DETERMINING TRAINING NEEDS

DETERMINING TRAINING NEEDS


It is also called training needs analysis or training needs assessment. Needs assessment problems and future challenges to be met through training and development. Organisation spends vast sums of money on training and development. Before committing such huge resources, organisation would do well to assess the training needs of their employees. Organisation that implements training programs without conducting needs assessment may be making errors.

Needs assessment occurs at two levels- Group and individual. An individual needs training when his or her performance falls short of standards that are when there is performance deficiency. Inadequacy in performance may be due to lack of skills or knowledge or any other problems. The problem of performance deficiency caused by absence of skills or knowledge can be remedied by training.
Faulty selection, Poor job design, uninspiring supervision or some personal problem may also result in poor performance. Transfer, job redesign, improving quality of supervision, or discharge will solve the problem.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the assessment of individual training needs and remedial measures.
Performance Deficiency
Lack of Skills Other Causes
Or
Knowledge
Training Non-training
Measures

Assessment of training needs must also focus on anticipated skills of employees, Technology changes fast and new technology demands new skills. It is necessary that the employees be trained to acquire new skills. This will help him to progress in his career path. Training and development is essential to prepare the employee to handle more challenging tasks. Individuals may also require new skills because of possible job transfers. Employees commonly require only an orientation to new facilities and jobs.
Recently, however, economic forces have necessitated significant retraining efforts in order to assure continued employment for many individuals. Job has disappeared as technology, foreign competition, and the forces of supply and demand are changing the face of our industry.
Assessment of training needs occurs at the group level too. Any change in the organizations strategy necessitates training of groups of employees. For examples, when the organisation decides to introduce a new line of products, sales personnel and production workers have to be trained to produce sell and service the new products. Training can also be used when high scrap or accident rates, low morale and motivation, or other problems are diagnosed.

TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT METHODS-
Several methods are available for training needs assessment. Some useful organizational level needs assessment and others for individual‘s needs assessment.
Methods Used in Training Needs Assessment
Group or Organizational Analysis
Individual Analysis
Organizational goals and objectives
Performance appraisal
Personnel/skills inventories
Work sampling
Organizational climate Indices
Interviews
Group or Organizational Analysis
Individual Analysis
Efficiency indices
Questionnaires
Exit Interviews
Attitude survey
MBO or work planning systems
Training progress
Quality circles
Rating scales
Customer survey/satisfaction data
Consideration of current and projected changes
Issues in Needs Assessment
Needs assessment, individual or group, should consider several issues.
Needs assessment is likely to make inroads into organizational life. The assessment tends to change patterns of behavior of employees. When the needs assessment is carefully designed and supported by the organisation, disruption is minimised and co-operation is much more likely to occur. Obviously, the analyst needs to take steps to work effectively with all parties and gain the trust and support of the participants in the needs assessment.

ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Having obtained organizational support, the next step in the needs assessment is an organizational analysis, which seeks to examine the goals of the organisation (short-term and long-term), and the trends that are likely to affect these goals. The analyst needs to ask and answer the following questions:
Is there a sufficient supply of people?
How does the firm attract, retain and motivate diverse work force?
How does the firm compete for individuals with the right skills, knowledge, and abilities and attitudes?
How do employees make the firm competitive, domestically and internationally?
Which are the target jobs that require training?
These issues enable the analyst identify skill gaps in people, which training seeks to fill. An organizational analysis tries to answer the question of where the training emphasis should be placed in the company and what factors may affect training. To do this, an examination should be made of the organizational goals, personnel inventories, performance data, and climate and efficiency indices. This examination should ideally be conducted in the context of the labor supply forecast and gap analysis. Organization system constraints that may hamper the training process also should be explored. Training does not exist in a vacuum and the context in which it occurs has an impact on whether individuals will learn. Many companies rely on very detailed surveys of the workforce to determine training needs as part of the planning effort. Motorola and IBM, for example, conduct annual surveys that assess particular training needs in the context of the company‘s short and long-term goals.

Task and KSA Analysis
In addition to obtaining organizational support and making organizational analysis, it is necessary to assess and identify what tasks are needed on each job
and which knowledge; skills and abilities (KSAs) are necessary to perform these tasks. This assessment helps prepare a blueprint that describes the KSAs to be achieved upon completion of the training programme.

