According to Asare-Bediako (2002) employees must be trained, and where possible developed to meet their own career needs and the need of the organization. Training is job or task-oriented. It aims at enabling individuals to perform better on the jobs they are currently doing. Development on the other hand, is career oriented rather than job-oriented. It aims at preparing people for higher responsibilities in the future (Asare-Bediako, 2002). Organizations must therefore have the responsibility to develop and implement training and development systems and programmes that best help them to achieve their objectives.
Noe et al. (2000) viewed training generally as a planed effort by a company to facilitate employees learning of the job-related competencies. These competencies include knowledge, skill, or behaviours that are critical for successful job performance. Whilst some human resource professionals consider training and development an after recruitment programme, Asare-Bediako (2002) believes that it must be incorporated into orientation programmes for newly recruited staff. According to him, the training and development (T&D) unit should explain to new employees what training and development means and what programmes and facilities are available to employees. At this stage, training and development explains internal training programmes available and how they could participate. T&D should emphasize the area of corporate culture. As the unit changed with facilitating change and maintaining the organization’s culture, training and development should reinforce the importance of training and development through continuous efforts such as frequent reminders, meeting, etc.
Writing on the typical reasons for employee T&D, McNamara (2008) stated that T&D can be initiated for a variety of reasons for an employee or group of employees including: