Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies
Vol.05 No.03(2017), Article ID:78977,11 pages
10.4236/jhrss.2017.53014

Research on GF Company Training System

Mingyue Gao

School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

Copyright © 2017 by author and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Received: August 7, 2017; Accepted: September 8, 2017; Published: September 11, 2017

ABSTRACT

With economic globalization and the constant deepening of Chinese market economic reform, there occurs increasingly fierce competition among enterprises. Due to unique values, scarcity and inimitably organized classical characteristic, the human resources of modern enterprises become an integral component of modern enterprises’ competitiveness. How well human resources support the core capacity and competing advantages of an enterprise depends on employees’ core expertise and skills that create values for clients. The training system that is oriented on corporate strategies and core capacities is thus an important basis for cultivating and improving corporate employees’ core knowledge and skills. In this paper, we select GF company as the research object, making full use of human resource management related theory, literature research, case method, interview method to put forward an optimization design of GF company training system.

Keywords:

Human Resources, Training System, The Optimization Design

1. Introduction

With economic globalization and the constant deepening of Chinese market economic reform, there occurs increasingly fierce competition among enterprises. The constant improvement of corporate competitiveness is the source of power for an enterprise to achieve sustainable development amid fierce competition. Due to unique values, scarcity and inimitably organized classical characteristic, the human resource of modern enterprises become an integral component of modern enterprises’ competitiveness. How well human resources support the core capacity and competing advantages of an enterprise depends on employees’ core expertise and skills that create values for clients. The training system that is oriented on corporate strategies and core capacities is thus an important basis for cultivating and improving corporate employees’ core knowledge and skills [1] .

2. Overview on GF

2.1. General Overview

Founded on July 11th 1997, GF was listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 18th 1997. The company’s businesses include the investment, operation and management of comprehensive energy. It is an institution authorized to run state-owned assets in Guangzhou. The company currently has over 40 wholly- owned and holding enterprises, whose employees exceed 4600.

2.2. Corporate Organization Structure

The GF headquarters, which is consisted of the board of directors and managers, forms the highest decision-making level. It is in charge of researching corporate strategies and coordinating the trade between all groups to maximize the coordination between resources and strategies. The second decision-making level is consisted of functional, supportive and service departments. The third level is consisted of subsidiaries with interdependent cooperation and independent operations according to the company’s core business division (Figure 1).

2.3. Basic Situation of Corporate Human Resources

The company currently has 4628 employees, among which 195 work in the parent company and other 4433 employees work in subsidiary companies. There are 19 retirees whose retirement pensions are in the charge of the parent company and main subsidiaries.

Figure 1. GF Organization Structure.

2.4. Major Composition

The majors of GF employees are divided into six categories, including production personnel, salesmen, technicians, financial personnel, administrative personnel and auxiliary personnel. There are 2795 production personnel, 108 salesmen, 478 technicians, 190 financial personnel, 774 administrative personnel and 283 auxiliary personnel, which account for 61%, 2%, 10%, 6%, 17% and 6% respectively.

2.5. Educational Background

Among all GF staff in 2013, 196 employees had master’s degrees; 1584 employees had bachelor’s degree; 1218 employees had college degrees; 1258 employees had poly-technical school diplomas, secondary technical school diplomas or high school diplomas; 372 employees had lower educational backgrounds. These employees accounted for 4%, 34%, 27%, 27% and 8% respectively.

2.6. Strategic Objectives of GF

Centered on developing clean energy, the company works hard to meet the requirement on green development, cyclic development and low-carbon development. It also insists on the path of advanced technology, energy conservation and emission reduction. By accelerating its industrial optimization & upgrade and enhancing its technical integration & commercial mode innovation, the company aims to form the development pattern and competition advantage that integrate “diversified development, clean development and project construction”. In this way, it will develop into a comprehensive energy corporate with strong market competitiveness.

3. Status Quo of Training System

3.1. Functional Setting of Training Management

The current training management of GF is divided into four levels. The first level is consisted of the Occupational Employee Teaching and Training Committee (abbreviated to the Teaching Cultivation Committee), which acts as the leadership and decision-making institution of occupational education training management. This committee is in charge of making decisions for major issues and offering guidance, examination and evaluation of corporate occupational education training. The Teaching Cultivation Committee holds at least one or two all-member conference every year. The second level is consisted of a training center set up in the headquarters. This training center is in charge of maintaining the training system of all training work, formulating training systems, managing training resources and formulating of annual plans. The third level is the training and management of secondary enterprises. On the one hand, secondary groups implement the policies and guidelines formulated by the Teaching Cultivation Committee and manage the training work of subordinate tertiary production units to convey messages. On the other hand, secondary enterprises designate training specialists, which are in charge of reporting to the human resource director of secondary enterprises and take the responsibility for the training center. The fourth level is consisted of tertiary production units. Instead of setting up specialists, the staff in the HR Department is in charge of implementing the training tasks launched by secondary enterprises.

