How To Do A Training Needs Analysis: Your Guide To TNA

Maybe it had been a rough fiscal year, the least successful quarter for sales, or technical changes that are hard to grasp causing a dent in the productivity curve, lack of communication or low customer satisfaction scores that force a product to work in agile ways. One of these problems alone has the potential to cause difficulties for your company. But these situations can be resolved through training. And it’s here when training needs are analyzed. Training need analyzes are usually performed in such contexts to create training solutions, boost employee performance as well as to improve organizational culture.

TNAs serve an important role whether you are training professionals in the learning and development field or an employee going through this training. Even though the need to perform this analysis is usually the result of organizational difficulties, TNA can be performed yearly basis for continuous evaluation without any tale-tell sign of trouble in the industry. This article strives to shed light on the Training Needs Analysis process and ways to conduct one. 

Training Needs Analysis for Training Program

Training needs analysis also frequently known as learning needs analysis is a specialty within Human Resources departments. Training is crucial and a very important responsibility of HR. It works to fill the gap between skills and knowledge. But to do that, detecting those gaps is imperative. HR managers have always focused on identifying a sustainable and effective continuous learning cycle that will help employees. Using Training need analysis, they can find out the skills their employees urgently need to develop for improving the productivity results to survive in a competitive marketplace. So the training needs analysis basically entails an analysis of skill improvements in employees required to perform their current or future jobs in an exceptionally high manner.

Why does Training Need Analysis?

The right training not only empowers employees to improve performance and deliver maximum results but also creates a team of talented individuals that makes the company stand out. But unfortunately organizing the perfect training programs is not possible due to the lack of identifying the needs of the employees. Almost a quarter of all UK workers say they’ve not had a formal training program for five years when nine out of ten employees want their employers to give them more training. This calls for special programs specifically targeting their roles, and goals as well as finding ways to their career advancements. Training needs analysis may facilitate organizing such training by:

• Determining Organizational Goals
• Determine the relevant work behavior
• Determining required knowledge and abilities
• Identifying employee knowledge gaps.
• Identifying effective modalities and approaches
• Identifying Suitable Training needs
• Planning the perfect solutions
• Planning the design of the right training

Different Types of Training Need Analysis

Now that we understand the purpose of a training needs analysis, let’s discuss its varieties. The training needs analysis may differ greatly. It is very hard to perform multiple analyses for training needs with identical results. This is because training demand changes rapidly with the increasing numbers of workers and a changing environment. According to a recent survey, 54% of workers require training to update their skills. The COVID-19 pandemic also has changed global training needs rapidly and drastically. But in general, though an analysis of training needs falls in these major categories:

1) Training Needs Analysis for Individual

Training needs analysis processes mostly follow a generic pattern of questions in the case of individuals. Instead of an organizational goal, a departmental goal can be specified easily and for individuals, it’s even easier. These goals should be directly connected to the organizational goal as a whole to ensure maximum impact. The individual’s job behavior is also analyzed to understand or identify any room for improvement.

2) Analyzing the Required Knowledge & Skills

When analyzing individuals or a department, the first thing to take notice of are the required skills. It is pertinent to make a note of the non-negotiable, important, as well as complementary skills and knowledge employees, need to work in that department. For example, a sales team needs its employees to be-

– Good at marketing
– Customer-friendly
– Research Oriented
– Resilient and Quick
– Confident and Convincing
– Communicative & Approachable
– Mindful in Rapport and Team Cohesion

Many of these qualities are applicable to other departments as well. But it is always wise to analyze a department’s specific needs by familiarizing the analyst with the said department first. 

3) Skills GAP Analysis for Effective Training Program

After determining which skills in employees are needed and appreciated for the job, employers or HR managers have to search for those skills in the employees. The main purpose is to assess if any lacking of those hard skills and soft skills is present in the employees. Usually, hard skills take precedence in urgency but they are also the least found shortcoming in employees.

Skill gap analyses are usually held either in the form of a survey, aptitude test, personnel interviews, or even self-reporting. It is absolutely necessary that employees feel safe and considered throughout the process. Otherwise, the chance of honest participation is slim.

