HRMT410- Unit 2 - Discussion Board Training Needs Analysis

A comprehensive training program begins with identifying the training needs of the employees.

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

1. What is the purpose of conducting a training needs analysis?

2. Describe the process of a training needs analysis.

3. Use examples, either from your personal experience or from research, of the types of training needs analyses that organizations use to define training options.

4. How do organizations use the process to determine the best approach to designing training?

Needs Analysis

The purpose of a training needs assessment identifies the performance expectations, knowledge and skills a company’s employees needs to accomplish its requirements. The assessment will help determine what resources are needed in each department to achieve it mission goals. it also determines how to raise the performance level if it’s not meeting expectation.

First, determine the benefits of a training needs assessment for the company. This assessment allows the company to focus its efforts on areas of training that are required for employees to successfully carry out the company’s goals, make the most use of the company's training dollars, and encourage employees by contributing to their professional growth. Secondly, a gap analysis can be performed to determine how bring the performance level up to par. Review reports based on the department’s production or employee’s performance evaluations. Individual interviews with employees and managers on the work routine and if there could be any improvement in performing the task or additional training. This analysis should provide options on meeting performance levels. It will determine if more training is required and what type of training required to achieve that goal. Maybe not training but reorganizing the structure the company culture to make a more hospitable work environment. Finding the solution for the current competitive trend to keep the company at performance par level.

From personal experience, I worked at a major health insurance call center years ago. This company is a Fortune 500 company and was always finding ways to bring in more revenue and keep its clientele. Granted by their name, companies were flocking to them for the health insurance plans for their employees, but the employees were complaining about the wait time to speak with a customer service representative. The company decided to put more pressure on the employees by limiting the time on a call with customer to three minutes and they would get a customer service representative within 30 seconds when they call. The clientele was happy with this, but we were losing employees to workers compensation due to carpal tunnel injuries, which brought the company back to square one. So, the company decided to have employee meetings in small focus groups to figure out how to satisfy the clientele without losing employees to injuries. The training department would organize to meet with a unit to get feedback on the working conditions. Employees can freely give their opinions and ideas on how to improve their job tasks. Once they gathered all the feedback, they scheduled another meeting to present possible solutions to make the job easier and they decided to create a “point and click” software program which provided a small summary of the benefits quoted that the representative could click with their mouse instead of typing word for word of what benefits they called for. That changed the tune, and both the clientele and employees were happy.

References

Conduct training needs assessment - SHRM. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2022, from https://shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/Pages/conduct-training-needs-assessment.aspx

Policy, data, Oversight Training and Development. U.S. Office of Personnel Management. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2022, from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/training-and-development/planning-evaluating/