Process of Identifying Training and Development Needs

A systematic approach to progress in the career plans or to attain capabilities is Training & Development Strategy. A thorough assessment of the organizational needs is of utmost importance before development of any training programme. The most successful training will be based around competencies and organizational needs and customized for the organization.

Mc Gehee and Thayer introduced a framework for understanding the Training Needs Assessment process, which identifies three critical and interrelated components: Organizational Analysis, Task Analysis and Person Analysis. Training and Development needs can be classified as ‘Present Need’ and ‘Future Need’. This classification and analysis tells that in an organization not only individual but the group or even the organizational culture need to be developed to bring in Organizational Effectiveness.

The Systematic Process: In a systematic process approach there are four types of analysis:

Competency Analysis:

An effective way to identify required competencies is to prepare a list of jobs or positions within the organization and then list the competencies that one must have in order to do that particular job. These should be reviewed by involving a variety of people in the various job functions in the organization. It involves people who are actually doing the work as well as those responsible for the work being done and perhaps even the internal customers of various departments or functions.

Organization Analysis:

An organization analysis examines the organization as a whole. It includes investigation of internal and external environments, mission, organizational structure, objectives, markets, customers, policies, procedures and interfaces within the organization. This answers “Where in the organization is training needed to insure required competencies are properly addressed?”, “In what areas will training be effective or successful if addressed?” Rarely will the needs be the same in every division of the organization. When objectives are stated and compared to actual performance results, it is clear whether the training needs are short term, long term or preventive.

Task Analysis:

The task analysis done by conducting ‘Job Analysis’ and looking at ‘Job Descriptions’ and also keeping in view the size of the organization provides the information necessary to identify the specific content of the training programs for each job.

Person Analysis:

This determines who needs training and what training is needed by each person. It is the result of the other three phases of the analysis and is what brings it all together into a functional plan to implement. This can be done through performance appraisals, work sampling, quality reports, safety assessments,  or supervisory and employee knowledge of the specific situation.