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Development and training are such terms that are essential to have a clear concept of when students step into the professional world and the workspace. Development and training are two words often mistakenly used synonymously. Both of these have some similarities. Both things help polish one’s professionalism and professional skills. They also teach practical knowledge that helps one perform better and increase one’s productivity in their workspace. However, the target and objectives of both are essentially different, making them two separate terms, not to be confused with each other.
What is training?
Training is prepared or organized by a company, so it is a process one is engaging with upon being instructed. In practical terms, many companies and organizations conduct training sessions for the newly recruited employees to impart relevant knowledge and teach them practical and technical skills in tandem with the company, its work environment, and rules and regulations. This helps improve the employee’s performance concerning the company’s requirements, get familiar with their heads and learn to maintain a particular professional behavior in the workspace. Therefore, training is primarily considered a short-term process that benefits the employee by making them confident in doing their job with minor mistakes.
What is development?
On the other hand, development is perceived as a long-term process taking place throughout one’s life. It is not actively done under someone’s instruction but rather an ongoing self-motivated process. This is more relevant to the senior employees in an organization. They have been working for a long time in the company, facing different challenges, coming up with solutions, working under different roles, and acquiring various skills during their work experience over time. Therefore, development is a process that aims at overall personality development and growth, which benefits the employee by polishing skills such as leadership skills, people skills, instant problem-solving, and management skills.
Training vs Development
There are some significant points to be discussed when it comes to training and development differences:
| SL NO. | TRAINING | DEVELOPMENT |
| 1. | Training is a process mainly targeted towards the newly recruited employees to teach them skills in tandem with the company’s requirements. | Development is a process targeted more towards the already existing or senior employees like the company executives for their all-rounded learning. |
| 2. | Training involves learning practical and technical skills and the knowledge required for doing one distinct job/role. | Development involves learning more conceptual and intellectual skills like cooperation, people, or management skills carried out with the aim of the overall growth of the employees. |
| 3. | Training can be defined as job-specific, therefore having a narrow scope. | On the other hand, development can be defined as career-oriented, therefore following a broader scope. |
| 4. | Training can be counted as an initial process that falls under the broader term of ‘development’ while being two distinct terms. | Development is the more extensive term under which training falls. For example, internship training is a type of training that eventually falls under the development process of the employee who later shifts to another permanent job. |
| 5. | The active entity here is the trainer belonging to any organization or any company who actively instructs the trainees and guides and teaches them throughout the learning process. | The active entity here is the employee who guides themselves and learns skills along the way of working to better perform in future challenges. Thus, it is a self-assessed and self-motivated process. |
| 6. | Training may be a collective process where new employees go through the same process. | Development is an individual and step by step process, and the pace of learning may even differ from employee to employee. |
| 7. | Training is a short-term process that exists for a fixed period. It also involves interns, new or lower-level employees, junior managers, etc. | Development is a long-term process that does not have a fixed duration and exists throughout one’s work life. It involves employees who have been working for a more extended period having more work experience like senior managers and executives. |
| 8. | The benefits of training are better employee performance in a specific workspace with improved productivity. The focus is more on the benefit to the organization here. | The benefits of development are improvement in the employee’s overall growth, leading to enhanced employee capability. The focus is more on the benefit to the employee here. |
Conclusion
Therefore, we see how training can be summarized as acquiring the technical skills and practical knowledge needed to carry out one’s job duties properly and productively. On the other hand, Development is a learning process focusing on the overall personality growth of the employee and training them for unpredictable situations and future challenges. It is crucial to keep in mind the training and development differences and grasp the meaning and function of both processes. Students can indulge and read about other related topics like the importance of training and development to better grasp the larger concept.
