Author: Lau, Kwai-sheung Bertha
Title: The roles and skills of training professionals in Hong Kong : the competency programme for the 21st century
Degree: M.Sc.
Year: 2001
Subject: Professional employees -- Training of -- China -- Hong Kong
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Multi-disciplinary Studies
Department of Management
Pages: xi, 132 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm
Language: English
Abstract: No matter how technology advanced in the past century and will further advance in the 21 st century, there is a shared view that people's quality is the key to organization's competitiveness and continued success. By comparing Kirkbride and Tang (1989) and Cheung (1998), it was found that the resources devoted to training are increasing in the past decade. Companies are beginning to realize the importance of training contributed to their organizations. At the same time, the influences of technology, organizational and economic situation affect the roles of training professionals in Hong Kong. However, there is no extensive study on the changing roles of training professionals in Hong Kong as well as the required set of competencies for training professionals. The main objective of this research is to study what contributed to the changing roles of the training professionals and what are their present roles in Hong Kong. Moreover, by identifying their changing roles in the new century, the relevant core competencies nowadays for the training professionals will be redefined and finally, I shall come up with a proposed Train-the-trainer course for training professionals in Hong Kong in view of their changing roles and the required redefined competencies. Qualitative study (in the form of interviews with training managers) was used to gather in-depth information on some of the companies which have won the "Award of Excellence in Training" organized by the Hong Kong Management Association in the past few years. Subsequently, questionnaires were designed and sent to the training professionals of various companies in Hong Kong. It was the quantitative part of this research. Finally, quantitative research techniques were used to test the data collected. From the results of the qualitative and quantitative studies, several points are worth noting. First, the most important resource for the trainers is within their organizations and the resources provided by the universities and other external resources or consultants are considered as not much useful. This situation is very logical as the courses offered by universities and the external consultants are not targeted or tailored for staff development purposes in the organizations. Thus, training professionals need to possess a set of competencies themselves and further mobilize resources within their organizations for the training activities. Second, the major challenges for the training professionals are the increasing workload and the use of information technology. For the organizations, it prompts the need to re-organize the work of the trainers. For the trainers, they also need to increase their knowledge in applying information technology to training delivery and other related training services in order to suit their work needs and address the organizational changes. Third, the most important competency for training professionals is the interpersonal competency. This finding is consistent with the job nature of the trainers. Trainers need to interact with trainees and other people in the organizations frequently. Therefore, good interpersonal skill is a must in order to be a competent training professional.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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