Training Needs Assessment
Monday, November 25, 2013
How do you identify the training that people really need to perform at their best?
And, how do you make best use of a small training budget, and negotiate
for more training resources where you need this?
When you're designing any training and development program, you
really need to know the fundamentals (who, what, why, how, where
and when) before you arrange the training:
What training is needed?
Who needs it?
Why is the training important?
How will the training be delivered?
A Training Needs Assessment (also known as a Training Needs
Analysis) is a good, structured way of doing this. It identifies
the training that will successfully address any identified skill
deficits. It does this by surveying the skills that employees
already have and those that they need, and it helps you think
about how to deliver the right training at the right time.
By looking at existing skills and competencies compared to the
skills required to meet organizational needs, you make an informed
estimate of the training that has to be delivered. From that point
you can confidently develop a training program that addresses
organizational objectives, and ties into the strategic direction
of the company.
Understood in this way, you can see that Training Needs Assessment
is much more than simple data gathering. Rather, it is a process
that starts with gathering data and ends with a training plan.
Scoping Your Training Needs Assessment
Before you begin, you need to determine what the scope of your
training need assessment is. To do that, it is useful to consider
which of the following perspectives is driving the training needs
that you are considering:
Organization – what training needs to be done to ensure the organization performs effectively?
Is the organization meeting its performance targets?
Are there new laws or regulations you need to be versed in?
Have the organization's goals and objectives changed?
Is new technology necessary?
Do you have to learn to work with different resource constraints?
Are there human resource issues like turnover, absenteeism, and recruitment problems?
Task and job – what training must be done to reach performance standards for particular tasks or job?
Do people have the skills, knowledge and competence required to do the work required of them?
Do skill levels need to be increased to meet performance goals?
Are there health and safety issues, competence issues, regulatory compliance issues or issues of legal exposure that will arise if people aren't fully trained?
Is the organization using best practices to complete the functions of the job?
Individual – which employees need training, and in what, to perform their jobs more effectively?
Are there weaknesses in job-specific skills, knowledge and competencies? (These may be flagged up by poor productivity, down time, customer complaints, or high levels of absenteeism or stress.)
Do the employees believe they need training on certain skills or competencies?
Are skill upgrades required?
Most Training Needs Assessments involve elements from all three levels. This ensures that while the training is targeted to individual needs, these needs are tied to job performance and organizational goals and objectives.
And what's the scope of your assessment? Are you going to determine the training needs across the organization? For a specific team? To improve performance in a specific process or task? Clarify
and write down your scope, so that you remain focused on it. It's all too easy to get side-tracked, and broaden or narrow your scope
too much during the assessment.
The Training Needs Assessment Process
1: Gather Data
The process starts with gathering data, depending on the scope
you've identified. Make sure you gather the information that will
help you analyze performance and/or skills in the areas you need
to cover. This will help you identify gaps between:
Existing skills and competencies, and desired skills and competencies.
Current performance and desired performance.
Think about this using the following headings:
Organizational data
Strategic plans.
Key performance data.
Information about planned change and initiatives.
Task and job data
Performance data for specific processes or
departments.
Job descriptions.
Knowledge/skills/abilities required for
each job.
Individual data
Performance appraisals.
Personal Development Plans.
If you can't have access to this confidential
information, try to get it in summary form, or ask managers for
key themes.
You'll also need to gather information about training that has
already taken place and, where available, information about its
effectiveness.
2: Analyze skills and performance gaps
Training helps build skills and improve performance. So the next
stage is to identify, within your scope, what areas of skills
and performance could be improved by training. To do this, you'll
need to analyze data that you've gathered and also consult with
key people.
Analyze gaps
You'll need to consider gaps at the organizational, task/job and
individual level, depending on your scope and context. Among the
questions that will help you do this:
What changes in strategy are forthcoming,
and what training might be required to support it?
Are there discrepancies in performance between
expectations and results?
What common themes arise in people's appraisals
and development plans?
Consult with key people
Meet with the leaders of applicable departments or teams to
discuss training to ask questions such as:
What are the key tasks the department performs?
