Training Needs Assessment - UniqueWritersBay

Training Needs Assessment and Its Purpose

There is often a gap in the expected and actual levels of performances. To bridge the gap in the performance, the training needs assessment (TNA) is conducted to identify the employees that need training and the kind of training to be offered. The main purpose of training needs assessment is to identify the employees who need training and the type of training they need (DeSimone, Werner, DeSimone, & L, 2008). The main reason for conducting training needs assessment is to eliminate the chances of offering training to those who do not need, since it is costly and counterproductive.

Training needs assessments (TNA) can be classified as reactive or proactive. A reactive TNA is used when the problem is obvious, thus necessitating the need for training to correct the specific problem. In contrast, proactive TNA is used when the workforce weaknesses are not known, thus helping to indicate where training is needed. Proactive training needs assessment is best when new processes or techniques are to be introduced to employees.

Why Training Needs Assessment is necessary

Today’s business environment is competitive and many high performance organizations are increasingly placing more emphasis on competency. As employees work for long, they tend to deteriorate in their performance. Similarly, new workforce needs to be aligned to meet the workforce requirements in the complex work environment. There is need to identify the actual levels of performance and the desired work performance levels. This difference can be identified through needs assessment. The use of total needs assessment (TNA) offers a number of importance to the organization and employees.

According to (DeSimone, Werner, DeSimone, & L, 2008), total needs assessment provides a framework from which training needs are identified. The training needs assessment acts as a strategic initiative through which the organization can examine the ways to enrich its competency, potential and capabilities. The successful use of training needs assessment allows the organization to evaluate best outcomes and optimize its resource utilization. With the increased competition, there is often the needs to optimize the use of resource to create credibility amongst the organization stakeholders. Thus training needs assessment provides a framework from which the organization can streamline its objectives to meet the organization goals.

Efficiency has become one of the critical issues in the competitive business environment. To achieve growth and high performance, an organization must be efficient in its processes. Total needs analysis provides a process from which the organization can perform an in-depth analysis of its labor costs, distribution time, production rates and waste minimization (Denby, 2010). The data analysis performed in these areas provides key information on areas of training. The data obtained from these parameters are important in the creation of strategic remedies that ensures the organization remains competitive, profitable and thus meet its goals and objectives. Thus, it helps in exploring of the ways in which the organization capability, competence and potential can be enriched.

Training needs assessment is important for employee training by providing answers to questions such as the employees who need training and the kind of training to be offered. The performance of organization employees at their optimal levels is importance for organizational performance. The needs analysis at the employee levels helps in creation of a standard that the employees need to attain in order to reach the expected competency levels (Denby, 2010). Moreover, it helps to gauge whether the training will lead to an improved standards, whether the improvement in performance has anything to do with the organization goals.

Moreover, training needs assessment helps in the identification of areas for improvement in employee skills, knowledge and job attitudes. This ensures the understanding of the areas that employee skills, knowledge and attitudes need to be developed. Thus training needs assessment helps in empowering the employees to acquire the required skills in faster pace, enabling the organization to meet its goals.

In conclusion, training needs assessment is important for the employees and the organization. It provides a strategy for developing employee skills by identifying areas where they need training and the kind of training that is required. Moreover, it acts as a strategic tool for aligning the organizational objectives through employee training and empowerment, thus enabling the organization to meet its goals and objectives.

How Training Needs Assessment is Part of the Process of Creating New Employee Training Program

The importance of training needs assessment is its use in the review of the current and past training programs and the analysis of the job functions. Creating effective training programs is dependent on the knowledge of the requirements for an employee, the department and the whole organization (Denby, 2010). Most organizations operate at limited budgets and there is need for the development of cost-effective remedies. The training needs assessment provides a strategy in creation of employee training programs in order to ensure the organization meets its obligations and work within the business constraints.

First, the training needs assessment is employed in the analysis of the past and present training programs (Denby, 2010). The aim of the analysis is to determine the required improvements and remove any redundancies in the training strategies. The training programs reviews are intended to determine what needs to be incorporated into the current training program and what must be eliminated in the past training programs in order enhance employee competence. Through such analysis of the training programs, the needs assessments provides a way in which new employee training programs can be developed to suit employee training needs.

According to (DeSimone, Werner, DeSimone, & L, 2008) training needs are the shortages in skills, which can be eliminated through effective training programs. The training needs assessment is used to analyse the employee skills, to determine the type of skills they need for them to perform effectively. The gap in skills identified by the needs assessment is employed in aligning the training programs, through the provision of the new skills as identified in the needs assessment.

