In fact, job experience assists an employee in understanding the nature of the job properly and also enables the employee to take appropriate actions reducing the chances of failure in performing the tasks. Beus, Jarrett, Taylor, and Wiese (2014) reported that a new employee who had more job experience performed better as compared to a new employee with less working experience. Undoubtedly, an experienced employee is much ahead of handling the problematic situation efficiently than an employee with less job experience. Based on these arguments, a hypothesis can be drawn as: H4: An employee's experience has a positive impact on the employee's performance An employee's performance is also influenced by the financial benefits (e.g. salary, wage, bonus, etc.) received by the employee (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2013;Nyberg, Pieper, & Trevor, 2016). An employee who enjoys higher financial benefits is self-motivated and becomes more sincere in performing the tasks than an employee having less financial benefits. Based on these arguments, a hypothesis can be drawn as: H5: Financial incentives to the employee enhance the employee's performance Networking and mobility play a vital role in accessing resources, services and gaining knowledge (Hilton et al., 2016), which ultimately improve the performance level of a person. Based on the above arguments, a hypothesis can be drawn as: H6: Mobility of the employee is positively correlated with the employee's performance 4. Methods

Target group
Full-time employees of the commercial department of telecommunication companies in Bangladesh were the target groups for this study.

Time of data collection
Survey was conducted on the employees from January 2018 to February 2018.

Data collection
Primacy data were collected from the employees of the two major telecommunication companies (out of six) in Bangladesh which were conducting the TNA on a regular basis from their inception. Data were collected from the employees through a questionnaire. Employees were mainly asked to provide information on the following issues: (i) demographic status, (ii) economic condition (e.g. salary, bonus), (iii) working condition (experience, working hour, and awareness of human resource policy), (iv) training activities (e.g. types of trainings, training module, training center, and problem encountered in training), and (iv) opinions of the employees on the TNA.

Sampling technique
At first, the researcher has collected the lists of employees from the commercial department consisting of: (i) customer care unit, and (ii) sale and marketing unit in both the organizations. Based on these two lists, a comprehensive list of 175 employees was prepared. Three criteria were set to select the sample for this study, which were: (i) employees who worked with the commercial department, (ii) full-timeemployees, and (iii) part-time employees who worked with the commertial department in 2017. Simple Random Sampling (SRS) technique was used because of having a comprehensive list of the employees. Afterwards, from this comprehensive list, 136 employees were selected as the sample for this study using SRS technique. The sample size was determined using the online survey calculator known as "survey system" conceiving of 4% error at 95% confidence level.

Analytical techniques
As mentioned earlier, this study mainly focuses on the performance of the employees. Thus, at first, using the "Likert scale" an employee's "index of performance score" was developed. Employees from both the organizations provided their opinions on five indicators of performance improvements, which were: (i) planning capacity, (ii) market analysis capacity, (iii) decision-making capacity, (iv) technological skills, and (v) and report-writing skills. Employees were given 5, 4, 3, 2, and -1 point for much improved, improved reasonably, not much improved, same as before, and performance decreased, respectively, for each of the performance statements. Therefore, the overall performance score for each employee lied within the range of -5 points to 25 points.
Regression analysis was widely used by the researchers to assess the magnitude of the impact of the independent variables on the dependant variable (Du, Zhang, & Tekleab, 2018;Hilton et al., 2016;Mahmud et al., 2014a;Saqib, Kuwornu, Panezia, & Ali, 2018). In fact, regression analysis such as Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Weighted Least Square (WLS) techniques were used by the researchers for measuring the impact of independent variables on the dependent variable (Absar, Nimalathasan, & Mahmood, 2012;Hilton et al., 2016;Mahmud, Hassan, Alam, Sohag, & Rafiq, 2014b;Saqib et al., 2018). For example, Hilton et al. (2016) used the OLS technique to assess the impact of training on the household expenditure of women borrowers in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, Mahmud et al. (2014a) used the OLS technique to measure the impact of training on the household incomes of the microcredit borrowers.
As it was mentioned earlier, the prime goal of this study is to assess the impact of TNA on the employee's performance. It is important to note that the employee's performance not only depends on a single factor like TNA but also depends on other socioeconomic factors. Therefore, the OLS technique was used in this study to explore the influencing factors on the dependent variable "Employee's Performance Score". Eight socioeconomic variables were used in this study, which were: job experience of the employee, number of part-time employee in the organization, financial incentives received by the employee, training, schooling of the employee, working hours, number of the TNA conducted by the organization, and visit to other telecommunication organizations by the employee.
It is important to note that heteroscedasticity is a serious problem if it arises. Therefore, the Breusch-Pagan-Godfrey (BPG) test was also conducted for detecting the heterosedasticity problem. In this case, heterosedasticity was detected which was solved by using White's method. The problem of heteroscedasticity can be solved in the following ways: (i) Weighted Least Square (WLS) method, and (ii) White's method (Asteriou & Hall, 2007;Mahmud et al., 2014b). The specific model can be written as: P ¼ β 0 þβ 1 X 1 þβ 2 X 2 þβ 3 X 3 þβ 4 X 4 þβ 5 X 5 þβ 6 X 6 þβ 7 X 7 þβ 8 X 8 þ μ (1) where P = Performance score of the employee (point) X 1 = Job experience of the employee (year) X 2 = Work as a part-time employee in the organization in 2017 (number) X 3 = Financial incentives received by the employee from 2015 to 2017 (dummy: yes = 1; no = 0) X 4 = On-the-job training received by the employee from 2015 to 2017 (number) X 5 = Years of schooling of the employee (number) X 6 = Total working hours per week (hours) X 7 = TNA conducted in the organization from 2015 to 2017 (number) X 8 = Visit to other telecommunication organizations by the employee in 2017 (number) β 0 = Constant of the equation one βi = Coefficient to be estimated μ = Error term of the equation one

