CHAPTER 2 TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Training Needs Assessment
[A1] What, Why and How
where to start in the task of having your employees trained? Consider performing a training needs assessment .What is a training needs assessment?A tool utilized to identify what educational courses or activities should be provided to employees to improve their work productivity. Focus should be placed on needs as opposed to desires. eg:an employee in the accounting department needs to learn Microsoft Excel than Microsoft Publisher . Why conduct a training needs assessment?· To pinpoint if training will make a difference in productivity and the bottom line.· To decide what specific training each employee needs and what will improve their job performance.· To differentiate between the need for training and organizational issues.
How is a training needs assessment performed? There are several techniques. Use more than one tool to get a better view of the big picture. 1. Meet with management.Since most supervisors are involved with the planning of projects and the future of the company, they know what will be needed. They should be able to communicate where their employee’s current abilities lie and what is needed to get them to the next level for new projects on the horizon. 2. Meet with employees.Discuss what struggles they may be facing from day-to-day and what would make their job easier and more efficient. Remember to keep them focused on what they need rather than what they want. 3. Conduct surveys.Surveys are beneficial because many people can be polled in a short period of time. Additionally, surveys provide employees with the opportunity to confess a need on paper that they may be too embarrassed to admit needing in a face-to-face meeting. Surveys should take the form of a questionnaire and can include close-ended or open-ended questions, or a series of both. Close-ended questions require the respondent stay within certain perimeters set by the person who created the survey. Being that the answers are limited, tabulating the data is simple. Open-ended questions allow an employee to provide more feedback and introduce new ideas that may not have been considered initially, although tallying the results may be more difficult. A good option during the creation of a survey would be to include a combination of both close-ended and open-ended questions. 4. Conduct focus groups.Focus groups allow for small group interaction, allowing the assessor to uncover details about their target audience. Brainstorming is encouraged allowing for an exchange of new ideas and a revelation of what training may be needed. They should be at least ninety minutes long to initially break the ice and for participants to become comfortable enough to express their thoughts. Depending on time limits, focus groups can be held once or repeatedly. 5. Review organization / department goals and mission statement.A brief review of the organisation’s past and where they are headed for the future may reveal valuable information for training. A comparison should be made of what employees are currently doing and what will be expected of them as the organization continues to grow and change. Three things to consider:· Consider meeting with employees that are already successfully completing tasks. You may uncover useful techniques that can be taught during training to other employees. · Keep surveys brief. More employees will be willing to complete them and tallying the results will be more manageable. · Good hand-written notes should be taken during a focus group and consideration should be given to either audio taping or video taping the session allowing it to be reviewed later for any details initially missed.
Six Steps
Mary Coombs of Salem College , New Jersey, shares the method that works for her: Step 1: Sit down with a top boss to get their input on what they think their employees’ needs are. Step 2: Develop a survey to be passed out to employees. Include some questions using a Likert scale of 1 to 5 and some open-ended questions. For example, have you ever thought, “I could do this job faster and easier if I just….”Step 3: Conduct a focus group. Step 4: Hold a second meeting with the employer to review the data from the survey and the focus group.
Step 5: Develop a specific, customized training plan. Step 6: Execute the training.
Design Training Needs Assessment Surveys
[A2] Needs Assessment Tips
How do you create a good survey to generate the results you are looking for? 1. Don’t write a book. keep it brief. Brainstorm and write and down all the questions you might want to ask, then review the list and go with only the absolutely most important. 2. Avoid two part questions.When creating a question, include only one topic at a time and split the question into two separate questions if necessary.
As the surveyor, you can be sure which question they are answering and will avoid the risk of your surveyee skipping one of the questions.Poor Format: - Have you had computer training and if so, what courses have you completed?Better Format: Question 1: Have you had computer training? Question 2: What courses have you completed? 3. Keep each question as brief as possible.Long sentences run the risk of losing your participants' attention and create a bigger chance of causing confusion. Poor Format: For your position, do you focus more on paperwork, hands-on activities, technical duties, customer service, or management responsibilities? Better Format: For your position, what type of skills do you focus on? 4. Avoid leading questions.Write the question in such a way that your client will be free to answer what they truly FEEL rather than forcing them to provide what you THINK they need.Poor Format: Will the staff benefit from Microsoft Access computer training?Better Format: What types of computer training will your staff benefit from?5. Provide clear, to the point, instructions at the top of the survey.To net good results, don’t just assume the person filling out the survey knows what you are looking for. They may perceive things incorrectly or may try to fill out your survey based on the format of other surveys they’ve taken. Make it clear from the beginning otherwise your results may not be accurate. Poor Format: Please circle the numbers 1 through 5.Better Format: Please circle the numbers 1 through 5 with 1 being the least likely and 5 being the most likely.

