Since its inception in 1974, the MIM (Mauritius Institute of Management) has been very active in fostering professional management and development in Mauritius through the organisation of seminars and courses, the development of professional standards for management and the administration of training awards. During its work over the years, the MIM has noticed that only a small proportion of the private and public organisations have a proper training strategy to enhance the performance level of their employees. Many companies still appear to consider the training and development of their personnel as a cost rather than as an investment. These companies would seem to lack proper strategies to validate training programmes and to demonstrate that training is a value-added activity to ensure the long-term sustainability and profitability of their organisations. In order to encourage both private and public sector organisations to adopt correct training strategies to build up their human resources, the MIM Council decided to undertake this research project for the identification and enhancement of best training practices suitable to Mauritius. The project was aimed to highlight the best approaches to be adopted in identifying, developing and implementing training programmes, which would take into consideration the training logistics and budget available, the constraints and difficulties that may arise, the expected results and follow-up procedures. Four main reasons for the need to lay emphasis on best practices were identified:
- maximise training outcomes by linking training evaluation to business objectives
- implement training evaluation processes that can demonstrate a positive return on investment
- measure the effectiveness of training, and
- align strategic planning to training outcomes and training evaluation processes.
The detailed objectives were identified as being:
- determine the extent to which different private and public stakeholders are involved in training
- identify the approaches adopted by private and public sector companies in identifying, developing and implementing training programmes
- identify types of training methodologies adopted
- identify the logistics, facilities, constraints and advantages available for successful training implementation
- identify how their training programmes are monitored and results reviewed
- identify how their training programmes contribute to their business strategies and impact on their organisations
- identify and develop best practices for adopting correct training strategies, training needs identification, development, implementation, monitoring and review
- disseminate to stakeholders the relevant information regarding training best practices suitable to Mauritius.