ABSTRACT
Current thinking of managers outside the Good Practice (GxP) area is that training helps to motivate and retain staff, with the added advantage that absenteeism is also reduced. The concept of “training” is being supplanted by “learning”; this is a shift toward developing learning skills (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, CIPD). The main objective of learning is to help an individual become self-directed, with a clear set of objectives and maintenance of records of their progress, such activity is commensurated with the existence of documented procedures in the regulated environment. In order to obtain the maximum benefit from such an approach, it is necessary for the management to build a strategy to determine what skills and knowledge their staff should acquire and how they will do so. Learning is something each individual does, not something that others can do for them. A good learning program will allow individuals to realize their full potential to the benefit of both parties. Such thinking has always been part of the ethos of higher education and, perhaps, university graduates already have such self-learning skills built in. However, we must remember that all staff may not have been so fortunate as to attend university, and management must take this into consideration when designing their training strategy.
