Needs Assessment

Needs Assessment

“As training increasingly becomes used to help the company achieve its strategic goals, both upper and mid-level managers are involved in the needs assessment process.” Noe, (2013)

1. Stakeholders- I would gain buy-in from each, upper-level managers help to determine if training is related to the company’s business strategy, and if so, what type of training is required. Upper-level managers are also involved in identifying what business functions or units need training (person analysis) and in determining if the com- pany has the knowledge, skills, and abilities in the workforce that are necessary to meet its strategy and be competitive in the marketplace.

 

2. Questions: And with mid-level managers that ask how training may affect the attainment of financial goals for the particular units they supervise. As a result, for mid-level managers, organizational analysis focuses on identifying (1) how much of their budgets they want to devote to training; (2) the types of employees who should receive training (e.g., engineers, or core employees who are directly involved in producing goods or providing services); and (3) for what jobs training can make a difference in terms of improving products or customer service.

Along with consideration of whether training is aligned with the business strategy, trainers and inset designers are primarily interested in needs assessment to provide them with information that they need to administer, develop, and support training programs. This information includes determining if training should be purchased or developed in-house, identifying the tasks for which employees need to be trained, (task analysis) and determining upper- and mid-level managers’ interest in and support for training.

Representation for needs assessment: “There is no rule regarding how many types of employees should be represented in the group conducting the needs assessment. Still, it is important to get a sample of job incumbents (employees who are currently performing the job) involved in the process because they tend to be most knowledgeable about the job. Specifically, an expert or SME must be e knowledgeable about the content that training must cover, as well as realistic enough to be able to prioritize what content is critical to cover in the time allotted for the subject in the training curriculum. SMEs also must have information that is relevant to the company’s business and have an understanding of the company’s language, tools, and products.

3. Records /Documents to see: Because no single method of conducting needs assessment is superior to the others, multiple methods are usually used. I believe identifying training needs in different ways is significant to building effective training programs. I would give preference to using focus groups, (are a type of SME interview that involves a face-to-face meeting with groups of SMEs in which the questions that are asked relate to specific training needs. Or in this context, crowdsourcing refers to asking a large group of employees (i.e., the crowd) to help provide information for needs assessment that they are not traditionally asked to do. The process requires a review team to filter, sort, and build on the best ideas. The process allows the learning department to get a larger number of employees involved in the needs assessment process rather than relying only on interviews with SMEs. Use of online technology in needs assessment would be my last choice due to employee dissatisfaction and low turnover rate.

 

4. Techniques to employ: I would ask for employee development and performance management data, historical records and benchmarking data for review and comparison of other companies training practices.

 

 

References

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.