EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN KYRGYZSTAN:
LENINSKOYE VILLAGE GOVERNMENT
Bolotbek Orokov,
Academy of Management, Kyrgyzstan
Dan Durning,
The University of Georgia, USA
Sergei Pushkarev,
Ural State University, Russia
Brief Description of the Project
The main goal of this project was to improve the performance of the village government through the effective implementation of sound training policies and programs. The main activities included identifying problems in employee training and development that stop the village government from offering employee training, develop policy recommendations to overcome the problems that have been identified, and helping the village government to consider and implement a training policy.
To carry out the project, the project team:
1. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their past training opportunities and their desire for additional training.
2. Carried out a two-day training program that aimed at teaching basic policy analysis while assisting village government employees to address the question of their training needs and desires.
3. Drafted a village policy on training for consideration by village leaders.
4. Consulted with village leaders to assist them to adapt a policy that reflects village needs and constraints.
5. Identified the types of training now available to village governments in which village employees might participate.
6. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their assessment of a draft training policy document.
7. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their assessment of the basic policy analysis training.
The Context of Village Training
This project addresses an important issue in Kyrgyzstan: most of the employees of Kyrgyzstan’s local self-governments on the village level have received no training on how to carry out their jobs. Villages, governed by elected bodies, operate with limited funding. As elsewhere in the world, they employ front-line workers who provide the most basic services to local residents. In most ways they are the face of government seen most often by citizens: they manage water systems, pick up garbage, collect taxes, assist in emergencies, register important documents, and even assist in making sure that local men of military age report for service.
The Leninskoye Village Government
The Leninskoye government serves about 12,000 residents of four villages. The village administrative office is located a twenty minute drive to the north of Bishkek. The village government has 14 employees – the number allowed by the Government Resolution # 608 as of September 5, 2002, for a village government of its size – to provide a wide array of services.
Like other village governments, its employees have had few opportunities to participate in training. As employees note, the lack of opportunities for training comes because few training courses are available to them, they have too little time to take part in training, and they lack resources to pay for training.
Village Employee Views of Training Needs
To begin the project, the employees of Leninskoye village government were asked to complete a questionnaire related to past training and future training needs. A copy of the questionnaire is attached as appendix 1. In addition to the questionnaire, ten employees gave their views of training when participating in the training program on policy analysis.
In this section, we report the responses to key questions in the survey and during the training program.
Problems limiting training:
Lack of working time to attend training (have heavy work loads, difficult to take time off to attend training)
Lack of courses and trainers
Lack of training materials
Poor location (must travel to other locations for training, and inadequate public transportation is available)
Lack of money to pay for training
Lack of incentives to attend training (no sure what they get out of it)
General versus Special Training?
Would like about 12 days a year of some type of training. They see a need for both types of training. Because of small number of employees, they learn to do each other’s job so they can help during absences.
General: Management, policy analysis
Specialized: Training related to specific jobs and related skills
Knowledge: Want training in new laws. They need to be informed of changes in laws and the implications of those changes for them and the village government
Want more materials
Want access to internet
Structure of Training
Would like one day a month of training, perhaps spread over several days (e.g. two hours, two or three times a week).
The consequences of the lack of training are clear. Village government is carried out by people who work hard, but do not have all of the skills and knowledge they need for best performance. According to the assistant village manager, most people working in village government are not prepared through education or training for their work. Employees learn through on-the-job training, but have few opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills.
He also noted another problem caused by lack of training: employees are often uninformed about changes in national laws that affect them or that they should implement. As a result, it may be months before they learn about new laws important for their work.
The survey and conversations at the training sessions with the village government employees showed a strong interest in having more opportunities for training. However, the employees remain concerned that the costs of training and the time away from their jobs would make such training impossible.
Training theories and approaches
As the literature suggests, the nature of the training in the public sector has changed over the recent decades. Traditionally, training was considered to be job-focused, limited to the technical skills and abilities needed by public employees to perform specific tasks. As such, it was differentiated from education, which was considered to be broader in scope, more oriented toward a range of future jobs and generally provided by institutions of higher learning. Traditionally, individuals obtained their education first and subsequently received training in the work environment.
Recently, the distinction among training, education, and development has become blurred (Van Wart, Cayer, and Cook, 1993). As public organizations find themselves needing to help employees learn about new technologies and skills, training, in many instances, has begun to look like what has traditionally been called education. The on-going debate in academia over the content of the courses suggested in MPA and PhD programs is illustrative of the nature of these discussions.
The literature suggests a number of typologies and taxonomies of training. The nature of this article does not allow going into more details. A brief annotation of those taxonomies are in Table 1.
Table 1. Taxonomies of training suggested in the literature.
Technical:- Procedural
- Mechanical
- Professional / Non-job specific:
- Basic
- General / Management:
- Supervisory
- Management
- Executive / Employee enrichment
Adapted from Montgomery Van Wart, N. Joseph Cayer, and Steve Cook, Handbook of Training and Development for the Public Sector, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993, pp.21-34.
