The Effect of Training and Development in Improving Employee Performance : A Case Study on Maldives Public Sector

Training and Development is regarded as a vital element in human resource management practice, which helps in improving knowledge, skills and abilities of employees. Organizations invests lot money, time and resources on training and development, hence it is important to make sure that they receive expected return on investment. A strategic, systematic and planned training and development activities will ensure not only sustained high performance of employees but also a continuous pool of good talent in an organization. In the context of Maldives public sector there has been continuous effort to ensure effective planning and implementation of training and development among civil servants. Government has invested USD 84,604,889.49 in the last five years for this purpose (Ministry of Finance & Treasury, 2013). However Maldives civil service sector is far from achieving “service excellence” it envisions. Given the above, the main objective of this study is to examine training and development practices in Maldives public sector and its impact on employee performance. Five independent variables were identified from existing literature and models to measure its impact in enhancing the performance of civil servants. Data was collected through 154 survey questionnaires which were distributed among management level employees. Data gathered was analysed using SPSS tool for both descriptive and inferential analysis. In addition to gain more insight into current training and development practices, an interview was carried out with two officials in Civil Service Training Institute. The findings of this study revealed that most public sector organizations conduct training needs analysis and training evaluation in haphazard way and there are many instances when uniform application fell far short of espoused policies. The environment is also not conducive to effectively transfer learned outcomes on to the job and in addition with limited career development opportunities it is not conducive in empowering public sector officials to plan out their career. Even though training and development practices are weak, the results revealed that positive correlations between these independent variables and employee performance. This shows that public sector officials believe that if these elements in training and development are implemented effectively it would enhance their overall performance