Productivity Gains from the Implementation of Employee Training Programs

This paper utilizes data on the personnel policies and economic characteristics of businesses in the manufacturing sector to study the relationship between employee training and labor productivity. The major finding is that businesses that were operating below their expected labor productivity levels in 1983 implemented new employee training programs after 1983 which resulted in significantly larger increases in labor productivity growth between 1983 and 1986. This higher rate of productivity growth was sufficient to bring these businesses up to the labor productivity levels of comparable businesses by 1986. The positive effects of training implementation on productivity growth were shown to be inconsistent with a "Hawthorne Effect" interpretation because the implementation of new personnel policies other than training did not have significant effects on productivity growth.