4) Analyzing the Training Plans and Outcomes

So you analyzed the problems within a department and designed training to solve them. Before performing the training, go through the plans. See if those are effective and able to address the specific problems your employees are going through. Redesign if necessary, and taking employees’ input on this is even better.

After the training, analyze the result. Cross-match and compare them with the data before the training. Search for any changes and improvements in performance. And also make note of what didn’t work for further investigation and future training sessions.

Steps to Conduct a Training Needs Analysis for Training Programs

Creating an effective training program to boost employee performance mostly depends on how well the training needs analysis was conducted. For this, the training analysis must be impeccable. There are so many ways to conduct a training needs analysis. But the must-haves of any training need assessment is given below.

i. Determine Development Goals
ii. Identify Necessary Skills
iii. Select Candidates
iv. Assess Skill Levels
v. Find Experts
vi. Run a Cost Benefit Analysis
vii. Design and Deliver your Training

Training Needs Analysis Template: An analysis example of the TNA Process

Planning a training needs analysis can be overwhelming, no doubt about that. When stakes are this high, the pressure is immense. Getting a proper idea of how to conduct one can be pretty helpful. As we have mentioned, training needs analysis depends on the organizational goals, demands of the department, and employees’ required skills situation. But a default template of this may help give you an outline of the process. So here’s an analysis template of the training needs analysis.

List Organizational Goals, and Coveted Skills

When conducting a need assessment your employees need to define organizational goals. The goal will always be a measurable outcome, i.e. revenue, profits, and stock prices. However, you must look at soft outcomes such as customer satisfaction or company culture with care too, to make an impact on your employees’ overall skills and development and to create training sessions addressing performance gaps.

Identify specific issues

This will help you align organizational priorities with broader business issues. Having interview meetings to assess the areas of concern regarding the industry will give insights on specific problems. The survey system for identifying performance gaps is useful too. It can help you determine which areas of your work need improvement, training, or support.

Find Solutions & Design Training

Once the issues are identified, work on finding solutions and designing training sessions addressing those problems is the number one of that solution. Human Resources Department usually organizes this training. While outsourcing instructors, choosing one with a nice track record and positive reviews can be helpful. Try to design training within the allotted budget and keep room for the chances of implementation of the training too. 

Engage and Provide Feedback

It requires monitoring and evaluation. This can be achieved by involving department heads and supervisors. But including employees can be a game changer. This can be a chance to engage with them in a proactive way which will make them feel valued and incentivize loyalty for the corporation.

Top 6 Training Need Analysis Tips!

Creating training content is not easy. Company goals, employee performance gap, measurable outcomes for the entire organization everything must be thought of. Knowledge of viable solutions for organizational issues will help to increase core competencies. Analysis methods will vary regarding desired knowledge, and specific skills but here are some top tips to get the desired outcome.

 Tip One: Make Employees on Board

Tip Two: Review Roles and Competencies

Tip Three: Choose the Perfect Delivery Tool for Your Organization

Tip Four: Use Analysis to Make Smarter Content Decisions

Tip Five: Continue with Follow-ups

Tip Six: Create Safe Environment

Importance of Training Needs Analysis

Assessing the employee training requirements is the most critical stage of any training program. It helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a department, the correct way to address them, and also plan a training program that will boost performance and work on shortcomings. Needless to say, TNA offers a plethora of benefits including:

• Identifying Problem Areas & Setting Priorities

A correct training needs study will identify areas and give you the knowledge of where your situation stands. You will learn how to develop performance levels to improve your organizational effectiveness. It is possible to find a solution by identifying the missing skills or employee behavior. Not all problems need immediate action. You will have to start with a skills gap that’s urgent. After solving those skill gaps you can climb up the priority ladder and get to the bottom of a few levels. TNA will help to straighten out priorities with the knowledge of current performance issues, financial performance problems, or ways of performance improvement.