6. Do not limit yourself to one type of question throughout the entire survey.Utilize varying formats to extract the appropriate information. Types of popular survey questions include:a) Rate the topic on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the least likely and 5 being the most likely. Example: As a manager, PowerPoint training would benefit me during my presentations 1 2 3 4 5b) Check all that applyExample: As a manager, I could use the following computer software training: _____ Microsoft Word_____ Microsoft Excel_____ Microsoft PowerPoint_____ Microsoft Access_____ Microsoft Publisher _____ Email/Internet Usagec) Choose one of the followingExample: As a manager, I supervise a team of: _____ 1-20_____ 21-50_____ 51-100_____ 100+d) Open-ended questions that allow the participants to fill in one to two sentences.
Example: As a manager, what training would help you most effectively do your job? e) Essay questionsExample: In one page or less, describe your duties as a manager. 7. Provide the survey in a way that is most convenient to your client. There are several ways to have a survey completed. You can go to your client’s location and distribute it to them or have the client come to your location to ensure they’ll have the quiet time they’ll need to focus on providing accurate answers. Additionally, you can mail them hard copies or attach them in an email for them to download and print out at their convenience. 8. Consider building online surveys.There are many survey sites on the web that help you easily create surveys. For a small fee, you can set up an account, create the survey and send a link to your client inviting them to fill out the survey online from whatever location they choose. This creates freedom to do it from their work office or even their home if they’d like. Many survey companies even tally up results, allowing you to analyze and export various types of data.
How To Conduct [A3] a Simple Training Needs Assessment
This training needs assessment works best in small to mid-sized organizations. It will give you a quick assessment of the training needs of an employee group.
This training needs assessment helps find common training programs for a group of employees.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: Approximately 1-2 hours
Here's How:
The facilitator gathers all employees who have the same job in a conference room with a white board or flip charts and markers.
Ask each employee to write down their ten most important training needs. Emphasize that the employees should write specific needs. Communication or team building are such broad training needs, as an example, that you would need to do a second training needs assessment on each of these topics. How to give feedback to colleagues or how to resolve a conflict with a coworker are more specific training needs.
Then, ask each person to list their ten training needs. As they list the training needs, the facilitator captures the training needs on the white board or flip chart. Don't write down duplicates but do confirm by questioning that the training need that on the surface appears to be a duplicate, really is an exact duplicate.
When all training needs have been listed, use a weighted voting process to prioritize the training needs across the group. In a weighted voting process, you use sticky dots or numbers written in magic marker (not as much fun) to vote on and prioritize the list of training needs. Assign a large dot 25 points and smaller dots five points each. Distribute as many dots as you like. Tell needs assessment participants to place their dots on the chart to vote on their priorities.
List the training needs in order of importance, with the number of points assigned as votes determining priority, as determined by the sticky dot voting process. Make sure you have notes or the flip chart pages to maintain a record of the training needs assessment session.
Take time, or schedule another session, to brainstorm the needed outcomes or goals from the first 3-5 training sessions identified in the needs assessment process. This will help as you seek and schedule training to meet the employees' needs. You can schedule more brainstorming later, but I generally find that you need to redo the needs assessment process after the first few training sessions.
Note the number one or two needs of each employee, that may not have become the priorities for the group.
Tips:
Training Needs Assessment can be, and often needs to be, much more complicated than this. But, this is a terrific process for a simple training needs assessment.
Make sure you keep the commitments generated by the training needs assessment process. Employees will expect to receive their key identified training sessions with the brainstormed objectives met.
What You Need:
Conference Room
Flip Chart or White Board and Markers


[A1]From Denise M. Ruggieri


[A2]From Denise M. Ruggieri


[A3]From Susan M. Heathfield,Your Guide to Human Resources.FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!