What training has already been done?
What are your most pressing training issues?
What training will help your department's
performance?
Consider surveys, interviews and/or focus groups
To identify training needs, it can sometimes be important to involve
people who need to be trained. You could do this by survey, or
interview people individually, or consult with people in focus
groups. A survey can be a good way of involving a wider group
of people, whilst interviews and focus groups can be more effective
at making qualitative assessment and validating your assessment.
Take care, however, not to emerge with a vast "wish list"
from these sessions – you'll need to prioritize the outputs as
resources will inevitably be limited.
Among the questions to ask of individuals or groups within the
organization:
What training do you think you need?
What training are you interested in?
How important are the various skills and
competencies to performance?
What type of training do you prefer?
How can your training needs be best addressed?
3: Identify Specific Training Needs
With your data and analysis in hand, it's now time to identify
the training that needs to be planned. This means deciding which of the gaps in skills and performance you've identified
need to be met by your training plan.
Not all performance gaps will require training. Some gaps will
be better addressed by improving communications, more clearly
defined expectations, or changes in job specification. Others
can be addressed by outsourcing non-core activities, or by changing
work patterns so that people with important, rare skills focus
on that type of work, making best use of the skills available.
Next, consider
appropriate types of training, referring to your scope and consulting
further with others as necessary. Once you have identified the
training needs, you can think about how you can deliver the best
training possible with the resources available.
Key Points
A Training Needs Assessment is the precursor
to any successful training program. The key to a Training Needs
Assessment is gathering complete and accurate data from your target
audience. The better you know and understand what they can do
and what they need to do, the better you will be at identifying
the critical places where the gap in knowledge or skill is hindering
organizational performance.
And although the data gathering aspect of a
Training Needs Assessment is crucial, it is what you do with the
information that will ultimately determine the success of your
training program. Don't forget to tie your training needs to organizational
performance, and create a plan that energizes the people and business.
Many thanks to Club member Evaldrid for posing a question related to conducting a training needs assessment and to Brent for his detailed information on data gathering techniques. The original discussion can be found here .
Tags:
Skills, Team Management
And, how do you make best use of a small training budget, and negotiate
for more training resources where you need this?
When you're designing any training and development program, you
really need to know the fundamentals (who, what, why, how, where
and when) before you arrange the training:
What training is needed?
Who needs it?
Why is the training important?
How will the training be delivered?
A Training Needs Assessment (also known as a Training Needs
Analysis) is a good, structured way of doing this. It identifies
the training that will successfully address any identified skill
deficits. It does this by surveying the skills that employees
already have and those that they need, and it helps you think
about how to deliver the right training at the right time.
By looking at existing skills and competencies compared to the
skills required to meet organizational needs, you make an informed
estimate of the training that has to be delivered. From that point
you can confidently develop a training program that addresses
organizational objectives, and ties into the strategic direction
of the company.
Understood in this way, you can see that Training Needs Assessment
is much more than simple data gathering. Rather, it is a process
that starts with gathering data and ends with a training plan.
Scoping Your Training Needs Assessment
Before you begin, you need to determine what the scope of your
training need assessment is. To do that, it is useful to consider
which of the following perspectives is driving the training needs
that you are considering:
Organization – what training needs to be done to ensure the organization performs effectively?
Is the organization meeting its performance targets?
Are there new laws or regulations you need to be versed in?
Have the organization's goals and objectives changed?
Is new technology necessary?
Do you have to learn to work with different resource constraints?
Are there human resource issues like turnover, absenteeism, and recruitment problems?
Task and job – what training must be done to reach performance standards for particular tasks or job?
Do people have the skills, knowledge and competence required to do the work required of them?
Do skill levels need to be increased to meet performance goals?
Are there health and safety issues, competence issues, regulatory compliance issues or issues of legal exposure that will arise if people aren't fully trained?
Is the organization using best practices to complete the functions of the job?
Individual – which employees need training, and in what, to perform their jobs more effectively?
Are there weaknesses in job-specific skills, knowledge and competencies? (These may be flagged up by poor productivity, down time, customer complaints, or high levels of absenteeism or stress.)
