Training and development are essential in providing employees with the right skills for their present and future jobs. The world today is constantly evolving, with customers demanding more, which in turn adds pressure to companies and their employees. Therefore, in times of recessions, decreasing the budgets of training programs is a way for companies in all industries to manage and minimize their financial losses. This is especially true in the industry where the industry can be affected a variety of external factors that the management are unable to control. The types of factors include those from the physical environment such as natural disasters and technological failures, and those from the human or social environment such as confrontations and malevolence (Bondarouk, Ruel, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to identify the different techniques that the industry could use to maintain the training and development of their employees during an economic recession. This paper will also look at the literature supporting the cost-effective practices of training and development and the methods used to evaluate training programs. Hopefully the information compiled in this paper will provide the industry with the guidelines needed to develop cost-effective training programs whilst still being able to provide a high quality of service when dealing with customers. Today whatever education one had acquired, one has to be trained in many skills, including soft skills for being employable. Once you gain employment in any sector, your education becomes obsolete in a very short span this is due to the impact of technology development.

In a globalized environment, competition has become so severe that only organization which imbibes excellent management practices survives and prospers over a long range of time. Thus people working in organizations are critical resources for delivering management skills and practices of the new order. Latest knowledge and skills are imperative for the people in the organization to increase productivity, lower costs and enhance customer satisfaction. It is undoubtedly true, that knowledge and skill enhancement of the people is a basic necessity enabling the organization to incorporate the advent of new technology as well as new practices. The need to learn for acquiring new knowledge and skills have become an ongoing aspect of each individual‟s working life. In the present day context some jobs and whole industries will and new ones will emerge. Some type of jobs will wither through technological change or through outsourcing in many organizations. Thus changes have become an everyday aspect. The responsibility for ensuring that working people are equipped to cope with these changes is the need of the hour especially for the employer and the employee. All these point to the fact that the changing trends, technology, systems and practices can be imbibed by the organization only through training. Training will help individuals to extend their competencies to reach the limits of their capabilities and realistic aspirations. There are three main components that an individual requires in order to do a job effectively knowledge, skills and attitude. All these components can be developed or improved by effective training. However, each component

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developed or improved only through practice. Attitudes, is the moist difficult to impart or to change, even though intense training. It requires deep understanding of human behavior among those responsible for training. Many behavioral experts opine that attitudes, being the most difficult to modify or change , it is better to select people with the right attitude rather than to attempt to train people whose attitude does not conform to the need of the specific sector or job. Discussions, case studies and role playing are some of the common training methods used for modifying attitude. Tourism is a highly diverse phenomenon. It is an industry which encompasses many sectors like transport, accommodation, catering, leisure, travel intermediaries, souvenir shops etc. The importance of tourism had been increasingly realized because of its social, economic, political, cultural and aesthetic implication. The growth in tourist traffic all over the world testifies that it is commodity of mass consumption. Such as increased movement of tourist traffic have resulted in phenomenal growth of the various sectors within the tourism fold and catering establishments of varying sizes for diverse market segments are growing at large proportions. As jobs in s and catering industry are labor-intensive, humans should be considered as the major asset of the hospitality industry. Professional training is an essential requirement, especially in current dynamical and highly competitive environment. The rate of job growth and job change in environment The rate of job growth and job change in hospitality industry is among the most rapid compared to any other industry The work of hospitality employees will continue to change as new technology develops. The high attrition rate and part time employment systems followed in the hospitality industry is a major concern which needs to be addressed. These warrant the need for continuous training of the people working in the hospitality industry. Apart from the technical knowledge and skills, life skills are also equally important in hospitality, enabling the individual to become a composite professional for delivery of excellent customer service. It is not enough for hospitality employees simply to know how to perform the tasks requires in their jobs. Even in the face of the unstable economic climate of the early 1990s, many hospitality organizations recognized the importance of training and committed a great deal of money to training programs. Training has become an increasingly critical area of management for companies to enhance service quality, reduce labor costs, and increase productivity (Strohmeier, 2007). Training and development programs can also promote teamwork; improve staff attitudes and self-awareness (Voermans, Veldhovern, 2007). Companies must therefore focus on these different aspects in order to maintain a competitive edge in their respective industries. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) recommends companies spend 4% of their payroll on training their staff. However, a survey conducted with months, companies find themselves with diminishing budgets and are struggling on ways in which to keep themselves afloat. During such times, training and development programs are usually found by the wayside. However, companies should remember that training begins once an employee joins the company and should continue throughout their tenure with the company. Training can also be provided by everyone; all employees are potential instructors and students. Studies have shown that training has been linked to improved self-esteem, reduced turnover, better product and service consistency, higher guest satisfaction, reduced business costs, the use of new technology, greater ability to meet the needs of a target market, more qualified employees, increased self-awareness, improved attitude, more teamwork, greater job satisfaction and greater organizational commitment (Hendrickson, 2003). Furthermore, “training therefore can neither be carried out in isolation from strategic business planning nor be disconnected from an organization‟s product, its market situation, or management of its corporate identity” (Lengnick-Hall, Moritz, 2003). This paper will review the different techniques that the industry could use to maintain training programs during a recessionary period. This paper will also look at the literature supporting the cost-effective practices of training and the methods used to evaluate the training programs. Although a company may decide to reduce certain programs to meet budgetary constraints, this paper hopes to show that training and development are important contributing factors to an organization‟s success. – A process dealing primarily with transferring or obtaining knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to carry out a specific activity or task (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM] glossary). Training and development are integral to a company‟s growth and success. Companies can however under-train their employees by being unwilling to take the time to explain new staff tasks that need to performed. When this unwillingness occurs, Ryan (2008) states that three scenarios may take place – the employee will not be able to help a client the way they should, the client will be left unsatisfied by the company‟s service level, and lastly the employee will become frustrated by the company and his or her service level will drop to a minimum. Studies have shown that training programs increase employee satisfaction, employee morale and employee retention, and decreases turnover and hiring rates (HR Focus, 2005,). Training has been shown to improve knowledge and in turn knowledge improves the delivery of hospitality business-related activities (Harris, 2007). Daniels (2008) mentions in her article that in the current economic situation, companies may be tempted to cut their training budgets, but they should not however abandon training. Companies should instead use this situation as an opportunity because training boosts morale

