The effectiveness and practical application of human resource development (HRD) programs in the semiconductor industry - a case study of SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd

In a workplace where employees are constantly impacted by the environment of change, corporate leaders are faced with critical decisions among myriad choices about how to plan for and affect the evolving lifelong learning needs of their organizations. The challenge for Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Silterra) and it employees is to identify those needs, implement and execute them. As one of the pioneers in semiconductor fabrication industry in Malaysia, it is the intent of Silterra to create a legacy in the area of training and development. It is the goal of the company to become a learning organization. Continuous learning is a key success of a learning organization. To sustain as a learning organization, the HRD programs are used to develop competency sets for Silterra employees. The evaluation system developed by Donald Kirkpatrick (1979) has been used to measure the effectiveness of HRD programs. However, there is an on-going debate in the field of evaluation about which is the best approach to facilitate the processes involved. This paper reviews current approaches to evaluation of training both in theory and practice applicable to Silterra.