Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Often organizations decide that they need employee training because something isn’t going well. For example, a manufacturing company might notice a lot of errors and say, “Hey! Let’s do some training to fix these errors.”. Totally makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is when organizations skip the step of doing a needs analysis prior to designing and implementing training. Even when organizations have a pretty good idea of what’s causing the issue (i.e., the reason for training), they should still do a needs analysis.
A needs analysis is a process to identify the gap between current performance and desired performance. A needs analysis can also help to identify root causes and possibly point toward solutions. There are four components of a comprehensive needs analysis:
- Organizational Needs: This is an opportunity for the organization to confirm its commitment to training by talking about why this issue is important. Make the connection between the training and the business. The outcome of this conversation could drive the resources allocated toward training. It could also be helpful in explaining to the rest of the organization why this training matters.
- Performance Needs: During this step, the organization should reach consensus on the performance standard. This is the level that employees are expected to perform and what will be covered in the training. I’ll be honest, reaching consensus sometimes isn’t as easy as it looks. It’s also possible that the performance standard has never been established, creating another challenge.
- Learning Needs: Once the performance standard is established, there should be some assessment of the team’s proficiency. A new employee would need to know the entire standard. Current team members might know all the steps of a process but one. That could be resolved with an on-the-job training activity. Or maybe, the team knows all the steps – it’s the manager who needs some instruction.
- Learner Needs: Finally, organizations can do an audience analysis to determine how the intended participants would like to learn. This step could involve understanding the team’s feelings about online versus in-person training. Or what types of activities work best for the group, like do they respond well to games? Maybe they hate role plays?
I remember years ago, a client asked me to conduct a training session. They told me a needs analysis wasn’t necessary. They knew exactly what their employees needed. So, I said yes … and you guessed it. The organization didn’t know what employees needed. About halfway through the session, the participants started pushing back on the training. Thankfully, we were able to shift the discussion to a topic the participants found valuable. It’s a reminder that not doing a proper needs analysis can be an expensive lesson.
Employee training is a big organizational investment. It’s important to get it right. Always doing a needs analysis ensures that the training will accomplish what the organization – and the learners want.
Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Miami, FL