Steps and Timeline to Follow in the Implementation of TNA

The most critical aspect of the training skills assessment is the ability to identify correctly, who needs to be trained and the training needs (Pennington, 2011). If the training needs are poorly identified, it could lead to ineffective or wrong learning techniques, training the wrong people or poor competencies. Creating a good plan is imperative in a successful training needs analysis. The following are the steps and timeline to follow in the implementation of training needs assessment.

Step 1- Determination of the Desired Organization Outcomes

Before the needs analysis is carried out, it is important that the goals of the training are articulated clearly. According to (Howard & Taw, 2001), the training goals should articulate the expected the organization outcomes of the training process. The goals of the training must align with the organization objectives. These can be specific to the organization employees, a department or the entire organization. The goals of the training must be followed as a guide to the training in the needs analysis process. The goals may include; increasing unit sales, to improve production rates, to reduce wastes or improve the speed at which shipment is done in the warehouse.

Step 2- Linkage of the Desired Outcomes with Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

The desired outcomes are often associated with specific behavior (Howard & Taw, 2001). These behaviors are linked to the employees having the skills on how to do them, having the capabilities to carry them out and having the required motivation to perform the tasks. Therefore, in this step, the needs analysis team must determine the desired competencies that are needed of the target group, to achieve the desired outcomes. The process involves the collection of data using multiple methods that include observations, employee interviews and administration of questionnaires.

Step 3- Identification of Competencies for Training of Workforce

Some competencies make economic sense to offer training, while other may be hard to train (Howard & Taw, 2001). For example, it would make a lot of sense to hire for specialized job than to train. Moreover, it would be hard to train an introvert to be an extrovert required for a sales job. Therefore, the needs assessment team must evaluate all the critical competencies as identified in the preceding step. Thereafter, determine the competencies that employees must possess during job entry and those that are open for training.

Step 4- Evaluation of the Competencies

In this step, the competencies that have been identified are evaluated against the target groups to determine the extent to which the targets possess them. The framework for evaluation of the competencies involves ratings of the target groups by experts in the fields. Most common raters are the supervisors. The common ratings involve performance evaluation surveys of the target employees. For the case of the supervisor and executive ratings, multiple groups that involve peers, customers and subordinates are used.

However, the use of survey rating tools may be ineffective for unobservable competencies such as skills, knowledge and personalities (Howard & Taw, 2001). In such a case, the evaluations of the competencies can be accomplished through professional tests carried out by a professional expert in the field, for example, psychologist for personality tests. For specialized skills evaluations, a customized assessment would be appropriate. For example, if the management wishes to measure the effectiveness in a specific segment of the work, like a production unit in the product processing.

Step 5- Determination of the Performance Gaps

Once the performance evaluation has been completed, the results are combined and the gaps in the performance determined. There is need for the organization to establish the standards, which will be rated against the results of the performance evaluation process to determine the employees that meet the standards and those that require training.

Step 6- Creation of Priority of Training Needs

The identification of the performance gaps will reveal a number of training needs. However, not all that require training will receive the training at the same time. There is need to categorize the competencies in order of priority areas. The competencies are ranged based on their importance to organizational goals, the urgency and whether they are real or vague.

Step 7- Determination of Training Methods

After the determination of the training needs and creation of priority needs, the training methods are determined. There are numerous methods that can be used to train employees, and these include mentoring and on-job training. However, it is important to note that the chosen method may be ideal for others, while it may proof ineffective for other employees. It is important that appropriate strategies be employed since employees may be diverse and have different learning capabilities.

Step 8- Cost Benefit Analysis

The step involves the determination of the costs associated with the time of evaluation of needs and training. The possible costs that should be considered at this stage are the loss in productivity time during training, the costs and benefits of the various training methods. For instance, some in-house development of training methods may be cheap but may fail to offer the required skills or experience. Similarly, use of vendors to deliver training kits may be expensive but could offer current market techniques. The training needs assessment team must strike a balance between the benefits and costs of the various training methods.

Step 9- Training Evaluation

The last step is the evaluation of the training to determine whether the training achieved the desired outcomes. The evaluation should seek to determine the extent to which employee performance, the targeted competencies and the overall business objective were attained through the training. The evaluation process is performed in a similar method to that of needs analysis.

Conclusion

The needs analysis process aims to identify the gaps in skills, knowledge and attitudes among employees. The needs analysis begins with the development of the desired outcomes and linking the same to the employee attitudes and behaviors. The evaluation is performed to determine competencies gaps and creation of priority of training developed. Then the training methods determined, training conducted and an evaluation of the process carried out to measure how it has attained the desired outcomes. The timeline for the performance of training needs analysis varies, and depends on the nature of the organization.

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