provide amazing customer service. Great customer experiences lead to brand loyalty. Skills training that equips employees with the tools to increase customer loyalty is not overhead, a cost, or a frill In fact, training is important as it is part of the service quality that drives the performance.

Training aim: The training activities of the project have been designed and developed to meet the following aims: ♦ To enhance technical competence of field level forestry staff in such areas as forestry extension, rural communication, participatory assessment, microplanning, participatory monitoring & evaluation and leadership building, in order to enable effective implementation of the project. ♦ To build community capacities at village level with a view to promoting participatory and self-reliant actions of the people in order for them to manage their own village resources more rationally and sustainably. ♦ To accelerate the process of empowerment of the weaker sections of village communities, particularly the women, scheduled castes, landless and other disadvantaged groups through on-the-job skills training meant to generate self-employment opportunities. Various types of training courses have been planned for serving specific purposes of the project. Target specific courses have been designed to cover various programmes. Some of the training activities have been planned to meet the human skill requirement of project activities. The guiding principle of planning the training activities is to integrate the training input with other activities of the project, besides meeting the human resource requirement of the project staff and the project beneficiaries.

There are three approaches to training: (1) The traditional approach, (2) The experiential approach, and (3) The performance-based approach evaluation. The focus in this model is intervention by the training staff. In the experiential approach, the trainer incorporates experiences where in the learner becomes active and influences the training process. Unlike the academic approach inherent in the traditional model, experiential training emphasizes real or simulated situations in which the trainees will eventually operate. In this model, the objectives and other elements of training are jointly determined by the trainers and trainees. Trainers primarily serve as facilitators, catalysts, or resource persons. In the performance-based approach to training, goals are measured through attainment of a given level of proficiency instead of passing grades of the trainees. Emphasis is given to acquiring specific observable skills for a task. This performance-based teacher education (PBTE) model, developed by Elam (1971), is mostly task or skill centred and is also applicable to conformal educational organizations such as extension. Trainers: With a view to preparing a potential cadre of trainers from amongst the field level staff of the project, Training of Trainers (ToT) courses will be conducted for selected Forest Guards, who will be used for training VRMC members and Link Workers. In the first 70 villages NGOs will assist in training related to Participatory Appraisal, Microplanning and Participatory Monitoring together with Forest Guards who will themselves learn such techniques, in order to co-train, then train villagers themselves. NGOs and other outside trainers will also be used for training in leadership development and communication skills and skills related to income generating activities other than forestry and energy saving techniques, whereas Forest Guards and other project staff will train in plantation techniques, nursery management, management of VRMCs, etc. In the case of staff training, senior project staff and TA experts will be the main trainers, supported by other resource persons as required. There is special significance of organizing training of trainers, keeping in view the objectives and action strategy of Forestry Project, which gives top priority to community participation in promoting forestry and using participatory management of village resources in order to sustain the developmental efforts. Training of villagers, who are the stakeholders of the project, has a very important role to ensure the success of such a process. Most important is the training of trainers, which lays the foundation to make village level training a purposeful programme. Besides their basic responsibility as instructors the trainers have to understand the training needs of the target groups to be trained, design the training programme, conduct the training programme, make arrangements for organizing the same and evaluate the effect of the

