Tips to Identify Employee Training and Development Needs

Tips to Identify Employee Training and Development Needs

“An investment in knowledge will certainly pay the best interest” – Benjamin Franklin

According to a research project by Middlesex University for Work-Based Learning, it was established that from a 4,300 workers sample, 74% felt they weren’t achieving their full potential at work due to lack of sufficient development opportunities.

In the highly competitive scenario, every other day there is an addition of innovation in the market. Therefore, it becomes important to stay updated, to manage the dynamism in business procedures. The only way to remain competitive and succeed is to; provide adequate training and development facilities to the employees, for better utilization of their skills.

Some of the Advantages of Training and Development in an organization:-

  1. Improvement in the overall performance
  2. Increased job satisfaction and employee motivation
  3. Reduced employee turnover
  4. Enhanced ability to manage risks

By analyzing the above benefits, it is quite clear that Training and Development are indispensable for the peak performance of the organization.

But, how would an HR manager determine what sort of training is needed for developing skills of the employees? Well, this requires an appropriate Training Needs Analysis (TNA).

There are three key stages involved in conducting a TNA, which includes assessment of:-

Organizational needs – Organizational goals, people inventories, processes, and performance data must be meticulously studied. This would give an idea about the kind of learning environment required for the training. For example, Motorola and IBM conduct surveys every year keeping in view the short and long term objectives of the organization.

Task needs – A Task Needs Assessment Survey aims at finding out the potential gap between the knowledge of the employees and the particular job requirements. Here, both the worker-oriented approach as well as the task-oriented approach is taken into consideration.

Few important questions that employees should be asked, when conducting a Task Analysis are: –
  1. What tasks are performed and how frequently are they executed?
  2. How significant is each task and do they have adequate knowledge to perform them?
  3. What are the complications faced in completing the tasks?

Individual needs – As the term suggests, it is concerned with, which employee in the organization needs training and in which particular area. For such evaluation, performance appraisal data is compared with the expected level or standard of performance. Also, Questionnaires, 360° Feedback, Personal Interviews, Critical Incidents, and Assessment surveys are conducted. Various organizations use competency ratings (received from subordinates, customers, peers, bosses, etc.) to rate the individual.

Every level of assessment will include different aspects of the organization, which would help in building specific training programs, to fix the essential gaps and thereby, boost the performance of the company.

Identifying Future Training Needs     

Pierre Nanterme, Chairman, and CEO of Accenture stated, “Digital innovations are altering the demand for future skills. The businesses throughout the world are facing skill crisis that could delay technological advancement.”

This indicates that ordinary changes in the skill development programs are not sufficient to meet the rising requirements for the future. Keeping this in mind; HR Managers are faced with the challenging task of anticipating training requirements.

To prepare employees for the future, it is important to understand that the people currently present in any organization are the best resources for a company. All that is required is to train them well using suitable training methods.

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if the company invested in their development.

Train your employees, partners, and customers at Silver Brook Learning Centre. It has unmatched expertise in bridging the knowledge – skill gap which helps organizations achieve higher outcomes. Silver Brook facilitates several programs on interpersonal, managerial and leadership skills.

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