• Increasing Your Training Program’s ROI

TNA helps to make smart financial decisions. Analyzing the needs of the organization, it ensures company’s funds are placed where it can generate the most profit. This means you can avoid spending money on ineffective training. According to Accenture studies, each dollar invested in the training of employees earns 4.44 per employee. This is a 3433% Return on Investment! It’s not possible to get that return the right training. And the right training depends on TNA.

Also analyzing the marketplace, customer needs, and employee engagement also fall on TNA. This also has positive effects on ROI.

• Fine-tuning your Training Programs

TNA helps to find a solution that is best for individuals. They also highlight employees with the right talent or ability. If there’s a lack of behavioral factors impacting this goal, this can be also found with TNA and then resolved by an integral learning session. Analyzing training needs helps you understand the whole picture. This will help you make better choices regarding the training. It will be easy for you to determine which training is needed and which isn’t.

• Finding your way to Leadership

Last but not the least, the Training Needs Analysis has the added bonus of shining light on your leadership quality. Higher personnel must assess whether this organizational goal is achieved through job behaviors or whether this goal may be influenced in part by non-behavioral influences. Those who can safely navigate these problems have a higher chance to be promoted to executives. With TNA as an efficient tool, you can find problems, and conflict areas and work to resolve them which will get you noticed by the higher officers. So win-win?  

How a Business Benefits From Training Needs Analyzes

The company’s growth is dependent on its employees. Instilling the correct training with a training analysis has positive effects on employee development as it focuses on them. Many training programs are overwhelmed with outdated information that does a disservice to the employees on their jobs. But when you perform an analysis, you’re capable of providing valuable courses that address the specific needs of employees and beyond.

The majority of employees in the UK do not have the job skills that would make them eligible to work. And unless a person is properly trained, the problem will affect their performance. The training needs analysis will help you identify skills, weaknesses, and knowledge gaps among staff in order to solve problems. Effectively re-skilling employees can help boost productivity by 6% to even 125%.

Also, training is a key factor for employee engagement and it increases retention thus helping the business and business goals. Perform a training needs evaluation to determine the needs of a department you need to meet. Investing your resources in creating, managing, and evaluating programs to improve quality takes a business one step closer to success. The other business benefits of TNA include the:

1. You’ll solve problems before they happen
2. You’ll stay focused on business goals
3. You’ll have better-performing employees
4. You’ll create impactful training plans
5. You’ll give the proper training to the right people
6. You’ll save money and resources
7. You’ll Discover New Skills Need

Conclusion

After all the discussion, it is probably safe to say that training needs assessment may just be the solution to almost every workplace-related problem by detecting those problems.  Training train employees for new roles and improve their performance. But nobody will stay in training sessions if they have no need for it. Once your focus groups are assessed you will know who should attend and who does not. It will be a time-saving effort that can focus on individuals with training needs. These assessments help to create a high-impact training program with an even higher efficacy rate that ensures enhancement of employees’ skills, increasing productivity and thus positively changing the holistic development of the industry for the better. So next time your company wants to skimp on TNA to “save money”, you should be prepared to side with team TNA. After all, identifying the problem is half the solution!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• What is Training Needs Analysis Definition in HRM?

TNA is a specialty of HRM that refers to assessing the specific skill gaps among the employees within a department.

• Why is Training Needs Analysis so important?

Training Needs Analysis is important for ensuring the success of a training program. It also increases the implementation of the training rendering its efficacy even higher. Training content development for achieving business objectives relies on this job analysis.

• How can I improve the effectiveness of training by analyzing organizational data?

Organizational Data can portray a scenario of overall company performance or lack thereof. An expert can go through the data and identify the reasons behind this result thus finding a way to resolve or implement better alternatives.

• How do you conduct a training needs analysis?

There are many ways to conduct a rain needs analysis. For the one that fits your company the best, you should use that format of TNA. But usually, Training Needs Analysis is conducted by Identifying Problems, Identifying Solutions & Planning Training.

• What are the benefits of conducting a training needs analysis?

The TNA offers a wide range of benefits. But designing high-impact training, working on the development of employees, and making a company successful can summarize them all.