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villagers. Their most important role, however, shall always be that of change agent. The Forest Guards who will be trained as trainers have the advantage of their long experience of working in a village situation and knowing the problems of the people and their aspirations and willingness to improve their lot through their own efforts. They are, therefore, ideally suited to be trained as trainers for the village level training programmes. Similarly, with a view to ensuring the continuity and sustainability of the training programme, there will be a need to prepare another cadre at higher level, who may train the Forest Guards as trainers. Such training will be organized for a selected number of SDOs/ Dy. Rangers. Although there will not be significant variation in the basic approach and contents of ToT for the two types of trainers, yet, in terms of relative thrust, the two categories of training may differ to some extent, as the training needs of the two types of trainers may not be the same. The trainer should first know his/her learners (the trainees) in order to ensure their fruitful involvement in the learning process. Basically most of these considerations are guided by the philosophy of participatory training, which advocates that training, unlike teaching, is more concerned with the overall development of the human personality. In addition to the desired changes in skills, an effort is also made to bring about the needed changes in attitude and behavior of the target group.

The trainer occupies a pivotal place in the whole process of training. Much of the success of a training programme depends on his/her competence and capabilities. He/she has multifarious roles to play during various phases of a training programme. The success of a trainer depends on his/her versatility in taking on a number of roles. However, at times taking on multifarious roles can cause some concern and anxiety and adversely affect the job efficiency of a trainer. It is, therefore, pertinent that the trainer should not only identify his/her roles very carefully, but also decide their sequencing as per the priority order of his/her short-term and long-term goals. This will help him/her to take up only those roles at a time, which need top priority. Such approach will not only help the trainer to reduce his/her workload but also add to his/her job efficiency. As regards efficiency of the trainer, it has to be understood that irrespective of the quality and contents of the training imparted to a group of future trainers there will always be a interpersonal differences in their job performance efficiency as skilled trainers. Training can best be used for developing the required skills which a trainer is expected to be equipped with. trainees is responding or reacting to whatever subject matter is being discussed during the course of training one may find different levels of enthusiasm amongst the trainees. Or maybe the trainer finds the trainees indifferent to whatever is being told to them. In extreme cases there may be a situation when trainees or a group of them may create problems, raise voices of protest and make it difficult to let the training continue. A trainer who knows a bit of human psychology will be in position to know the real cause of such development and resolve the crisis skillfully. Similarly a basic knowledge of the attitude and aspirations and interests of individuals will help the trainer to design the training strategy which may ensure the active involvement of the trainees. An effective trainer is one who knows his/her trainees well. It is, therefore, essential for a trainer to have full understanding of the members of his/her target group in terms of their socio-economic-cultural background, professional competence and experience, interests, aspirations, achievement motivation, goal orientation, perceptional ability, needs and expectations and their future role assignments. All these aspects can be known, not necessarily through any formal academic exercise, but also through keen observation, informal group discussions and other ways of earning their confidence. An effective trainer has to ensure that there should be a proper environment in which a learner gets maximum opportunity to learn. In this context it has to be understood that the experience of learning is not limited to the process of thinking only (Watson, 2002. Wright, Dyer, 2000).

It is important for a trainer to have sufficient knowledge about these factors. That is why these aspects need to be properly highlighted. A trainer must know that learning environment is not something that can be provided to him/her. In fact, it is for the trainer to create and sustain an environment, which can promote a learning experience that the trainees find useful. In doing so the trainer must be aware of the fact that the process of learning becomes easier when the contents of the training relate to the felt need of the trainees.

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Lengnick-Hall, M., Moritz, S., (2003). “The impact of e-HR on the human resource management function” Journal of labor research, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 365-379. Looise, K., Ruel, H., Bondarouk, T., (2004). “E-HRM: Innovation or irritation: An explorative empirical study in five large companies on web-based e-HRM”, Management Revue, Vol. 15 (3), pp. 364-380. Strohmeier, S., (2007). “Research in e-HRM: Review and Implications”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol.17 issue.1, pp.19-3. Voermans, M., Veldhovern, M., (2007). “Attitude towards e-HRM: An empirical study at Philips” Personnel Review, Vol. 36 no. 6 pp-887-902