Difference between Training and Development

Key difference: A prominent difference between training and development is that training is concerned with acquisition of new skills, whereas development means adding value to one’s existential skill-set.

Training means to teach an individual or a group of individuals the things that they’re unaware of. It essentially means to make them familiar with a concept that they don’t know about yet. Training is a faculty of business management studies, and stands implemented in corporate houses throughout the world.

Training, in a corporate setting is quite different to the coaching/training that one observes generally. In a business house, the employees are expected to acquire new skills over time. This is to ensure that an employee performs to the fulfillment of his/her cost to a company. Such acquisition of skills is nothing but training. A firm usually invests a lot of money, time and resources to train a group of individuals the elements of their work discipline.

Once trained, the firm expects these employees to practice their newly acquired skills, and master them, in order to create monetary and productive value for the firm. For such a purpose, a firm orchestrates specific time bounds and performance measures directed at its employees. This is done for the realization of the short-term goals set by a firm, which is the reason why training is a short term process.

Development, on the other hand, is a long term concept. In development, an employee is looked at as an asset to the company, which needs to be enriched time and again to increase its value. In terms of skills and acquisition of skills, development largely concentrates its efforts on employees enhancing the skills that they already possess, along with acquiring new ones.

In essence, training is a part of development. Training can be called as a tool of development. Timely training programs rendered to an employee will yield in his/her overall development. However, training mostly focuses on the professional facets of an employee, but developing an employee concerns the overall growth of an employee. An employee’s emotional maturity along with the achievement of a professional edge is what development is all about.

Comparison between Training and Development:

	Training	Development
Focus	Short-term	Long-term
Mode	Group of individuals	An individual
Purpose	Realization of the task at hand	Personal and professional growth of an employee
Skills	Acquisition of new skills	Harnessing the existing skills
Knowledge	Knowledge is gained through training.	Development provides for an expansion of one’s knowledge.
Vis-à-vis	Training is a means to development.	Development comprises of training.
Tenure	Training is time bound.	Development is unending.
Frequency	Training is conducted as and when needed.	Development happens inadvertently and doesn’t need to be conducted.