These have resulted in redefining of emerging job requirements in terms of skills, competencies, qualifications and trainings which are important in ascertaining and valuing of the future needs of human resources. The business, the employees, the organisations and the society as a whole are moving towards being knowledge driven communities.

It is no more the physical assets or the financial muscle, that decides the strength and the future of the organisations, but it is the people of the organisation, who will take it to new heights. Today Human Resources are recognised as the most valued assets not only in the fast growing Information Technology companies but also of most others.

In this context Training as a tool to enhance productivity and effectiveness of the employees has acquired greater importance. The traditional way of having an effective training policy in place was to link it with organisation's business plan and to relate to the present and future job requirements of employees as determined by the management (with or without consultation with the concerned employees). The idea was to promote/build competencies, specific to organisational needs to meet its long/medium term strategies, by imparting knowledge and skills, to perform tasks effectively.

Since upgradation of skills and knowledge has direct relevance to performance, training policy till date was desired to have linkages with other HR systems, policies like performance appraisal, career planning, rewards and promotion as decided by the management.

Training policy also included various types of training requirements within the organisation, like for e.g.: on the job training, induction training, training for upgradation of functional/managerial skills, training for specific assignments, etc and organisations rationalize the methods of imparting these trainings.

Hitherto, the training needs assessment was mostly done by the reporting officers sometimes in consultation with the subordinate and sometimes with out. There were situations when employees perceive that they are sponsored for training to escape from the rigmarole of daily work as a paid holiday, or as an appeasement to a selected few who are generally termed as 'Blue eyed boys'. It is also generally observed across organisations, that a handful of employees are expected to do all the work, while the privileged few usually get the opportunities for training.

When time comes to decide on promotions (which are ostensibly termed as merit based), those who do most of the work and therefore were not available/recommended for training get lost because, in management's view they are inadequately equipped in terms of skills and competencies to hold higher responsibilities and those who enjoyed 'trainings' are favoured for top positions because of their skills and competencies. It is often not tested if

those trained to acquire additional skills and competencies can translate those at real life situations at the work place.

Training need identification is usually done by the employee expressing his needs, his reporting officer suggesting such needs (often as perceived by him), the HRD Manager recommending the needs based on data available and most often this is done by mutual discussions by all the three.

Ideally, if the organisation has a comprehensive and effective training policy and training need identification process, conflicts between individual training needs and corporate training requirements should not arise. If this happens, one should logically deduce that the process of training needs identification does not take individual needs into account. In the current context of Globalisation and the kind of changes we are likely to be impacted with it is inevitable to mutually identify the specific training requirements based on the individual needs as also the overall training needs of the organisation.

In the current Indian business environment, organisations can be divided broadly into two clear categories.

a) The high growth/high returns/high uncertainty organisations. Information Technology, biotechnology, Entertainment industry, Media, Fashion, R&D focussed Pharma industry etc.

b) The mature/stable returns/predictable organisations. Most of the manufacturing and most service organisations come under this category.

Category (a) organisations :

Most of the (a) category companies have either short life spans and or relatively young upstart and highly skilled employees. Technology, life style, innovation, and idea to market cycle, play a critical role in their success. Given the high level of obsolescence of such organisations/individuals, and as is the order of the day, those organisations themselves may not predict their future appropriately. If that be so such organisations cannot and will not take the responsibility to meet employee-training needs as their sole responsibility. Of course in most of these organisations employees are either consultants/part timers/free lancers. Nevertheless they are part of the network and critical for the growth/survival of the organisation and the self. Hence these employees have an interest in renewing their skills. By partnering with employees the organisations facilitate mutual success/achievements.

Category (b) organisations :

The characteristics of these organisations are:

i) Reliance on mechanical and electrical engineering in manufacturing, this means a small number of skilled employees and a large number of semi skilled employees and in some cases unskilled employees.

ii) Markets and customers are largely defined. This gives a sense of certainty to the organizational structure and the skills required. Training needs can be defined and enforced mostly to achieve organisational goals. Employees of these organisations do not have too much of a choice as their transfer value is not high enough.

Even these (ii) type organisations are undergoing a change or are likely to go through change in the current context of Globalisation with the advent of computers in manufacturing/design/linking with vendors/customization/e-commerce/online interaction, information network, on slaught of internet and what not. The current stableness of these organisations thus is likely to go through a flux.

Given this scenario individual employees cannot leave their development needs entirely in the hands of their organisations. The perception of the extent of change taking place and the situations into which they (organisations as well as employees)are likely to land are bound to differ. Individual employees need to perceive what could happen to their job in the context of macro changes and the increase in the inflow of young professionals, fresh with latest knowledge about gadgets/tools and concepts. So the archaic training policy linking training needs with performance appraisal, mentoring & counseling, and its consequent use to decide on rewards (like promotions,etc) will have no relevance.

Organisations today cannot look beyond their strategy/competencies and customers. As employees skills are transferable as their aspirations could be beyond their normal career path like for e.g.an Accountant wanting to be in the area Information Technology-Management Information Systems ). It is important that employees look at Training and Development as their primary responsibility with organisation playing a secondary role.

In their own interest employees cannot afford to wait for the organisation to take initiative for their development, as development will now onwards will be more of a need for employee survival than for organisational existence. Each individual employees' job profile itself is changing. For e.g. lets' see how a HR Managers' job profile will change. With more and more reliance on internet, in future line managers can, on their own, identify HRD vendors, spot training service providers, compare organizational structures, conduct recruitment by putting their requirements on the organisations' web sites, or by accessing on line databases from placement sites. The coordinating component of Personnel Management/Administration will become non-existent. If as HR Manager you realize this, you will invest on your self in acquiring skills in such HR areas where line managers can not replicate your skills. Like for e.g.: Creating a web site

providing a plethora of HR services on line, creating and managing Human Resources Information Systems and managing it to provide accurate and timely information for decision making by management,specializing in conducting training related to enhancing motivation, culture building, creating and spreading organisation's philosophy and values among the employees, designing, conducting and analyzing various HRD surveys etc.

If you expect your organisation to provide / equip you, it will depend on the organisations' priorities, plans, organisations' training strategy, budgets, availability of time to spare you from the daily grind etc. So there is no alternative except, employees themselves realize and analyze their market potential, obsolescence factor, amount of value creation/addition they do to their jobs, etc. They themselves should be responsible for their career development and future growth.

Otherwise let's see what will happen? If you are not one to quickly grasp the inevitable changes and learn to adapt yourself, along with others like you will collectively contribute to the organisation's death, and in the process you also lose job.

This is the primary reason why we see in today's' world, huge differences in the emoluments which different people are getting being in the same profession.

Every individual employee must invest on his development, in the same manner as he invests his hard-earned savings in appropriate investments, health, children etc to update his skills and to ensure that he remains employable. To enable individual employees to enhance their skills, some organisations give Professional Development Allowance, in addition to training, so that they will able to meet the expenditure on the upgradation of skills. Unless individual employees make such investments for the purpose for which it is given they won't be doing justice to themselves.

Normally skill/competency upgradation can be fulfilled through 80% on job learning/job rotation etc and 20% through formal/structured training. In regard to behavioural areas it is very likely that non-training solutions may be of greater help. The organisations' structure, strategy, culture, value systems and philosophy will have impact on employees' behaviour and performance and employees therefore must choose to be with organisations whose values and philosophy match with their own.