Profiles of the respondents
In this study, it was observed that employees working in the telecommunication industries were young. This study showed that the mean age of the employee was 32.4 years ( Table 1). The educational background of the employees under this study was also quite sound. In Bangladesh, private organizations put emphasis on hiring a person who has a sound educational background because of providing quality services to their clients and sustaining in the highly competitive market. As it can be seen from Table 1, a majority of the employees (55.15%) under this study had their master's degree followed by bachelor's degree (44.85%). In fact, patriarchal norms still persists in the societies of Bangladesh. As a result, female participation in the labor market is still much lower than their male counterpart. Similarly, this study also revealed that women's participation in the telecommunication industries was unsatisfactory. It was observed that the percentage of male employees was (76.47%) while it was 23.53% for the females (Table 1). Since the telecommunication organizations prefer to hire young people, therefore, these organizations suffer from having experienced employees. Employees under this study are not exceptional to it. As it can be seen from Table 1, a majority of the employees (56.62%) had job experience within the rage of less than 1 year to 3 years followed by above 3 years to 5 years (36.03%) and above 5 years (7.35%). It was reported in this study that the average job experience of the employee was only 2.5 years (Table 1). It was observed in this study that employees had to work for a long time. This study showed that on an average, an employee worked more than 9 hours per day ( Table 1). The telecommunication organizations organized several training programs for their employees to improve their silks. In this study, it was found that employees' received a good number of training from their organizations. On an average, an employee received 2.7 number of training from the period of 2015 to 2017 (Table 1). Providing bonuses to the employees can be considered one of the motivating factors for the employee's performance. This study showed that the number of bonus per employees was 2.3 from the period of 2015 to 2017 (Table 1).

Results
In this study, OLS estimation confirmed that, out of eight independent variables, four variables were significantly related to the dependent variable "Employee's Performance Score" ( Table 2). The significant variables were: (i) training, (ii) TNA, (iii) financial incentives, and (iv) work load. Training, TNA, and financial incentives had a positive impact on the employee's performance score while working hour was negatively related to the employee's performance score ( Table 2). The estimated coefficient (β) for training, financial incentive, working hour, and TNA were found to be 1.56, 1.87, −7.59, and 1.25, respectively (Table 2).
It is important to check the internal consistency of the data collected through the questionnaire for the reliability. Therefore, Cronbach's alpha (α) test is widely conducted by the researchers (Wahid & Hyams-Ssekasi, 2018). The value of Cronbach's alpha (α) needs to be greater than 0.7 which confirms that internal consistency is maintained (Wahid & Hyams-Ssekasi, 2018). In this study, the value of Cronbach's alpha (α) was 0.72 which confirmed the acceptance of internal consistency of the dataset.