Person Analysis
This analysis obviously targets individual employees. A very important aspect of person analysis is to determine which necessary KSAs have already been learnt by the prospective trainee so that precious training time is not wasted repeating what has already been acquired. Also, employees who need to undergo training are identified at this stage. A person analysis attempts to answer the question of who needs training in the firm and the specific type of training needed. To do this, the performance of individuals, groups, or units on major job functions (taken from the performance appraisal data) is compared to the expected performance standards. Given these data, one should be able to determine which job incumbents (or groups of incumbents) are successful at completing the tasks required. Many companies use self-assessments in this process. For example, Ford determined the training needs for a new computer language based on a self-assessment questionnaire distributed to the staff. At the managerial level, many organizations.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRAINING PROGRAM
After a needs analysis has been conducted and the staff is confident that training is needed to address the performance problem or to advance the firm‘s mission, the training program is developed. This can be done by an in-house training program is developed. This can be done by an in-house training staff or by outside consultants. Many firms now even design and manage their own corporate training centers.
To develop the program, the trainer should design a training environment conducive to learning. This can be done by setting up preconditions for learning and arranging the training environment to ensure learning. Following this, the
trainer should examine various training methods and techniques to choose the combination most beneficial for accomplishment of the instructional objectives of the training program.

Designing a Learning Environment for Training
To design a training program in which learning will be facilitated, trainers should review the basic principles of how individuals learn. Learning principles should be re-viewed and integrated into the design of the training program and materials. Also, issues of how to maximize transfer of new behaviors back to the job should be addressed. Finally, trainers should design their programs to meet the needs of adults as learners. Which means understanding how adults best learn. For example, adult learners want to set their own goals for training since they see themselves as capable of self-direction. In addition, they often enjoy experiential learning techniques and self-directed learning more than conventional informational techniques. They are problem-centered and are more receptive to training that enables them to solve problems of particular interest to their situation. They want to be able to apply the training they receive to their day-to-day work experiences and are less interested in the program if they cannot see a direct application to their work situation.

Preconditions of Learning
Trainees must be ready to learn before they are placed in any training program. To ensure this, trainers should determine whether trainees are trainable (i.e., whether they have the ability to learn and are motivated to learn). In addition, trainers should try to gain the support of trainees and their supervisors prior to actually implementing the program. This is particularly important for training in sensitive areas such as diversity and gender and race discrimination.

Trainability
Before the learner can benefit from any formal training, he or she must be trainable or ready to learn. This means to learn. To have the ability, the trainee must possess the skills and knowledge prerequisite to master the material. One way to determine this is to give trainees a work sample (i.e., an example of the types of skills to be performed on the job) and measure how quickly they are able to learn the material or how well they are able to perform the skills. Assessing trainees‘ ability to learn is of increasing concern to corporate America. In view of the increasing technological knowledge required in most jobs, many Americans are not being educated at a level compatible with the requirements of most entry-level jobs. This situation appears to be getting worse in the United States since the entry-level jobs of the future are being ―up-skilled‖ while the pool of qualified workers is shrinking.

Gaining the support of trainees and others.
If trainees do not see the value of training, they will be unlikely to learn new behaviors or use them on their jobs. Trainees should be informed in advance about the benefits that will result from training. If they see some incentives for training, it may strengthen their motivation to learn the behaviors, practice them, and remember them. To gain the support of trainees for the training program, the trainer must point out the intrinsic (e.g., personal growth) and extrinsic (e.g., promotion) benefits of attending training. Employees are strongly encouraged to receive skills training. In fact, 5 percent of their yearly compensation is based on the amount of training they receive.

Conditions of the Learning Environment
After ensuring the preconditions for learning are met, trainers should build a training environment in which learning is maximized. To do this, trainers need to decide how to best arrange the training environment by addressing the issues below.

Over learning
Over learning (i.e., practicing far beyond the point of performing the task successfully) can be critical in both acquisition and transfer of knowledge and skills. Generally, over learning increases retention over time makes the behavior or skill more automatic, increases the quality of the performance during stress, and helps trainees transfer what they have learned back to the job setting. Over learning is desirable in a program when the task to be learned is not likely to be immediately practiced in the work situation and when performance must be maintained during periods of emergency and stress

Goal Setting
Goal setting can help employees improve their performance by directing their attention to specific behaviors that need to be changed. If employees set specific, challenging goals, they can reach higher levels of performance. For example, research has shown that goal setting has led to an average increase of 19 percent. Goal setting improves performance because it affects four mechanisms.

Attention
Trainers should try to design training programs and materials to ensure that trainees devote attention to them. They can do this by choosing a training environment that is comfortable to trainees (e.g., that has good temperature, lighting, seats, plenty of room, snacks) and free from distractions.

Transfer of Training
The ultimate goal of a training program is that the learning that occurs during training be transferred back to the job. To maximize transfer, the following suggestions have been offered. These include ideas for the training session itself as well as for the employee once he or she has returned to the job:-
1. Maximize the similarity between the training context and the job context. That is, the training should resemble the job as closely as possible. At GE, for example, the ―action-learning‖ process focuses on real business problems.
2. Require practice of the new behaviors and over-learning in training.
3. Encourage trainees to practice skills on their jobs in between training sessions.
4. Develop, and have available on the job, job aids to remind employees of the key action steps necessary on the job.
5. Make sure that the general principles underlying the specific content are understood in training.

