Why Do I Need A Training Needs Analysis Anyway?

It’s an age old story. Learning leader Janet has to implement a new technology training rollout for global offices in the next six months. She’ll be dealing with varying languages, cultural norms as well as generational differences in her workforces. Janet is given a fairly tight budget and asked to have this marked as priority and started on immediately.

Janet feels the pressure of the looming deadline and the importance of the training in order to have everyone ready on the new system by the end of the second quarter and so, she begins the process of building out the training plan forgetting the cardinal rule to any successful training initiative – the training needs assessment.Many Learning Professionals deal with push back from management when it comes to requesting the time and budget to complete a formal training needs analysis however, ensuring that one is conducted can make all the difference when it comes to success and failure of the training initiative. 

Here at TrainingFolks we have a highly skilled team of professionals that excel at this and work with our clients to try and prevent some common pitfalls experienced by poor training needs analysis.

Download 7 Pitfalls of Not Completing Your Training Needs Assessment here and ensure that you’re on the right path to success with your next project.

As you work through the formal training needs assessment questions, needs that you may not have otherwise known about begin to come to the surface and contingencies, action plans and varying techniques of training can be developed in response.

Look at the Millennial workforce for example.

With almost 1/3 of the workforce made up of Millennials, their influence is becoming stronger and cannot go ignored by Learning Leaders. For example, Janet cannot expect to effectively train the Millennials in her organization with formal, long format, in-class sessions. They simply will not make it through the class or retain the information being taught. Without a needs analysis, ignoring this vital piece of demographic information is very possible which inevitably would affect the outcome of the initiative. 

Another example of missing the mark with the absence of a formal needs analysis is with training those that may already have the knowledge-also known as missing the skills gap. Not everyone in the organization will be at the same level depending on the technology that is being rolled out. Saving time and budget on focusing on training only those that require the training can help with the efficiency and feedback on the initiative once complete.

The one big takeaway here is, by passing on a training needs analysis will not end up saving you money or time in the end but rather may end up wasting resources, time, budget and result in an overall lower engagement amongst employees across the company.

Take the time to map out your project and you’ll find yourself travelling down a much smoother path!