Discussing Training Needs Analysis Tools And Techniques
If you’re thinking of doing a training needs analysis in your business, then it can be hard to know how to get started, or the best way to approach it all so you don’t get bogged down in lots of data.
We’ve picked some of the top tools and techniques you can apply to the training needs analysis process to ensure the whole thing goes smoothly and allows you to make positive changes to your business!
Perform A SWOT Analysis On Your Business
The first technique you might want to apply when you undertake the training needs analysis process is to run a SWOT analysis of your entire business to see how things are performing currently. This means taking a look at all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you believe are currently related to your business and will, therefore, affect things like your company goals and your training schedule for the upcoming year.
You may want to pay particular attention to the weaknesses-and-opportunities sections of your SWOT analysis, as these may provide the most insight into what you can do in the future to make your business more successful. Your weaknesses will let you see the things you need to be tackling head-on to become more successful, whereas your opportunities will show you the areas you should be exploring what you probably hadn’t considered in the past.
You may also want to think about any threats on the horizon, and what you could do training-wise to tackle these before they become larger problems.
Set SMART Business Goals
Usually, before you start a training needs analysis, you will want to have your company goals in place for the year, so you know what you are working towards with your upcoming training schedule.
In order to ensure that you are setting the best goals possible, it’s important to express your goals using the SMART method.
- S – Specific
- M – Measurable
- A – Achievable
- R – Realistic
- T – Time-based
When it comes to setting goals, it can be easy not to think too specifically about what the goal really means and what you want to achieve from that goal. If you set yourself goals without going through the SMART process, then this will make it difficult for you to know whether you have achieved these goals and if they have had any direct effect on your business.
Taking the time to work through the SMART process means you can make sure everyone knows exactly what the goal is aiming to achieve and the positive effect it will have on your entire business when you meet that goal.
Use Surveys To Question Management
When you’re trying to find out the current skills your teams have or trying to judge the current state of different departments as you embark on the training needs analysis process, the best thing to do is to speak to as much of your management team as possible to get their insight into the situation.
This can be a hard thing to arrange face-to-face, especially if you work in a large organisation, or have a number of offices spread over different locations.
The best way to approach this problem may be to create a survey to send to your management teams in order to get their feedback on their specific department and the employees they manage.
Set A Priority Scale For Employee Skills
As part of the training needs analysis process, you will need to sit down and think about all the skills that you would like your employees to have ideally. In an ideal world, there may be a huge number of skills that you think your employees should have, but it’s important to break these down and think about which ones you need staff to start working on straight away and also which ones will have the biggest positive impact on your business.
Decide on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being a low priority skill and 5 being a top priority skill. Once you have decided on your list of ideal skills, work through them all, and assign them a number from your priority scale.
This will help you narrow down your list if you’ve ended up with a large list of skills, and know what to focus on in the first instance.