BENEFITS OF NEEDS ASSESSMENT
Training programs are designed to achieve specific goals that meet felt needs. There is always the temptation to begin training without a thorough analysis of these needs. Should this happen, the training programme becomes inappropriate and its administration turns out to be perfunctory. There are other benefits of needs assessment:
Trainers may be informed about the broader needs of the trainees.
Trainers are able to pitch their course inputs closer to the specific needs of the trainees.
Assessment makes training department more accountable and more clearly linked to other human resource activities, which may make the training programme easier to sell to line managers.

Consequences of absence of training need assessment.
The significance of needs assessments can be better understood by looking at the consequences of inadequate or absence of needs assessments. Failure to conduct needs assessments can contribute to:
 Loss of business
 Constraints on business developments
 Higher labour turnover
 Poorer –quality applicants
 Increased overtime working
 Higher rates of pay, overtime etc
 Higher recruitments costs, including advertising and incentives
 Greater pressure and stress on management and staff to provide cover
 Pressure on job evaluation, grading structure payment system and career structure
 Additional retention costs in the form of flexible working time.
 Need for job redesign and revision of job specification.
 Undermining career paths and structure
 Higher training costs.
The first step in training is to determine that a need for training actually exists. An organization should commit its resources to a training activity only if the training can be expected to achieve some organizational goal. The decision to conduct training must be based on the best available data, which are collected by conducting a needs assessment. This needs analysis ideally should be conducted in the context of a human resource planning (HRP) program and timely and valid performance data. Companies that implement training programs without conducting a needs assessment may be making errors or spending money
unnecessarily. For example, a needs assessment might reveal that less-costly interventions (e.g., personnel selection, a new compensation system, job redesign) could be used in lieu of training. Despite the importance of conducting needs assessments, few employers conduct such an analysis in the context of their strategic plans or any form of strength, weakness, opportunity, or threat analysis.
A needs assessment is a systematic, objective determination of training needs that involves conducting three primary types of analyses. These analyses are used to derive objectives for the training program. The three analyses consist of an organizational analysis, a job analysis, and a person analysis. After compiling the results, objectives for the training program can be derived.
Many trainers suggest that a training need is any discrepancy between what is desired and what exists. Thus, one of the goals of the needs assessment is to note any discrepancies. For example, the World Bank recently determined through a needs assessment that many of its constituents from Eastern Europe required training in transforming state-owned businesses into self-sustaining businesses. The organization contracted with a number of universities to develop and provide the necessary training.
Comparisons between the expected level of performance specified (from the job analysis) and the current level of performance exhibited (evident in the person analysis) may indicate performance discrepancies.

Developing a Training Program
There are seven major steps that need to be managed in developing a training development program.
Identifying training needs
Defining training objectives
Selecting trainees
Determining the training contents and choosing training methods.
Training Methods
Selection of trainers
Evaluation

Identifying Training Needs-
The Training Program should be beginning with the identification of organisation need for such a program. The primary aim of training is to bring about suitable change in the individual so that he can be useful to the organisation. Therefore training needs have to be related to organisation s demands as well as individual requirements. In all such situation the organisation will have to identify the training needs of its employees.

Defining Training Objectives
Training usually means skills training having fairly direct or immediate applicability. The objective of training differs according to the employees belonging to different levels of organisation. The basic objective of training is to establish a match between man and his job. Thus training aims at improving knowledge and skills level and developing right attitude among employees in order to enable them to perform their present job effectively or to prepare them for a future assignment. However from the point of view of an organisation, employee‘s growth is a mean to organizational effectiveness.
Selecting Trainees-
It is another important decision concerns the selection of trainees. For an organisation providing the right training to the right people can help to create and maintain a well-trained and stable work force. While selecting trainee due
attention should be given to employee needs and motivation, skill obsolesces and retaining requirements.
Many companies have moved in the direction of training employees to have multiple skills called multiskilling. In particular, multiskilling is relevant where semiautonomous or self-managed teams are utilized. Everyone is encouraged to learn all of the jobs of the team and employees are generally paid according to the number of skill that they have developed.

Determining the Training contents and choosing training methods.
Training objectives guide the training curriculum. The contents will very according to the type of the training and the specific requirement of the trainees.
The type of employees training method best suited to a specific organisation depends upon a number of factors, such as skills required for the job, qualification of candidate to be trained, kinds of operating problems confronted by the organisation and the support of the higher management to the training program.
Training Budget
Training budget involves out flow of funds from the organisation for which budget should be available. Formulating a training budget will be an interactive process with the other steps in developing skills training program. Budget constraints may limit the human resources manager‘s alternatives and must therefore be considered during all phases of the development process.

Decision regarding Trainers
An effective training program cannot be developed if effective trainers are not available. Organisation has the option of using staff trainers or of seeking contract trainers out side. or of doing both when available. Staff trainers- full time specialist on the organisation payroll or member selected to do part-time
training. The key to success however is selecting the right individual and providing them with the tool thee need to be effective.
Selecting good trainer is often not essay.