A Study of Training as a Strategy for a Sustainable Future in Jewellery Industry
Dr. Tanvi Thakkar
Assistant Professor
Welingkar Institute of Management
Development & Research
Email: tanvi.k.thakkar@welingkar.org
Dr Shilpa Narayanswamy
Associate Professor
Welingkar Institute of Management
Development & Research
Email id :-shipa.naraswamy@welingkar.org
The contemporary business world aims at attaining sustainability in market place. For attaining sustainability, business organizations need to strategize on various aspects which enables them to gain competitive advantage at workplace and among the catalogue of such aspects, one of the vital aspects is training of employees. Training is defined as an incessant process which enhances the targeted skills of employees. In order to carry out training process, organizations are needed to explore skills etc. among employees which needs improvement or advancement. Therefore to attain the expected results from employees, training act as a catalyst to enhance employee performance. Therefore, almost all types of organizations, Government or private; national or international train their employees to acquire the requisite skills. Alike other business organizations, jewelry organizations also train their employees. Indeed, jewellery industry is among the labour intensive industry which relies chiefly on employees for profitability and long term sustainability. Thus, the said organizations train their employees. But an insight into the relevant literature has shown that although the jewelry manufacturing industry train their employees with the underlying rationale of enhancing their productivity yet no considerable attempts have been made by the said industry to explore explicit impact of training on employee productivity. Therefore, the present study has aimed to explore impact of training on productivity of employees working in jewelry manufacturing organizations registered with SEEPZ, Mumbai. To serve this purpose, a sample of 501 employees have been taken from three organizations registered under SEEPZ based on convenience based sampling approach. For analyzing the data, correlation statistics and regression analysis have been utilized. Accordingly, the said statistics have unveiled significant impact of training on employee productivity. Besides, the present paper also presents results of interview conducted with supervisors and team leader regarding the aforesaid subject. Based on the findings, various suggestions have been made to the jewelry organizations.
Keywords: employees, training, productivity, jewelry, manufacturing
The contemporary business world aims at attaining sustainability in market place. For attaining sustainability, business organizations need to strategize on various aspects which enables them to gain competitive advantage at workplace and among the catalogue of such aspects, one of the vital aspects is training of employees (Wright et al., 1994). Training is defined as an incessant process which enhances the targeted skills of employees (Bharthvajan and Fabiyola, 2019). In order to carry out training process, organizations are needed to explore skills etc. among employees which needs improvement or advancement. To elucidate, business organizations find out the skills which their employees must possess to work in accordance with the expected level of performance (Ibrahim et al., 2017). The expectations regarding the performance are set after taking into consideration objectives of that particular organization and various strategies followed to achieve such objectives. Therefore to attain the expected results from employees, training act as a catalyst to enhance employee performance. Therefore, almost all types of organizations, Government or private; national or international train their employees to acquire the requisite skills. Alike other business organizations, jewelry organizations also train their employees. Indeed, jewelry industry is among the labour intensive industry which relies chiefly on employees for profitability and long term sustainability (Lukitaputri et al., 2015). Thus, the said organizations train their employees. But an insight into the relevant literature has shown that although the jewelry manufacturing industry train their employees with the underlying rationale of enhancing their productivity yet no considerable attempts have been made by the said industry to explore explicit impact of training on employee productivity and this frames the premises of the present study. In other words, the present study has aimed to explore impact of training on the productivity of employees in jewelry manufacturing industry. Further, the present study has considered the city of Mumbai for selecting jewelry manufacturing organizations since the said city is the financial capital of the Indian nation. Further, the next section throws light on the existing literature in this regards.
Accordingly, Riding (2000) has evidently proved, in his case study research, that an organization might be having the best of technology but is a failure if its employees are not well trained. Such employees may continue to make faulty products or render faulty services if not corrected which might end up defaming reputation of the organization. Further, Konings and Vanormelingen (2010) have analysed data of both manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations from 1997 to 2006. The said analysis has revealed that training alters productivity of employees. Thus, organizations should focus on both general as well as productspecific training. Also, Tung-Shan Liao (2011) in his research on Australian market shows how employees training can change market scenario which results in organizations productivity. Further, to this it is found that training is huge investment and returns of the same are difficult to measure. Lastly they interpret that those organization which have been given training stand out in virtues of dynamism than those companies which doesn’t take training too seriously and assumes it as just investment.
