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The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of a long‐term (13‐week, spaced learning) with a short‐term (two‐day, block intensive) coaching skills training programme on participants' coaching skills and emotional intelligence.

In the study 23 participants completed a 13‐week coaching skills training course which consisted of weekly 2.5‐hour workshops and action learning. In comparison, 20 participants completed a two‐day “Manager as Coach” training programme, with a three‐week action learning break between day one and day two. Both training programmes used the same coaching frameworks, with the two‐day programme being more condensed.

Participation in the 13‐week training course was associated with increases in both goal‐focused coaching skills and emotional intelligence, whereas the two‐day block intensive training was associated with increased goal‐focused coaching skills, but not emotional intelligence. Further, the magnitude of the increase in goal‐focused coaching skills was less for the two‐day programme than for the 13‐week programme.

These studies used a quasi‐experimental pre‐post design, and the long‐term effects were not measured. Future research should use control groups and random assignment to short‐ or long‐term training.

The main implications of these findings are that, while short, intensive programmes may improve participants' goal‐focused coaching skills, organisations seeking to deepen the impact of “Manager as Coach” training programmes and improve the underlying emotional intelligence of participants should use a spaced learning approach over a number of weeks.

This is the first study to examine the impact of different approaches to coaching skills training and their impact on emotional intelligence.

This paper reviews two recent projects dealing with training and skill needs in the British clothing sector undertaken to implement the government’s policies to increase commitment to vocational training and avoid skill shortages: the People Skills Scoreboard and Skills Foresight for the clothing sector. Despite the dramatic contraction of the sector at the end of the 1990s, clothing enterprises in 2001 were still experiencing chronic recruitment difficulties and skill shortages. Moreover, irrespective of skills gaps in the existing workforce and evidence that training is associated with business success, clothing companies remain reluctant to provide adequate training to meet future skills needs, an attitude that is both a cause and consequence of difficulties in retaining skilled labour.

Organizational leaders value effective communication in employees, but ineffective communication persists (Peart, 2019). Communication Skills Training (CST) programs often face time and engagement constraints (Wright et al., 2006), necessitating increased resources for improvement. This study investigates the fields in which communication skills are examined and the research methods used. Given past training-communication associations, it explores CST programs' positive impact through experimental research (Bakker & van Wingerden, 2021). The study aims to enhance CST research by providing insights into effective training methods for facilitators and practitioners.

This systematic literature review examines CST's effectiveness in improving employee communication outcomes and identifying key factors. It highlights the importance of communication training, provides insights into existing research, and identifies areas for future investigation. As communication training is not context-specific, a comprehensive understanding of its effectiveness is necessary. This review establishes a foundational framework to support the creation of impactful training programs.

This research reaffirms the importance of Communication Skills Training (CST) in enhancing key competencies such as communication competence, self-efficacy, and empathy for workplace success, benefiting collaboration, conflict resolution, and problem-solving. It provides a foundational understanding of CST's impact, serving as a resource for researchers, trainers, and leaders, while also emphasizing the need for further research, including larger experiments, diverse skill sets, and long-term assessment. In our digital age, exploring contemporary skills, including digital communication, is essential for comprehensive training. The systematic categorization of skills into intrapersonal and interactional dimensions ensures consistency and supports in-depth analysis.

To address the broad range, outcome skills were categorized as intrapersonal or interactional, excluding the behavioral aspect concerning societal improvement. Leveraging Zimmerman's (1995) empowerment theory to enhance focus, this framework provides value for diverse CST research outcomes. Intrapersonal encompassed self-views, like self-efficacy and knowledge, while interactional involved understanding and aligning exchanges with personal goals. This categorization enhances research clarity and effectiveness by systematically understanding how these skills are related.

