INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Human capital can be regarded as the prime asset of an Organization and businesses need to invest in that asset to ensure their survival and growth. The organization should ensure that, it obtains and retains skilled, committed and well-motivated workforce it needs. This means taking steps to assess and satisfy future people needs and to enhance and develop the inherent capacities of people- their contributions, potential and employability- by providing learning and continuous Development opportunities (Agnes, 2010).
Global competition has caused organizations to focus on every aspect of their operations, questioning how each function and process can contribute to strategic goals. Training departments are also under pressure to demonstrate their organizational value in the same terms Steed, (2000), this is because organizations spend a considerable time, effort and money in training and developing their employees, but the benefits from these efforts are not clearly visible in organizations in terms of improved productivity (Appiah, 2010).
To make development useful, it should be well planned and systematically implemented. The capacity of staff in a firm influences the ability to achieve the desired targets particularly in performance driven enterprises. Human Resource is recognized as a critical resource for success. In order to sustain productivity of the organization, it is important to optimize the contribution of employees towards achievement of the aims and goals of an organization (Cole, 2002).
Beardwell and Hidden (2004) consider development as a planned process to modify attitude, knowledge or skill behavior through learning experiences to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities.
Corporations are offering a variety of development programs to meet their organizational needs. These include content on IT and systems, processes, procedures and business practices, industry-specific trainings, managerial or supervisory development, interpersonal skills, compliance, sales, executive development, basic skills, new employee orientation, customer service and quality. Development is a long term education process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure by which managerial personnel learn conceptual and theoretical knowledge for general purpose.
