Does your Organisation Need Training?

In today’s fast-paced market environment, companies that are failing to effectively train their employees are getting left behind in the arena.

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is that they start constructing training plans based on perceived training needs. This results  in training programs that are not based on proper needs assessment, and so, they end up being highly ineffective.

Here, we will discuss the importance of evaluating corporate training needs, and then some practices on how to conduct such an assessment will be discussed. Lets take a look at some of the key practices that can help your organisation grow:

Identifying your Corporate Training Needs

Corporate training can oftentimes result in intangible gains to all participating people. This means that the resources invested by a company can sometimes be wasted. For this reason, it is important to build / invest in training programs that are tailor-made to your training needs and not a ‘One size fits all’ scenario.

So how do you know if your Company needs to be trained?

It is important to know that all performance gaps are not correct indicators for training. Other possible reasons for a decline in revenue could include things like:

• Tough competition
• Lack of market demand
• Product pricing
• A general recession

If, however, these are not the issues you are facing then the underlying cause of this needs to be addressed first. Getting to the root of the matter is not a simple task. There can be many sides to a seemingly unsolvable problem.

Here are a few indicators that can help you narrow down the problem areas of your organisation:

Organisational Needs

Perhaps one of the most essential things to consider would be to see how your organisation is functioning. First, you will need to identify if the need for training is company-wide or just required in particular departments.

After the identification of problem areas, you will need to figure out the amount of resources your organisation has. For instance, are there any training or operational resources that can be re-purposed from other departments within the organisation?

Then, the training needs of the company will need to be thoroughly inspected. This means checking if the training program intended to improve the company is, in fact, aligning with the company’s objectives and aims.

Before any training begins however, the question must be asked if there are any roadblocks to any planned training. This includes seeing if the organisational structure is alright with top-down changes; if upper management will actually be open minded with regards to training objectives, helping support their staff to achieve their own individual growth, while at the same time, being careful not to micro-manage them.

It is also important for management to be in favour of working to fix any issues that they see arise in needs assessment. And lastly, the willingness to fund any training objectives will need to be inspected.

Job Task Analysis

After assessing whether the developmental training is required throughout a particular department or company, other steps must be taken to get to the bottom of the training gap. This includes magnifying the tasks that need training and evaluating each aspect of their nature.

The first thing to note would be the individual/group of individuals that are carrying out this task. How frequently the task is done is the next thing to identify, followed by finding if there is actually a set standard of conducting the task successfully.

The next step would be to check what skills/ abilities are required to complete the task itself along with the tools, technologies, and other resources used to complete the task at hand. The final thing to note should be to see if there are any industry-wide metrics to measure success.

Results uncovered from this analysis should be analysed according to the nature of the task in question as well as the relevant metrics necessary to ensure successful completion of the project.

Individual Assessment

Often times, poorly performing individuals are unaware of their own shortfalls, and how they are contributing to a problem. Individual assessments can help tackle that issue somewhat by identifying work patterns that can be detrimental to a project’s success.

Several things to consider include the prevalence of these performance challenges, along with the profile of workers who are predominantly a part of poorly completed tasks. The next thing to consider would be if these individuals do, in fact, have the required skill-set to complete these tasks. After the identification of any skill gaps, each individual’s method of learning should be recognized and taken note of.

The most important thing to identify, would be to see if the performance gaps are occurring due to reasons other than the individual’s skill-set. This can include underlying issues like poor work-space configuration, lack of proper management, or other issues in the upper or lower levels of management.

Performance evaluations can shed much light on causes that are leading to seemingly unsolvable problems. Training is a common aspect of developing a company and it’s individuals to an industry-wide level of competency. However, even before training is carried out, it is important to conduct an in-depth internal analysis to fully understand what your company needs to gain a competitive edge in the market.

If you find out that your organisation is in need of training, then visit Prudential’s Corporate Training Services to work out the best plan for you.

Needs Analysis Tools and Techniques:

Training needs analysis is not as simple as looking through corporate documentation and performance reports. A variety of techniques should be used to fully gauge the level of training required by the employees. Some of these techniques include:

1. In-person interviews: This includes meeting with executives, managers, HR specialists and rank-and-file employees, and talking to them about challenges they face as well as any training needs they perceive as a necessity.
2. Surveys: By designing focused questionnaires and surveys to get inputs from various stakeholders about training needs, you can get a clearer picture about which areas employees are lacking in.
3. SME Consultation: Consult ation sessions with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and their input on training needs with regards to both industry as well as global practices is a must.
4. Focus groups: Creating a task force that’s mandated to review training needs and provide recommendations on how to go about addressing them is vital to address corporate training needs.
5. On-the-job observations: A select group of individuals can also go into the workplace and observe employees performing their jobs. They can then make notes and recommendations about any performance gaps and training needs

It may also be a good idea to use all of the points above to prepare a personalised corporate training needs analysis check list, and then use that to guide your decisions about future training.

A general needs analysis checklist is outlined below. It can help you to further assess areas that are lagging within your organisation.

1. Do you know what the organisation is trying to accomplish?
2. Do you know the history of training within the organisation?
3. What needs will be addressed by the training?
4. Have there been any recent process or procedure changes?
5. What resources are available for training?
6. Who needs to be trained?
7. Who can serve as a subject matter experts?
8. Are any staff members going to do the training?
9. Which companies provide training materials?
10. What are the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities that are important for your company?
11. Review Job Descriptions and Org Charts.

Before you decide on putting a training program together, you should review all of the feedback received (through the various analysis steps and techniques discussed); and come up with specific training action plans. Preferably, add timelines, manpower estimates and budgetary resources required for each step in the plan.

Prudential can help you fulfill your organisational training need identification. For FREE Corporate Training Advisory & TNA; Email us at trainings@www.prudsol.com