Some evidence of a relationship between training provision and the extent of skills shortages is provided by presenting the results of a survey of small firms operating across a range of manufacturing and service industries within the Portsmouth area of south Hampshire. By empirically distinguishing between different types of training providers and measuring the severity of skills shortages between companies, it is shown that those organisations which lay emphasis on the development of human resources are less adversely affected by skills shortages than those organisations which, in contrast, lay emphasis on the exploitation of human resources.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to evaluate if the environment of the State 4-H Council fosters transfer of training to life after the 4-H program. Purposive sampling identified former members of a State 4-H Council. The research methods included semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Major findings of the study noted that most areas of the council environment encourage the transfer of training, however, some facets of the council environment need improvement to promote training transfer. Recommendations include conducting a needs assessment of all incoming State 4-H Council members, developing an experiential training method, implementing training on working with different personality types, improving communication among the group, and continuing to reward council members for using the skills they gain while on the council.

Since the war there has been increased government intervention in the operation of the economy. Its objectives have been those of promoting growth, full employment, price stability and a favourable balance of trade. The belief that a major reason for the failure of the economy to achieve these objectives was manpower constraints, led to governments intervening into labour markets. One feature of this movement has been the particular concern with the supply of skilled workers. This concern stemmed from the belief that the skilled labour market was characterised by persistent shortages and large cyclical fluctuations in the training of skilled workers.

This paper provides more insight into the assumption of human capital theory that the productivity of job-related training is driven by the improvement of workers’ skills. We analyze the extent to which training and informal learning on the job are related to employee skill development and consider the heterogeneity of this relationship with respect to workers’ skill mismatch at job entry. Using data from the 2014 European Skills and Jobs Survey, we find – as assumed by human capital theory – that employees who participated in training or informal learning show greater improvement of their skills than those who did not. The contribution of informal learning to employee skill development appears to be larger than that of training participation. Nevertheless, both forms of learning are shown to be complementary. This complementarity between training and informal learning is related to a significant additional improvement of workers’ skills. The skill development of workers who were initially underskilled for their job seems to benefit the most from both training and informal learning, whereas the skill development of those who were initially overskilled benefits the least. Work-related learning investments in the latter group seem to be more functional in offsetting skill depreciation than in fostering skill accumulation.

Intangible resources are recognized to hold the potential leading to a competitive advantage. Understanding how such resources are developed is, therefore, equally important. Certainly, a leader's job includes the development of intangible resources. One increasingly important area in the development of managerial expertise is a strategic organizational competence. Managerial expertise is the attainment of having master managers throughout the organization. For managers, such master manager skills include not only knowing what to do, why to do it, and how to do it; but, also knowing when to do it. On-the-job experiences often translate into tacit knowledge in areas as they relate to specific productivity tasks, however, knowing what, why, how, and when with management skills are more problematic. This is even more problematic when the skill development program is left up to the individual manager. When should one seek additional training on a regular basis? When can one forgo routine training and only occasionally brush up one's skills through training? The costs of training continue to increase and make the need to determine cost-effective training programs more important than ever before. This paper addresses the combining of assessments into a joint understanding of managerial expertise levels. It presents the results of assessment for several supervisory nursing staff in two hospital departments and the use of these assessments in communicating needed personal improvement plans.

Long-duration spaceflight missions require many hours of pre-mission and inflight training to develop and maintain team skills. Current training flows rely heavily on expert instructors, while current inflight mission operations are supported by a complex series of support teams at Mission Control. However, future exploration space missions will not have real-time communications with ground-based experts at Mission Control. Portable intelligent tutoring systems may help streamline future training, reducing the burden on expert instructors and crew training time, and allowing for inflight support to mitigate negative effects of the loss of real-time communications. In this chapter, we discuss the challenges of long-duration exploration missions, and outline the myriad possibilities in which intelligent tutoring systems will enhance the crew performance and functioning.

Many factors may influence the training and development of middle-skill, low-skill, and disadvantaged workers. Within the United States and worldwide there are many middle-skilled, low-skilled, and disadvantaged workers whom training and development professionals must consider as organizations seek to expand their workforce and increase productivity using technology. Temporary agencies employ many middle-skilled, low-skilled, and disadvantaged workers; however, there is very little information regarding how effective these agencies are in developing these workers beyond the skill level with which they enter the agency.