CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study  
Training of employee has become a major pre-occupation in modern organizational objective of growth. To achieve this basic objective of growth and profitability, it means that management as well as employees must improve their input into the organization. This is because the performance of an organization is a function of the collective performance of employees. Garavan, Costine and Herathy (1995:47) opine that there are many critical factors which organizations must consider as they face the future. This alone implies that the success of an organization depends on who works to achieve the organization’s objective, that is, the presence of qualified manpower.
Training is effort initiated by an organization to foster learning among its employees, and development is effort that is oriented more towards broadening an individual’s skills for the future responsibility. (George & Scott, 2012). Training and development are a continuous effort designed to improve employees’ competence and organize performance as a goal to improve on the employees’ capacity and performance. Human Resource Management has played a significant role in the economic development of most developed countries like Britain America and Japan. In a developing country like Cameroon, with its rich natural resources and financial support, one can also experience such economic success if the appropriate attention is given to the development and training of her human resources. Every aspects and activities in an organization involves people. For instance, a manager will not be successful if he has subordinates who are not well equipped with skills, knowledge, ability, and competence (SKAC).
To run an organization, be it big or small, requires staffing the organization with efficient personnel. Specific job skills, ability, knowledge and competence needed in the workplace are not efficiently taught `in the formal education. As such, most employees need extensive training to ensure the necessary SKAC to bring out substantive contribution towards the company’s growth. For employees to be flexible and effective in their job, they need to acquire and develop knowledge and skill, and for them to believe that they are valued by the organization they work for, then they need to see valuable signs of management commitments to their training needs. Each new employee must be properly trained not only to develop technical skills, but to make them an integral part of the organization. Training and development is an aspect that must be faced by every organization, and its major aim is to improve the employees’ competencies such that the organization can maximize effectiveness and efficiency of their human resources. It can be an advantage for an organization if they win the “hearts and minds” of their employees, getting them to identify with the organization (Armstrong, 2009). For employees to be equipped to perform well, there must be an investment in the training processes. These processes are part of the entire human resource management approach which results in employees being motivated to perform. However, training vary from organization to organization in relation to the quality and quantity of training factors, which may include: the degree of external environment change, the degree of change in the internal environment, current suitable skills in the existing work force and the level to which the management see training as a motivating factor in the workplace, (Cole, 2002).