Describe what problems might arise if a proper needs assessment is not conducted

Everyone will understand the importance of employee training, but ensuring a training needs analysis is conducted will go a long way in developing a successful training program. Here we discuss four barriers to consider when conducting a training needs analysis.

Time

Managers often feel that the extra effort to complete a training needs analysis is a waste of time when they could simply implement the assumed training requirements. However, in the long term, taking the time to plan and complete an accurate training needs analysis will save the organization time. You will have a much more detailed and segmented understanding of the type of training needed.

Rather than focusing on it as a waste of time, we encourage you to think of it as a return on investment. A detailed training needs analysis will allow you to structure the best possible training plans for your employees with targeted training to upskill them, which will help meet your team, division, or company goals.

Relevant information

Having completed a training needs analysis in previous years, managers often fall into the habit of using old results for current training needs. However, as with every organization, roles change, departments restructure, and employee training requirements grow on a yearly basis. It is essential that a training needs analysis is completed yearly in advance of employee training reviews and rollout.

Employees will know firsthand the knowledge and skills they must have to complete their roles efficiently and meet company policy. Polling your employees to get feedback on existing training and a clear picture on knowledge gaps will form a critical component of your training needs analysis.

Management

All relevant levels of an organization should be involved when conducting a training needs analysis. Taking a small subsection of your organization may save you time, but in the long run, you may come up against obstacles when trying to get approval or technical assistance for the rollout of training.

Involving management in the early stages of a training needs analysis will also give all parties an insight into the level of support for the training requirements. Seeking approval on the most engaging and innovative training courseware will be an easier request if management has been included in the training needs analysis.

One size fits all

Guides are readily available to assist with conducting training needs analysis, but do they match your requirements? Taking the time to plan and outline a training needs analysis specific to your team or department will focus and speed up the process.

On initiating a training needs analysis, it is imperative that the process works for everybody. Ensuring the process is straightforward will help boost the results and also help standardize the process moving forward. The process needs to be specific to the organization and, depending on size, often requires a cross-functional department component.

PulseLearning has the expertise required to conduct a thorough training needs analysis. Let us help you draw a training roadmap to improve, manage, and develop skills that support your business goals. Contact us today!

If you decide to do training needs analysis for your internal training offering it’s crucial to make sure the process is as easy to follow as possible as this will produce the best results.

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Here are 7 obstacles that you may come across when you decide to delve into the training needs analysis process and how you can overcome them.

1. Management

An effective training needs analysis is going to need lots of input from the management team in your business, and if they feel they are too busy or don’t see the point in the completing the exercise, it may be hard to get them on board. However, their input is vital to the process because you need to be clear on what is expected from every member of staff in the company, as well as the level that management expects everyone to be at.

This also means talking with managers from each department to ensure that the department and role-specific training for each department accurately reflects the skills they need to do their jobs correctly.

It’s vital to prove to your management team that a training needs analysis is a vital part of your training offering and needs to be completed to ensure you are providing the best training possible. This will allow your company to save lots of time and money overall, even if it may seem like a large time investment, to begin with, and the thought of being more successful and efficient is sure to bring your management team around.

2. Time

As we mentioned above, time may be a massive factor that’s putting you off when it comes to training needs analysis. The thought of sitting down and spending so much time planning before it even comes time to start organising the training sessions may feel like a waste of time, and you may be tempted just to jump in without any real planning.

We’re not going to lie – it will take some time to get your training needs analysis set up correctly, but the time investment will be well worth it! Not only will you have a really clear idea of the exact type of training you need to run for your staff for the year, you will also know exactly what training you don’t need to offer, so it will be much easier to pull together your training schedule and know who needs to attend which training sessions.

Also bear in the mind that the first time you do your training needs analysis will probably be the most time consuming, as the more you do the process, the more efficient you will become at it, and soon it will just be part of your yearly planning!

3. Including New Job Roles

It’s important to remember that you need to plan for all the jobs you currently offer in your company but also any new job roles you are hoping to create in the next year as well. You could do training needs analysis ad-hoc as new job roles come up, but it would make more sense to do all the planning at one stage of the process.

You should have a pretty good idea of where your business will be going over the next year, where the growth will be, and what new roles you will be looking to hire for. Remember to include these in the planning stages so you can get the full picture of what the next training year will look like.

4. Relying On Last Year’s Results

Don’t complete a training needs analysis one year and then rely on those results for years to come! This is a process which will need to be repeated every year (or sooner if you feel it’s necessary) to ensure that you are always working with the most up-to-date information possible.

Think about how much various job roles and the way your departments work can change over a year? If you keep working to last year’s skillsets your team will be working with out-of-date skills and won’t be producing the best results for your business.

5. Not Updating To Meet This Year’s OKRs

Similar to the point above, it’s important that you always consider your company’s current set of OKRs and goals when you are conducting your training needs analysis for the following year.

This will allow you to see where your business wants to go and how it plans to grow, and then plan training sessions which will support this vision.

6. Not Utilising Previous Feedback

When you run internal training, it’s important to collect feedback from your staff to see how they found the training, if it was enjoyable, if it was useful, if they have used the skills in their current jobs, etc.

However, there’s no point in collecting all this feedback if you don’t then do something with it! Using it as part of your training needs analysis is a great idea, as it can allow you to make improvements to your new training offering and ensure everyone gets the most for the training possible.

7. Not Having A Firm Process In Place

When you decide to do training needs analysis in your business, it’s important to ensure you put in a process that works for your business right from the start. This will ensure that you document the process and rework the bits that didn’t quite work for you, to ensure you have a record of the quickest and most seamless way to do things.

This will make life much easier for you when it comes time to do your training needs analysis again and will ensure that if anyone else is in charge of managing it in the future, the procedure will still be followed.

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