Furthermore, Jahanzeb and Bashir (2013) have undertaken a theoretical attempt with the intention to examine role of training on employee productivity. Accordingly, it has been stated that effective training sessions enhances employee performance by imparting requisite skills in employees. However, Elnaga and Imran (2013) have stated that although training affects employee performance by the extent of impact varies. Therefore, they suggested that role of training in shaping employee productivity should be examined in different contexts and settings.
Adding to this, Angela (2014) have pointed out that for ensuring requisite level of performance from employees, they should be informed and trained accordingly. The reason for enhancement in the performance of employees was stated that training enhances employee performance through enhanced motivation levels and more job satisfaction. Replicating the aim of the study, Onyango and Wanyoike (2014) have studied impact of training on performance of employees in health care sector in Kenya. The results have shown positive correlation between training and employee performance.
Also, Ramya (2016) stated that employees lay foundation of the success of an organization. Therefore, it is pertinent to adopt the strategies which will enhance their performance. One of such strategies is to focus on the training of the employees. Indeed, this study has conducted an empirical attempt to explore linkage between training and employee performance among those working in pipe industry in Mangalore. The results of the study have indicate that each and every training session adds value to the performance of employees. Thus, organizations should be regularly engaged in training their employees.
Taking sample from manufacturing sector, Leelasarada et al. (2017) have also investigated relationship between training and employee performance. It has been divulged that when the employees received requisite training, their technical expertise tend to improve and this will, in turn, improves their productivity at workplace. Further, it has also been stated that training makes the work process effective and quality-oriented which will lead towards organizational productivity by enhancing employee productivity.
Further, Halawi and Haydar (2018) have considered two manufacturing organizations in Lebanon, i.e., a construction organization and a beverage organization with the rationale of analyse relationship between training and employee performance in both the organizations. Accordingly, it has been found that training affects employee performance positively. Training boosts the morale and self-confidence of employees and they work more dedicatedly and effectively. This will, eventually, enhances their performance. Extending these findings, the study of Afroz (2018) has unveiled that training not only brings motivation and boost confidence of the employees but it also increases contentment of the employees owing to which their productivity at work place improves substantially.
However, the study of Sasidaran (2018) has attempted to find out relationship between training and employee performance by taking four constituents of training, namely, skills, perception, training opportunities and training facilitations. Accordingly, it has been depicted that employee performance is influenced by their skills and perceptions. Contrarily, training opportunities and facilitations have shown no significant bearing on employee performance. Besides, Guan and Frenkel (2019) have taken the sample of two manufacturing organizations of China with the aim to examine impact of training on the performance of semi-skilled employees. It has been revealed in the study that training enhances employee performance by enhancing employees’ engagement. Further, the study of Mahadevan and Yap (2019) has highlighted that the impact of off the job training is comparatively more on the productivity of employees than on the job training method although both on the job and off the job training has shown significant impact on employee productivity.
To sum up, the extensive review of literature has shown that substantial efforts have been made by the researchers in establishing linkage of training with the productivity of employees. However, the studies, focusing on jewelry manufacturing organizations are found to be sparse. Therefore, the present study has made an attempt to explore impact of training on employee productivity in case of jewelry manufacturing organizations of Mumbai.
Primary data has been collected by interviewing the employees in the jewelry manufacturing companies in SEEPZ, Andheri - Mumbai. Productivity plays an important role in employees’ life in jewellery industry, despite this industry being employee oriented, very scarce research has been taken place in this area. Hence, research objective is to study training as a productivity tool for sustainable future.The paper follows both quantitative and qualitative data. For collected the data, convenient sampling approach has been used and a total of 510 responses have been collected from three organization registered with SEEPZ. The respondents were asked to answer questionnaire which had 25 questions based on the training provided to employees (14 items) and their measurable productivity (11 items). Four options to each question were provided wherein, they were asked to tick the relevant one. The development of both the scales was based on the research efforts of Raharjo and Sulistiasih (2019); Kamble and Wankhade (2018); Purbasari and Septain (2017); Panchanatham and Jayalakshmi (2016); Mahadevan and Yap (2019); and Afroz (2018). Supervisors and team leaders were interviewed to understand their views on training and its importance in productivity.