Do the employees believe they need training on certain skills or competencies?
Are skill upgrades required?
Most Training Needs Assessments involve elements from all three levels. This ensures that while the training is targeted to individual needs, these needs are tied to job performance and organizational goals and objectives.
And what's the scope of your assessment? Are you going to determine the training needs across the organization? For a specific team? To improve performance in a specific process or task? Clarify
and write down your scope, so that you remain focused on it. It's all too easy to get side-tracked, and broaden or narrow your scope
too much during the assessment.
The Training Needs Assessment Process
1: Gather Data
The process starts with gathering data, depending on the scope
you've identified. Make sure you gather the information that will
help you analyze performance and/or skills in the areas you need
to cover. This will help you identify gaps between:
Existing skills and competencies, and desired skills and competencies.
Current performance and desired performance.
Think about this using the following headings:
Organizational data
Strategic plans.
Key performance data.
Information about planned change and initiatives.
Task and job data
Performance data for specific processes or
departments.
Job descriptions.
Knowledge/skills/abilities required for
each job.
Individual data
Performance appraisals.
Personal Development Plans.
If you can't have access to this confidential
information, try to get it in summary form, or ask managers for
key themes.
You'll also need to gather information about training that has
already taken place and, where available, information about its
effectiveness.
2: Analyze skills and performance gaps
Training helps build skills and improve performance. So the next
stage is to identify, within your scope, what areas of skills
and performance could be improved by training. To do this, you'll
need to analyze data that you've gathered and also consult with
key people.
Analyze gaps
You'll need to consider gaps at the organizational, task/job and
individual level, depending on your scope and context. Among the
questions that will help you do this:
What changes in strategy are forthcoming,
and what training might be required to support it?
Are there discrepancies in performance between
expectations and results?
What common themes arise in people's appraisals
and development plans?
Consult with key people
Meet with the leaders of applicable departments or teams to
discuss training to ask questions such as:
What are the key tasks the department performs?
What training has already been done?
What are your most pressing training issues?
What training will help your department's
performance?
Consider surveys, interviews and/or focus groups
To identify training needs, it can sometimes be important to involve
people who need to be trained. You could do this by survey, or
interview people individually, or consult with people in focus
groups. A survey can be a good way of involving a wider group
of people, whilst interviews and focus groups can be more effective
at making qualitative assessment and validating your assessment.
Take care, however, not to emerge with a vast "wish list"
from these sessions – you'll need to prioritize the outputs as
resources will inevitably be limited.
Among the questions to ask of individuals or groups within the
organization:
What training do you think you need?
What training are you interested in?
How important are the various skills and
competencies to performance?
What type of training do you prefer?
How can your training needs be best addressed?
3: Identify Specific Training Needs
With your data and analysis in hand, it's now time to identify
the training that needs to be planned. This means deciding which of the gaps in skills and performance you've identified
need to be met by your training plan.
Not all performance gaps will require training. Some gaps will
be better addressed by improving communications, more clearly
defined expectations, or changes in job specification. Others
can be addressed by outsourcing non-core activities, or by changing
work patterns so that people with important, rare skills focus
on that type of work, making best use of the skills available.
Next, consider
appropriate types of training, referring to your scope and consulting
further with others as necessary. Once you have identified the
training needs, you can think about how you can deliver the best
training possible with the resources available.
Key Points
A Training Needs Assessment is the precursor
to any successful training program. The key to a Training Needs
Assessment is gathering complete and accurate data from your target
audience. The better you know and understand what they can do
and what they need to do, the better you will be at identifying
the critical places where the gap in knowledge or skill is hindering
organizational performance.
And although the data gathering aspect of a
Training Needs Assessment is crucial, it is what you do with the
information that will ultimately determine the success of your
training program. Don't forget to tie your training needs to organizational
performance, and create a plan that energizes the people and business.
Many thanks to Club member Evaldrid for posing a question related to conducting a training needs assessment and to Brent for his detailed information on data gathering techniques. The original discussion can be found here .
