The latter learning was particularly valuable, since many of these new vice presidents had never worked extensively with other executives at the company who come from other countries and cultural traditions. I was responsible for the cross-cultural training, while other external consultants provided training and education in the areas of planned organizational change and international finance and marketing. A small internal training staff at the corporation designed and coordinated the two-week program. Several of the senior vice presidents of the corporation dropped by the training site, which was located in a major hotel near the corporate headquarters. They offered corporate updates and inside information on corporate politics, thereby informally inviting the new VP’s into the inner circle of corporate leadership.
The intensive/off-site mode of training and education is sometimes used for the initial orientation of new employees. This is most often the case when the orientation is directed toward the training of new employees in a set of skills that are critical to the success and security of the organization. Flight attendants, for instance, are trained in facilities, complete with simulated airplane cabins, that are especially designed for intensive learning. Various utility companies have similarly established training centers that offer programs preparing new hires to climb telephone poles, monitor control panels or test for water quality. The managers of fast-food restaurants may be similarly trained at Hamburger College or Pizza U, a center of training which the parent company or franchiser owns and runs.
This mode of development is intended for the transmission of a large amount of material, regardless of the level of training or education, or the nature of the setting in which the employee development program takes place. Participants have little to distract them from the lessons they are learning. They often are given assignments to complete during the evening and spend many hours with other participants in preparing case studies, analyzing spreadsheets or simply learning from one another. If attention is directed exclusively to quantity of learning, then this mode of development is of greatest benefit. However, with attention being directed in recent years to the transfer of learning, there is a growing concern about the benefit inherent in this mode. When learners are overloaded with a massive amount of information that can’t readily be digested in a short period of time nor integrated with real life experiences, then there is often a significant decline in retained knowledge and skills.
