Effective training need analysis (2020)

Find the why

Start with "Training need analysis" so companies must:

• provide employee training programs
• invest in professional development to cover the skills gap
• provide their employees with opportunities to grow.

You've heard these before, haven't you? Well, these statements are accurate, but it's not the must that makes them valid. It's the why behind them which is different for each company. Because training is valuable, but only if it fills some gaps, if it drives improvement. Professional development is important, but only if it aligns with specific goals.

And the what for you training need analysis

After you've found your reasons and you know exactly why training programs are a must for your company, you might pursue your what:

What skills should you develop?

What knowledge should the employees accumulate?

Well, there are a multitude of needs which employees' skills gap need to accommodate, but let's take them step by step.

• Industry-related needs.
  • Why? Because an employee should see the bigger picture. A company is a part of an industry, and the tasks performed by employees represent one piece which make the entire system function.
  • Thus, employees should know this bigger picture and a company or an internal person must bring a learning activity to provide for these needs.
  • Industries are in a continuous change, driven by the evolution which exists at the level of the global business environment, so there is always something new to learn.
• Job-related needs.
  • People must know how to conduct their professional activity efficiently, so they can contribute to the achievement of corporate goals, without neglecting their own professional goals.
  • And they cannot do that in the absence of proper training programs which bring them closer to fulfilling their tasks by providing them with the specific skills and knowledge
  • To set some job-related needs you should talk to the employees which perform these jobs, to ask them what they need to perform better or faster or more efficiently. Engage your teams in the learning needs analysis as part of Agile HR way to become.
• Task-related needs.
  • They refer to specific processes or operations employees and companies must perform which place all the people working on the same task on the same page. The skills gap is at team level and not at person level!

What's next?

After you have made a training need analysis and identified the skills required for your employees and check their professional goals now, you have an overview of the needs assessment, you can start scratching a plan.

It should contain details such as the courses you want to deliver, the trainers who would be suitable, the learning resources that you need, the environment where you want to implement your learning programs.

There are a lot of things to consider, but the delightful news are that you can adjust the training need analysis plan anytime having the right mindset in skills gap approach. A company should not reject changes in a business defined exactly by change. The learning approach is not static, but dynamic and it depends on all the changes that happen at the level of the business environment and at the level of your company, of your employees of the gaps they feel the need to fill in with knowledge.

It's never done… but that's not an awful thing, that's keeping up with the rhythm and investing in improvement. Starting from needs, as we've already talked, not from a imposed learning curve or approach which would never work for everyone.

Providing employees with training programs is important, but making sure that these trainings are what the need is vital. Invest time in training need analysis, so you make sure that the investment you make in training programs is not futile and create an outstanding employee experience that have an Agile HR as an “agent of change” at its core.