Design of Employee Training in Taiwanese Nonprofits

Workforce learning has become a fundamental need for organizations that face a quick-changing world growing more complicated by the day. In this study, we focused on an examination into the factors that affect the design of employee training in nonprofits, including a discussion into the training practices of nonprofits as a result of those factors. Smaller nonprofits in Taiwan were studied; larger nonprofits, such as the Red Cross and World Vision, were not included in the present study. Through interviews with and surveys of 20 participating nonprofits in Taiwan, we found that the widely used linear training design framework, including assessment, design, development, implementation, and evaluation, might not be appropriate for many nonprofits due to organizational factors such as human resources, financial environments, and managerial systems. Due to the influence of these factors, the practice of training in nonprofits has moved beyond structured design, and diverse on-the-job approaches are now being applied.