How to Assess Training Needs in 5 Steps
As skills shortages persist across nearly every industry, many organizations are evaluating their training strategies to upskill employees and attract talent. According to a 2022 report by the Society for Human Resource Management, almost half of the employees agree that training opportunities were a factor in choosing their employer. Three in four employees are more likely to stay with companies that offer continuous training.
Many organizations use training needs assessments, which evaluate role requirements and skills gaps, to improve their training programs. These assessments have several benefits, helping companies:
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Understand who needs training, which skills are lacking, and why.
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Align employee roles and competencies with business goals.
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Design training programs that improve employee engagement and learning.
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Increase the ROI of training programs.
If your company is new to training needs assessments or refreshing its assessment strategy, be sure to include these 5 steps.
How to assess training needs
1. Get leadership on board
Even if you plan and conduct a comprehensive assessment, your efforts may be futile if you don’t have the support to turn those results into an effective training program. Before starting a training needs assessment, ensure that you get buy-in from any leadership personnel relevant to the training and assessment decisions in your department. This will allow you to secure the budget and resources needed to roll out a training program once your assessment is finished.
2. Identify your goals
Identifying the desired outcomes of a training needs assessment is key to successful training programs. Company leadership and decision-makers should also participate in this step, as they can help connect overall business objectives with desired employee skills.
Ideally, training goals and outcomes should be measurable so the organization can judge the success of a program. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, you might be training your sales team on new sales relationship management processes and software. As part of your goal setting, determine the number of monthly leads and closed deals your organization is aiming for.
3. Plan an assessment strategy
What skills and knowledge do your employees need to meet these goals and how do you evaluate their current abilities? This information is critical for planning the training assessment and usually requires subject matter expertise. At this stage, consult experts in the subject area you are training for to prioritize relevant competencies and skills.
You can also hire or contract an instructional designer to build survey questions and other evaluation criteria to best illuminate skills gaps and complementary training methodologies. Depending on your goals, consider using performance data, in-person interviews, and observation, as well as questionnaires as part of your assessment strategy.
4. Gather and evaluate the data
At this point, you’ve collaborated with leadership to identify training goals and solicited industry expertise to build an assessment strategy. Now it’s time to gather data, conduct assessments, and make sense of that information. By combining performance data with interview and questionnaire responses, you can identify where employees fall short of the required skills and competencies. You can also get a clear picture of who needs training and which training requirements are a higher priority than others.
5. Plan a training program
Ideally, you now clearly understand which skills your trainees need to learn. An instructional designer, will also likely have a sense of your employees’ learning styles and which training methodologies will promote optimal skill development. This will allow you to create a training plan and course materials.
Beyond the training itself, plan the time and financial commitment that the program will require and consult leadership for approval. You should also organize how to evaluate the success of your training program once it’s finished. For example, in the imaginary sales training scenario, you might decide how to evaluate software usage rates by your sales team and any changes to your sales metrics in the weeks or months after training is complete.
In summary
Without an effective training strategy, you could be teaching employees the wrong skills, teaching the wrong employees, or using the wrong teaching approaches. This can cost your organization a significant amount of time and resources in lost productivity, high turnover, and training strategy overhauls.
A training needs assessment can help you build training programs that address real skills requirements and improve employee performance. When done well, a training needs assessment starts with gaining leadership support and identifying core goals and ends with planning a training program based on comprehensive, accurate data.
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