Report Summary: Employee Training

 Report Summary: Employee Training

While working for Old Time Sweet Company, 84 percent of employees received some kind of formal training and 98 percent received some kind of informal training. Old Time Sweet Company paid for all training referred to in this survey. During the six-month survey period from May to October, employees received an average of 30.4 hours of training, of which 10.1 hours were spent in formal training and 21.3 hours in informal training. In other words, 70 percent of the training took place through informal instruction.

Age: The youngest and oldest workers were less likely to have received formal training during the last 12 months than were workers ages 25 to 54. Workers 24 years of age or younger and workers 55 years of age or older received about half as many hours of total training as workers 25 to 54 years old.

Full- or part-time: Full-time workers (35 or more hours per week) were more likely to have received formal training in the last 12 months than were part-time workers (72 percent versus 56 percent). Similarly, during the May to October period, full-time workers received an average of 49 hours of training, compared to 13 hours for part-time workers. Full-time workers received about five times as much informal training (34 hours for full-time versus 8 hours for part-time) and three times as much formal training (15 hours versus 5 hours).

Earnings groups: Those in the bottom group of the earnings distribution were less likely to receive formal training and received fewer hours of formal training than higher earners. Sixty-two percent of those in the bottom group received formal training in the last 12 months compared with 84 percent of those in the top group. Low earners received 4 hours of formal training during the six-month survey period versus 23 hours for the top group.

Questions

9. You have recently been hired as a training and development specialist for Old Time Sweet Company, a company that manufactures and sells candy. You want to determine the current training needs of the company's employees by reading last year's training report summary shown above. What logical inference can you make from the information that relates age and training?

A. The employees between the ages of 25 to 54 have more personal time in which to attend training.

B. The company delays training younger, inexperienced workers until they are sure the employment arrangement is likely to last.

C. Many college graduates fall in the youngest category, and they will demand more on-the-job training.

D. The company inadvertently discriminates against the older workers and does not want to pay for additional training for them.

E. Workers ages 25 to 54 earn peak compensation and are better able to afford to pay for training.

10. Based on the data for full- or part-time employee training, what inferences can you make about part-time employees and training?

F. Part-time employees are looking for more training opportunities.

G. Training slots are filled by full-time employees, leaving fewer openings for part-time employees.

H. Part-time employees may have less ability to take time for training because they work fewer hours and have outside commitments.

J. Part-time employees perform tasks that don't require training.

K. Part-time employees do not want to learn new skills or improve upon their existing skills.