Organisational climate and training application in the banking industry

Abstract

This study examined the contribution of organisational climate on training application in the Burundi banking industry, based on a case study of Ecobank. The study examined three organisational climate dimensions that is; supervisor support, team support and reward support how each influenced employees’ ability to apply the knowledge and skills gained from a successfully conducted training.

Analytical cross-sectional survey research design was employed to collect quantitative data using a structured questionnaire and interview guide from a sample size of 123 respondents who included both management and staff. The study findings revealed that organisational climate significantly related with training application in the banking sector (r=o.807, p=0.000) with reward support as the strongest predictor, followed by team support and supervisor support emerged as the lowest predictor.

In conclusion, the study established that rewards, team support and supervisor support significantly influenced trainee’s application of the trained skills and knowledge at the workplace. The study recommends that ssupervisors need to provide support for training at work and also provide guidance on effective utilisation of skills and knowledge learned, on top of the other practices already adopted. This way, they will be contributing to a more supportive organisational climate that is crucial for fostering training application of the employees. In addition, organisations need to come up with policies that reward staff who demonstrate successful application of knowledge and skills learned in task accomplishment. Staff working together need to undergo the same training if team members are to support each other in memorising the training content and applying the learned competencies. However, the degree of team support should be regulated not to result into group cohesiveness and the negative results.