3.2. Analysis of Training Demands

The analysis of GF’s training demands is conducted through the research questionnaire method. In every December, the training center sends annual training demand research forms to the headquarters, secondary enterprises and tertiary production enterprises. The training center arranges the collected training demands and eventually formulates the first draft of the second half year’s annual training plan of GF Company. Approved by the Teaching Cultivation Committee, the plan takes effect officially.

3.3. Process of Implementing Training

The After knowing all training demands and formulating the training plan, GF starts to implement the official training plan, which includes trainees, training lecturers, training equipment, training textbooks, training textbooks, training sites, training time, training expenses and the training process control.

3.4. Evaluation of Training Effect

At present, the evaluation of training effect in the company remains in the response, knowledge and behavior levels. In the response level, the manager of training obtains trainees’ overall subjective feelings towards this activity through questionnaire research. In the knowledge level, the evaluation is conducted through on-site examinations, themed reports or online testing. Regarding the behavior level, all departments evaluate employees’ working performances after the training and propose relevant advice. In addition, the company has set up a training credit system, which offers credit requirements according to post requirements as the basis for education training evaluation, promotion evaluation, performance evaluation and rewards and punishments.

3.5. Course Contents

The training of GF is currently divided into four categories: development lectures, management training, professional skill training and position training. There are 1182 courses in position training, which account for 87%. There are 120 professional skill courses and 44 management courses, which account for 9% and 3% respectively. The number of development lecture courses is 4 and the smallest, which accounts for 1%. Among four businesses, excluding the new energy business, the professional skill courses related to power business, gas business and fuel business greatly exceed management and professional skill courses. Comparatively, management courses account for the smallest proportion. Except for the new energy business, management courses outnumber the courses of professional technology. Seen from four businesses, the number of power business posts reaches 826, which far exceeds the courses of other business. In terms of the number, courses of professional skills and management courses are similar (Table 1).

3.6. Training Forms

The training of GF is divided into six categories, including internal training, external training, themed seminars, overseas training, self-education and others. Among the six training forms, the commonly adopted forms only include internal training and external training. Among all courses, 672 courses fall in the category of internal training; 667 courses adopt external training; 2 courses are taught through themed seminars; 2 courses are taught through overseas training; seven courses adopts self-education; four courses adopt case sharing and visiting (Table 2).

4. Existing Problems of GF Training System

4.1. Training System and Corporate Strategies are Disconnected and Fail to Meet the Strategic Requirements on Employees’ Capacities and Qualities

To meet the requirements on development, GF proposed the new strategy of

Table 1. GF training course in 2015.

Table 2. GF training forms.

“orienting on developing cleaning energy”, which places new requirements on employees’ qualities and skills: Strategic skills, investment, M&A, integration, diversity and integration strategic skills should be the necessary skills of the personnel of the GF Group headquarters. The reform of technological innovation will be the new norm; in addition, the improvement of management skills amid industrial structural optimization and upgrade will be an important direction for employees to develop their capacities [2] . As is discovered in the current training system of the group, the group does not adjust the training targeting at new strategies.

4.2. The Information of Training Demands Is Simple, Lacks Effective Analysis of Corporate Strategies and Employees’ Performances and Is Strongly Subjective

The training demand information of the GF Group is mostly collected through research questionnaires and is quite single. Through the interview, it is known the company currently lacks the tenure qualification management system when filling out the training demand research form. Due to such a deficiency, the enterprises at all levels cannot measure the abilities of each post and occupational level. Moreover, there is no reference standard for employees to discover their deficiencies [3] . The demands represented on questionnaire forms mostly show the skills needed by work and past working experience, which is strongly subjective [4] . In the current process of gathering training demands, corporate strategies and employees’ performances are not analyzed. The differences between the two cannot be measured. That is to say, the collection of strongly subjective training demands cannot describe the real training demands of enterprises and employees’ ads.

