The Impact of Training on Organizational Outcomes in the CEE Region – Focus on Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia

In the knowledge-based society the permanent training and development of each individual is the premise of subsistence and development. In the period of global competition and radical economic changes human resources and their intellectual capital have become a vital resource for organizations. Employees’ competence, knowledge, skills and experience have to contribute to the company’s organizational performances. Only the companies investing in the continual updating of the knowledge and development of the skills of their employees can be successful on the long term. The aim of the human resource management, especially its training and development function is to help companies in the process of systematical organizational knowledge acquisition. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the companies’ training practice and its influence on the organisational performances in Central and Eastern Europe. The importance, extensiveness and effectiveness of training practice and its influence on the companies’ outcomes in total 633 companies in Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia is analyzed based on the data of Cranet research network from 2008/2010 research period. The results show that in the examined four CEE countries companies on average spend 4-9 days yearly and about 4% of payroll costs on teaching and development of their employees. The most popular techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of training are: feedback from the manager, meeting the objectives, employee reaction immediately after the training. The findings prove that more developed and effective training practice contributes to better organizational performances. The results can provide good benchmark for HR practitioners from CEE region in designing their new region- and country-specific training approaches.