Training and development is one of the most important components of Human Capital Planning (HCM). It involves improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training is related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness through learning program, coaching, organizational culture, and instruction, while development is related to the progress of longer-term organizational and employee goals. Although training and development technically have differing definitions, the two are used interchangeably. Training and development has historically been a topic within applied psychology closely associated with human resources management, talent management, human resources development, instructional design, human factors, and knowledge management.^[1]

Training and development encompasses three main activities: training, education, and development.^[7][8][9]

The “stakeholders” in training and development are categorized into several classes. The sponsors of training and development are senior managers. The clients of training and development are business planners. Line managers are responsible for coaching, resources, and performance. The participants are those who actually undergo the processes. The facilitators are Human Resource Management staff. And the providers are specialists in the field. Each of these groups has its own agenda and motivations, which sometimes conflict with the agendas and motivations of the others.^[10]

Training has been used in organizations for the past several decades. Although training and development requires investments of many types, there are cited benefits to integrating training and development into organizations:

• Increased productivity and job performance ^[1]
• Skills development ^[1]
• Team development ^[1][16]
• Decreasing safety-related accidents ^[17]

However, if the training and development is not strategic and pointed at specific goals, it can lead to more harm than good. Needs assessments, especially when the training is being conducted on a large-scale, are frequently conducted in order to gauge what needs to be trained, how it should be trained, and how extensively. Needs assessments in the training and development context often reveal employee and management-specific skills to develop (e.g. for new employees), organizational-wide problems to address (e.g. performance issues), adaptations needed to suit changing environments (e.g. new technology), or employee development needs (e.g. career planning). The degree of effectiveness of training and development programs can be predicted by the needs assessment and how closely the needs were met, the execution of the training (i.e. how effective the trainer was), and trainee characteristics (e.g. motivation, cognitive abilities).^[20] Effectiveness of training is typically done on an individual or team-level, with few studies investigating the impacts on organizations.^[1]