The data collected through the questionnaire has been checked for normality, reliability and dimensionality on the basis of the recommendations given by Hair et al. (2019). Accordingly, the values of skewness and kurtosis are found to be between +3 and -3. Also, the values of standard deviation are found to be close to 1, thereby, indicating data normality. Further, the cronbach alpha value comes out to be 0.87 and 0.76 in case of training and employee productivity, respectively. This substantiates data reliability. Adding more, exploratory factor analysis has been employed to check dimensionality of the scales assessing effectiveness of training and employee productivity. The value of KMO comes out to be -.78, i.e., greater than the recommended value of 0.60 and the value of Bartlett’s test of sphericity is noticed to be statistically significant at 1 per cent level of significance. Further, the eign value is noticed to more than one in single case only in case of both the aforesaid scales. This indicates that single factor is extracted each from both the scales. Further, the values of communalities and factor loadings are noticed to be more than 0.50 in case of all the items. This substantiates dimensionality of the data and with this, the data fulfills uniformity norms, thereby, making the scales fit for employing various statistical tests.
|
Variable |
Training |
|
Employee Productivity |
0.189* |
Note: * statistically significant at 1 percent level of significance
Primarily, correlation statistics has been employed to find out association between training and employee productivity. Accordingly, the value of correlation coefficient comes out to be 0.189 (refer Table 1) which is statistically significant at 1 per cent level of significance. Although the value of correlation coefficient is noticed to be somewhat less but the statistically significant positive value depicts that positive relationship exists between training and employee productivity. This means that if one variable enhances, other will also get enhanced and vice-versa. Further to examine to what extend training affects productivity of employees, linear regression equation has been employed. Table 2. Results of Linear Regression Equation
|
Model |
β |
|
|
t-Value |
|
Constant |
4.29 |
|
|
38.405* |
|
Training |
0.55 |
|
|
2.107** |
|
F-Value |
|
4.438** |
|
|
|
R |
|
0.093 |
|
|
Note: * statistically significant at 1 percent level of significance; ** statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance
As depicted in the Table 2, F value equals to 4.438 is noticed to be statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. This shows that the model considered in the present case is statistically apt. Further, the R value comes out to be 0.093 which is relatively. The rationale of less value can be that employee productivity can be affected by numerous factors but in the present research attempt, only a single factor has been taken which is training.
Furthermore, the coefficient value, depicting association of training with employee productivity, comes out to be 0.55 and the said value is statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. The statistically significant t value depicts that the β value is statistically reliable to interpret and the β value equals to 0.55 depicts that one unit enhancement in training will enhance employee productivity to 55 per cent. From this, it becomes clear that training plays pertinent role in shaping employee productivity.
Adding more to the point, personal interviews have been conducted with supervisors and team leaders and the observations are presented as follows:
The present research attempt significant impact of training on employee productivity alike other business organizations. Therefore, the present research attempt emphasizes on enhancing effectiveness of training in order to enhance employee productivity. In this regards, one of the suggestions is to focus on regular and more stringent training sessions. Further, it is suggested to the organisations to train employees everytime they are being rotated from one function to other as it has been observed that employees are being rotated from one function to the other. Furthermore, more focus should be on the fact that what employees have learnt rather than to teach them what they should know. In other words, considerable attempts should be made to know whether employees have learnt the requisite skills from the training session rather than only telling them what to do in the training session. This can be done through observation method, i.e., analyzing the work of employees after training. Doing so will not only enable in identifying effectiveness of the training program but will also enable in finding loopholes making way for future training sessions.
The present study has only examine impact of training on employee productivity. In future, adding more variables more further elaborate impact of training on employee productivity directly and/or indirectly. Also in the present study, data have been collected from three jewelry making organizations registered with SEEPZ, Mumbai since only these organizations are accessible. In future, collecting more data from other organizations registered with SEEPZ may add more useful insights into the relationship between training and employee productivity. Indeed, the future studies can also be conducted on jewelry making organizations across India together with considering wide assortment of variables which might affect employee productivity. Doing so will enable in getting more comprehensive view on ways to enhance employee productivity.
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