4.3. The Curricular System Is Inadequately Systematic and Normative

As is shown from the training curricular contents of the GF Group and subordinate enterprises, there are over 1000 training courses every year. These considerable training courses result in a series of problems for the company’s curricular system: Fixed and dynamic courses are not divided, which increases the management difficulty; there is no unified and normalized management of training textbooks; compared with other three businesses, the training on new energy business is quite deficient.

4.4. The Number and Quality of Training Teachers Are Not Guaranteed

The internal education and training of GF are in the charge of various leaders and internal trainers of the company. As is discovered through the survey, internal trainees are currently selected by employees. On the one hand, internal trainees continue their daily production and management. On the other hand, they are in charge of relevant training tasks. Despite their heavy duties, internal trainees receive inadequate attention from the company. Hence a few capable employees are unwilling to conduct corporate training. In this context, the number of trainees is deficient. On the other hand, internal trainees are only evaluated by issuing training feedback forms to trainees, which makes the evaluation inadequately systematic and comprehensive. As a result, the quality of internal trainees fails to be guaranteed.

4.5. Training Effect Evaluation Only Exists in the Implementation Process and Can Only Evaluate Trainees’ Responses and Learning

A complete and effective training evaluation requires the synchronized implementation of training demand analysis, course development, teachers’ quality cultivation and training implementation [5] . According to survey results, the training evaluation of GF remains in the link of training implementation and does not involve the evaluations of other processes. Moreover, the training evaluation is centered on trainees’ responses and knowledge.

5. Optimization of GF’s Training System

The following training system framework is proposed combining the operation model of training development system proposed by Jianfeng Peng in Overview on Human Resource Management [6] . The system is consisted of two cores, three levels and four links. Two cores refer to corporate development strategies and employees’ occupational planning, based on which enterprises corporate training development strategies are proposed [7] . Three levels include the system levels of training evaluation system, budget system and project approval system; these levels include the training resource level of the curricular system, teaching system and teaching equipment [8] , as well as four procedures for corporate organizations to conduct one complete training development activities [9] .

5.1. New Plan of Analyzing Training Demands

The analysis of training demands is conducted from three levels, including corporate strategies & environment, work & task and employees & performances. The analysis of strategies and environment researches the senior managers in the company [10] . Through the conferences of the Teaching Cultivation Committee, employees get to know corporate strategic objectives and formulate the major training direction. The analysis of work & tasks orients on the post description and qualification system of each post. The analysis of employees & performances is conducted to analyze employees’ working performances, difficulties in current work, employees’ interests and employees’ occupation planning. The research questionnaire and group discussion are adopted to gather information.

5.2. Optimization and Optimization of Training Plan

After analyzing training demands, the training plan is formulated.

・ Procedures of Formulating Training Plan

Given full considerations to the status quo of past training of GF, the training plan of GF is divided into two cycles. Firstly, phase of annual planning, in which the annual training planning is adjusted once annually by combining the actual arrangement of learning activities and business demands. Secondly, phase of monthly training planning, in which the annual plan is divided into monthly training plans to clarify the specific learning activities needing to be completed in each month [11] .

・ Formulation of Training Objectives

As is stipulated by the new development strategies of GF, the training objective is to improve employees’ capacities and skills of improving employees’ adaptation capacities, innovation reform and new energy technological application, professional majors and skills.

・ Determination of Training Lecturers

In the process of determining training lecturers, GF should consider the training objectives, contents, objects and training budget comprehensively and control cost on the precondition of ensuring training effect. Generally speaking, internal trainees are more suitable for conducting the common training for new employees, post skills, operations, business knowledge and universal skills. Conversely, externally recruited lectures are more suitable for the training on management skills, comprehensive quality improvement, mentality innovations, expansive capacities, leading capacities and post certificates. In the long term, optimizing internal trainees is the key to achieving expected training effects and save costs.

・ Training Methods

To a large extent, the selection of training methods determines the final training effect [12] . At present, there are diversified training means for GF. Despite such wide choices, the company only adopts internal training and external training. That’s why the optimization of training methods aims to encourage trainees to adopt diversified training means and discuss the training means that maximize the training effect.

・ Training Expense Budget

The optimization of training expense budget aims to improve the validity of training expense budget. In the process of formulating the operation budget of the next year, GF should formulate its training planning and budget. Regarding the course, GF should enhance the inputs in courses set up based on strategic requirements and reduce the courses rarely correlated to strategies and tenure qualification. In addition, the author of the thesis thinks there should be a budget targeting at all expenses when formulating the training plan and write them in tables.