Discussion
In the existing organizational setting of Bangladesh, employees usually have a low level of skills that lead them to perform poorly on their assigned activities because of receiving inadequate training. It is indicated by the researchers that training is an important factor that can help to improve individual skills in terms of decision-making, negotiation and risk-management capacity, and raising awareness (Hilton et al., 2016;Kabir et al., 2018;Mahmud et al., 2014a). Human Resource Management (HRM) theory also indicates that training is a field concerned with organizational activity aimed at enhancing an employee's performance in an organization (Dessler & Varkkey, 2011). Therefore, training was mainly provided to the employees by the telecommunication organizations focusing on marketing, managerial, and technical aspects. It is expected that providing training facilities to employees will improve the employees' performance. This study confirmed that training was significantly and positively related to the dependent variable "Employee's Performance Score". It indicates that an employee's performance increases as the number of trainings received by the employee increases. Similarly, Dhar (2015) observed that training played a positive role in improving the performance level of the hotel employees in India in rendering their services to the tourists.  TNA determines the needs of the training and also the current performance level on the specific activity (Cekada, 2010;Khan & Masrek, 2017). Systematic TNA enables an organization to promote the training process and provides information that can be used for organizational purposes, and it also reduces unnecessary spending on inappropriate training programs (Carlisle et al., 2011;Cekada, 2010;Khan & Masrek, 2017). According to some researchers, TNA can also play a role in increasing the productivity of the organizations (Carlisle et al., 2011;Cekada, 2010). It is hypothesized that because of the TNA practice, the performance of the employees will be enhanced, and it will also fulfill their organizational objectives. This study showed that the TNA was positively and significantly related to the dependent variable "Employee's Performance Score". It indicates that the employee's performance score will increase if the practice of TNA increases in the organization (Table 2).
Social Exchange Theory (SET) established by Blau (1964) states that an employee feels motivated to perform in achieving the organizational goals if he or she receives incentives from the organization. The probability for an employee will be higher to leave the organization if he or she becomes dissatisfied with the rewards received from the organization (Gieter & Hofmans, 2015). Evidence also suggests that financial incentives or rewards (both intrinsic and extrinsic) can play a positive role in motivating employees, which ultimately assists them in achieving a higher level of performance (Garbers & Konradt, 2014;Kim, Hur, Moon, & Jun, 2017;Lee & Raschke, 2016;Shaw & Gupta, 2015). Therefore, employees should be provided with financial incentives (e.g. festival bonus and performance incentive) by the organizations. It is hypothesized that providing financial incentives would increase the performance of the employee. It is found in this study that the number of incentives received by the employee was positively and significantly related to the dependent variable (Table 2). It indicates that an employee's performance will increase if the employee receives more financial incentives from the organization.
Excessive work load can be considered one of the major causes of feeling job stress by the employees. Job stress can create severe negative impacts (physical and physiological stress) on the employees, resulting in a low level of performance in performing assigned jobs (Du et al., 2018;Hirokawa et al., 2016). Hoboubi, Choobineh, Ghanavati, Keshavarzi, and Hosseini (2017) also indicated that the employee's job dissatisfaction increased as the work stress increased. It can be assumed that due to excessive work load, the employees' working hours increase which, in turn, can cause an adverse impact on the employees' performance. In fact, many employees in Bangladesh have to work more than eight hours per day, which might be because of the shortage of skilled workers, weakness in the implementation of labor laws, employee's unawareness of the human resource polices of the organization, and the employees' fear of losing existing jobs. This study showed that working-hours per week were significantly and negatively related to the dependent variable (Table 2). It indicates that an employee's performance will decrease if his or her work load increases.

Conclusion and implications
The study focuses on assessing the impact of TNA on the employee's performance. This study confirms that conducting TNA in the organization played a significant role in improving the performance of the employees as expected. Moreover, providing financial incentives and training had appeared as two key factors that had a positive impact on the employee's performance. This study also showed that excessive work load on the employees negatively impacted on their performance. The policy-makers should focus on the following aspects to improve the employees' performance: Emphasis should be given to conducting TNA in the organization on a regular basis. It needs to be carried out by a team of experienced Human Resource (HR) personnel who have vast knowledge about the culture and the policies relating to the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh. Prior to conducting TNA, it is also important to make the employees aware of the importance of TNA so that necessary information can be collected from them with a high level of accuracy. To conduct TNA, steps should be taken in a way that it will not create any excessive pressure on the employees. Adequate time needs to be provided to the employees to obtain judicious or meaningful answers to the required questions in the TNA. Emphasis should also be given to continuing the flow of fund for conducting TNA.
Necessary steps should be taken to provide adequate training to the employees as per the need and nature of the job. Training programs should be linked with the employees' promotions so that the training will help the employees to be motivated, which results in high performance. It is important to provide updated training materials to the employees free of cost or with a nominal charge. It is also important to select a training center in a way so that the employees can have easy and frequent access to the center. Necessary steps need to be taken to ensure that the training center is well equipped with modern technologies. Several necessary monitoring systems need to be developed to select suitable employees to participate in the training as per the requirement of the specific training program without any nepotism, corruption, and discrimination in terms of gender, race or locality. Flexible timing should be offered to impart the training programs so that employees can participate in the training programs without hampering their assigned work. Steps should also be taken to follow-up on the performance of the employees who received training through a structured format. An adequate amount of training allowances should be given to the employees to motivate them to participate in the future training programs. Training programs should have a mechanism to calculate Return on Investment (ROI).
Necessary steps should also be taken to ensure providing both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to the employees for their outstanding performance with a view to motivating them to keep up their higher performance. Salary, bonuses, and other financial allowances need to be raised regularly in time after the critical analysis of the performance of each employee.
It is important to ensure that the employees are not over-burdened with excessive work load. Suitable part-time employees can be hired to reduce the excessive work loads of full-time employees. Encouraging the employees to use modern technologies and equipments would be helpful in reducing the excessive work load on the employees. Moreover, work needs to be specifically distributed among the employees as per the Human Resource Management (HRM) policies of the organization. Strengthening the spirit of teamwork (developing trust, interpersonal communication, etc.) should be one of the fruitful strategies to reduce the work load pressure of the employees.