AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
occupational skills of new employees to specific requirements of
the given post, used technique, technology, work style in a
company – employee orientation (adaptation); forming of
employees’ occupational skills at work exceeding the limits of
professional competence [10].
In current modern practice of human resources management, a
distinction is sometimes made between education (that concerns
the development of skills needed for better performance at the
current job) and development (that is more extensive and often
beneficial for the future professional growth not only in the
company but also out of it). In some publications, both concepts
are being referred to with the term corporate education [6].
Education of employees is an inevitable need of every company,
but its extent, depending on the need of a company, always
differs. However, it has to create appropriate conditions for
organized and systematic education carried out in a repeating
cycle. This cycle of education and development of employees
includes activities: identification of needs and goals of
employees’ education and development, planning the
programmes of employees’ education and development
(methods, supervisors, equipment, and venue), implementation
of employees’ education and development using specific
education programmes and methods, monitoring and evaluation
of employees’ education and development [9].
Substance and specifics of corporate education in consulting
We define corporate education as a summary of education
activities arranged by a company or its department assigned to
that. The aim of corporate education is to pass knowledge and
skills on to employees and upgrade their qualification,
experience and competence. However, it should not be aimed
merely at changes in the structure of knowledge and skills
leading to higher efficiency of work performance. It should also
be focused at changes which lead to the creation of conditions
allowing self-realization or development of personal and work
potential of employees and which result in using the possibilities
of continuous development as the most effective motivational
and stimulation tool.
People forming consulting teams are engines of a consulting
company and have an impact on its success. Because of that,
corporate education in the field of consulting focuses on the
preparation of consultants in a way that would increase their
capability to effectively reach the set goals, approaches and
processes. Individual goals for self-realization of each individual
consultant are closely connected to that.
Corporate education of consultants includes not only work-based
training – internal type of education, but also outside the
workplace, i.e. external type of education. Its primary and
determining intention is to bring the qualification structure of
consultants into accord with current requirements of professional
activities and practice. In that sense, corporate education is one
of decisive strategic personnel processes that is, in successful
consulting companies, connected to other personnel processes.
According to Tureckiová, those processes are [19]:
Human resources planning.
Acquisition and selection of employees.
Formation and deployment (internal mobility) of
employees, i.e. particularly by motivating, stabilization and
changes in working positions.
Employee evaluation and remuneration.
External mobility.
Prusáková summarized some motives for corporate education in
a similar way [17]:
Expected change – e.g. hiring new employees,
implementing new management’ approaches.
An opportunity that presents itself – e.g. a budget for
education.
Maintenance of strong points – motivating employees,
strengthening strong points of a company.
Education is required and mandatory.
From the pont of view of strategic approach, corporate education
is regarded as being an investment into people’s development in
a consulting company. It significantly helps to reach the
elementary goal of strategic management of human resources,
i.e. attract, prepare and keep highly qualified and motivated
consultants in a consulting company who are moreover eager to
align their own personal goals with the goals of a consulting
company they work for. In that sense, corporate education fulfils
not only the function of education and development, but also
orientational, adaptation, integration and retention function. It is
a tool that jointly affects to the benefit of fluctuation measures
and leads to the development of performance, effectiveness and
competitiveness of a consulting company as a whole, to the
development of employability of individuals, and not only
within the internal, but also external mobility. That is why it is
possible to view the corporate education in the context of the
lifelong education of consultants.
Strategy of education and development of employees depends on
the human resources management strategy. Numerous authors
present many approaches to the classification of this strategy.
One of such approaches, which we consider as the most relevant
from the point of view of education and development of
employees and their employment in a consulting company, is the
classification of the strategy of employees’ education and
development according to three lines [8]:
1.
Line: Organizational development strategy – Strategy of
individual’s development. Development of an organization
and its people lead to higher performance of a whole
company. It is not possible to separate them, focus at one
and eliminate the other.
2.
Line: Differentiation strategy – Strategy of integration.
Differentiation supports achieving high performance,
whereas integration focuses on creating a space for
common sharing, knowledge and skill building and sense
of responsibility.
3.
Line: Big jump strategy – Strategy of continuous
improvement. Their choice decides how the change, that
learning in an organization brings, will be reached.
Human resources management strategy influences the
knowledge strategy. Its character depends on skills that are
preffered by a company. In case of codification knowledge
strategy, explicit knowledge, that means formalised and such
which can be formalized, is being worked with. Personalized
knowledge strategy is based on tacit knowledge that can be
formalized with difficulty. It is applicable in cases where a
company is oriented on meeting individual, unique and original
needs of clients. A combination of both knowledge strategies is
convenient for consulting companies whose focus changes
according to current preferences of consultants and their clients.
2.3 Implementation of the education strategy in consulting
Every strategy needs to be put in practice. Corporate education
strategy has to be devised in a way that would help it to be
implemented in corporate environment, accepted by all interest
groups (owners, management, employees, clients) and has to be
compatible with the whole-company strategy and objectives in
all activities of a company. Its correct implementation is a base
for reaching higher performance and desired changes in
consulting companies.
The following systematic algorithm is a precondition for
successful implementation of the corporate education strategy:
Allocation of sources (financial, human and technical).
Identification of key tasks, necessary for ensuring the
success of the strategy.
Planning the priorities in the field of education strategy.
Adaptation of the organizational structure to the needs of a
new strategy.
Drawing up the standard of the new working procedures.
Implementation of new elements of a corporate culture
linked to the new strategy.
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