According to DeSario et. al. (1994), training “refers to learning experiences designed to enhance the short-term and/or long-term job performance of individual employees”. In this respect, training is viewed as part of an on-going developmental process. Training needs to be linked with the organizational mission (Eurich, 1985; Fischer, 1989; Latham, 1988; Miller, 1989). So, when local governments plan their training activities, they need provide the link with the organizational mission and local budget and implementation.
Some authors suggest considering training as investment decisions (Eurich, 1985), and they should be made after careful consideration. It is usually advised that training activities should be examined from the perspective of their ability to influence individual job performance, rather than isolated experiences that may or may not contribute to the organization’s success.
McGehee and Thayer (1961) are usually regarded as the authors of the first textbook on training in organizations. They suggested a three-fold approach to determine the types of training and development experiences that should be implemented, including organizational analyses, task analyses, and person analyses. Accordingly, organizational analyses focus on the organization’s ability to support training. Task analyses focus on the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics required to perform the agency’s task. Person analyses focus on the needs of the individual, identifying personal characteristics possessed by the particular individual.
There are two basic questions must be addresses in the design of training activities. The first is the question of how a given course should be delivered. Who should participate? Where the course should be held? What types of learning tools should be used in the program? A second question is the creation of a learning experience that improves the transfer of knowledge. It is not enough for the trainees to learn; they must be able and willing to se new abilities on their job.
From the field of adult education, it is well known that adults are learning differently than children. First of all, adults have to know why they should learn something. Thus, employees need to see training experiences as relevant to their current work environment. Second, trainees need to be self-directed, they should be active participants in the learning process. Third, both trainees and trainers must recognize that adult employees have a greater volume and different quality of experience than youth.
In the design of training and development activities, a wide variety of instructional media is available to trainers and managers (Campbell, 1988; Goldstein, 1986; Latham, 1989). There are different instructional techniques that can be used, including lectures, case studies, simulations, role-play exercises, and small-group discussions. Regardless of the particular technique, trainees should be active participants in the learning process. They should have an opportunity to practice their knowledge and skills in a scenario that closely resembles the actual job situation. Also, participants should receive feedback.
The Training Program on Public Policy Analysis
The training program at Leninskoye village government was scheduled for Tuesday July 27 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday, July 29, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The original plan called for a week-long intensive training, but the employees of the local government could not attend the training that long without shutting down essential operations.
The first day of training was attended by 10 employees of the Leninskoye Village government and five employees of the neighboring Grozd Village government. The training was led by Bolotbek Orokov, with participation by Sergei Pushkarev and Dan Durning.
The second day of training had to be postponed because of a Village emergency. The night before the training program, one of the employees had without authorization and apparently while inebriated operated a local vehicle and hit a person, killing him. The accident was being investigated when the trainers showed up for the training program, and few employees were available to participate. As a result, the training was postponed until 5 of August, when it was planned to be provided by Orokov and Pushkarev. That haven’t happened either, as many local government employees were working on the infrastructure which was damaged.
After the training, participants were asked to evaluate the training program. The responses to the evaluation questions were as follows:
1 / I evaluate the achievements of the training goals as:In general achievement of the goals were considered by the participants satisfactorily.
2 / My expectations on this training course were justified.
3 / I will use these knowledge in my day to day work.
4 / Now I can say that in general I know how to analyze problems including those related to training issues.
5 / From this course I like all presentations of trainers, work in small groups that gives us chance to practice analytical tools, and presentations of members of small groups and discussions.
6 / I do not like that training was conducted during a whole day. It is too difficult. That is why we offered to conduct second day of training shorter during the second half of a day.
7 / I would like to have more time for each topic of the training. This will give us opportunity to learn more.
8 / I would like to know more about analyzing problems, using legal aspects for consideration problems, application updated managerial tools in day to day work, general administration issues, especially applicable to local governance.
9 / In future I am planning to think more how to use existing opportunities to upgrade skills and knowledge to perform better and have more benefits from it both for the organization and for me.
10 / I would like to wish more training, better performance, and changes in national legislation for local governments in order to motivate participation in trainings.
Recommended Training Policy for Leninskoye Village
Based on the responses to the employee questionnaire on training needs and the public policy training programs, the project staff members drafted a training policy to propose to Leninskoye Village.
The main features of the proposed policy include:
· Training goals
· Policies that will assist the village to reach those goals, including
(1) Providing employees the opportunity to participate in training
(2) Making these opportunities fairly available, and
(3) When possible, helping to pay for these training programs.
· Appointing a person to be “training officer” to carry out the tasks needed to identify training opportunities and helping employees participate in them.
In formulating these draft policies, the project staff discussed many important issues:
(1) International experience in solving identical problems in the training of village governments’ employees.
Russia: Requires local and regional governments to set a particular percentage of budget revenues aside to pay for employees’ training. Academies of public administration have special short term programs for public employees.
Ukraine: Requires oblast and local government employees to participate in training programs in order to receive promotions and raises. Has a system of training programs on the oblast level.
US-Ukraine Foundation is setting up regional training centers (four centers, plus main office in Kiev) to provide training programs for city and oblast governments.