5.3. Optimization of Training Evaluation

Although traditional training evaluation only evaluates the effect of training implementation, the author thinks the whole training process should be included in the training effect evaluation, including the analysis of training demands, the formulation of training plans and the implementation of training process [12] . The priorities of each evaluation link vary. The optimization of the training evaluation process should be as follows: Firstly, evaluate training demands, namely evaluating whether training demands are consistent with the demands of enterprises and individual employees. Secondly, evaluate the training process. The priorities of evaluations are implemented according to the training planning. Lastly, it evaluates the training effect.

5.4. Optimization of Training Courses

GF is currently launching a large number of training courses. The author aims to improve all course systems into the following categories according to the principle of diversity and multiple levels.

・ Strategic and Leadership Training

Such training aims to help senior managers in the company to cultivate their strategic thinking capacities.

・ Occupational Development Training

The training courses on occupational development include the training on improving management proficiency and management ability, as well as employees’ induction training. The improvement of management ability is to conduct training on managers of management posts.

・ General Training

General courses aim to cultivate employees’ occupational qualities and occupational universal skills, including document writing, OA system training, how to develop good occupational habits and the basic training of occupation development. The occupational skills include computer skill and foreign language.

・ Professional Skill Training

Professional Skill Training is divided into two major categories. Firstly, professional technological training for eight occupational departments, including finance, discipline monitoring and auditing; security and health link, human resource, law major, training center, administrative and Party work. The training of other departments is divided into three categories: training on universal professional knowledge on the department, training on the professional technology of the department and the further education training of the department. Another major category is the training targeting at each business section, including training on gas business, electro business, fuel business and new energy business. The contents of training are divided into the training of production and technicians, the training on cultivating captains’ management skills and the training on professional norms and qualities.

・ Occupational Skill Training

The training on occupational skills and occupational qualities are divided into new administrative and regulation training, quality training, skill assessment training, occupational certificate training, post requirement training and new employee induction training.

6. Conclusions

With economic globalization and the constant deepening of Chinese market economic reform, there occurs increasingly fierce competition among enterprises. The constant improvement of corporate competitiveness is the source of power for an enterprise to achieve sustainable development amid fierce competition. To promote the core competence of enterprises, it is necessary to attach importance to the development of human resources, which enables human resources management can manage, develop and motivate employees from a strategic point of view. This paper takes GF company’s training system as the research object, based on in-depth investigation and analysis of the current situation of the company’s training, to analyze the existing problems in GF training system, and then to put forward the optimized program to solve the problems.

The main problem of GF training system is that the training work is out of line with the development strategy of the enterprise, which leads to mistakes in the training direction. In addition, as for the training system itself, there are existing problems such as the lack of training requirement analysis, the single mode of training, the nonstandard training course system, the lack of teaching staff, and the unsound evaluation system of training. In order to exert the training efficiency of GF, a specific optimization program is put forward.

First of all, in the course of optimizing the training system, from the company’s strategy, setting the main direction for training optimization. Next, under the guidance of the principle, a large training system construction framework is proposed. Then, proposing specific optimization program for four aspects: over training level, to train requirement analysis, to train the formulation of plan, to train the implementation of organization and the effect evaluation of training. As for the training requirement analysis, it not only optimizes the process of requirement analysis, but also perfects the source of training demand information. In the formulation of training plan, from the content of training plan, elaborated in detail the optimization program. With regard to the organization and implementation of training, it has been optimized mainly from the process of implementation. Finally, the evaluation of training has broken through the limitations of the previous evaluation and proposed that the evaluation should be carried out throughout the training process. Focusing on the course of training and teacher management system, it can propose the corresponding optimization program.

The innovation of this paper is to combine the training system in human resources practice with specific practice, and enrich the practical significance of training system construction. In addition, the company in this study has certain typicality in its energy industry, therefore, the training system optimization program of this company provides a reference for the industry of other companies, which can create excellent talents for our country’s energy industry, and improve the overall competitiveness of the industry.

However, this paper also has a lot of weak points. The optimization program of this paper focuses on the operation level and resource level. There is no excessive analysis on the system of the implementation of training system, especially the analysis of training management system. While the system can standardize the process of training, and improve the effectiveness of training, planning and sustainability, we hope to further explore this part in future research.

Cite this paper

Gao, M.Y. (2017) Research on GF Company Training System. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 5, 145-155. https://doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2017.53014

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