Monday

18 May 2015

management

15

Training-needs analysis
to lift a companys productivity, you must first identify where
personal and organisational performance need to be improved.

enerally, training-needs analysis (TNa)

can be defined as a process of gathering and interpreting data for identifying
areas for personal and organisational performance improvement. The challenge is to
obtain complete and accurate TNa data.
Such an analysis considers the skills,
knowledge and attitude that your people
need, and how to develop them to perform
their tasks effectively to support the business
goals.
Managers and human resource personnel
should be aware of the kinds of training that
are needed, where they are needed, who
needs them and which methods will best
deliver them to the employees. To ensure
training is timely and focussed on priority
issues, managers should approach needs
assessment systematically by utilising the
three following levels of TNa analysis: organisational level, departmental (team) level, and
individual level.
Using this structure will help to ensure a
balanced analysis that takes into account the
big picture as well as the specific needs of
individuals.

organisational Level analysis

TNa at this level should start with a review
of the organisations strategic and operational plans. It is recommended that you perform
one using a tool such as a SWOT analysis,
which looks at the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (ergo SWOT) that
your organisation is facing.
Once you have a strategic picture of the
organisations objectives, performance and
future direction, you can review this from the
perspective of knowledge, skills and behaviours that can help your organisation build on
its strengths and address weaknesses.
The SWOT analysis are as follows:
Strengths
How can you capture the good practice
and expertise that already exists?
How can you build on the strengths, skills
and knowledge that is already in the
organisation?
Weaknesses
What are the skills, knowledge or behaviours that could help address the identified weaknesses?
opportunities
What are the skills, knowledge or behaviours that could help your organisation
make the most of the available opportunities?
Threats
What are the skills, knowledge or behaviours that could help your organisation
manage and overcome the identified
threats?

departmental Level analysis

This level of analysis involves reviewing
the job description and related information to
identify the activities performed in a particular
tasks or job. a key tool for identifying training
needs at this level are performance reviews
to provide an opportunity to review work
objectives for the previous year and agree on
objectives for the year ahead.

SMaRT objective
SMaRT is a way of checking that your
objectives are clear. It applies to both work
and learning objectives:
Specific: You know exactly what it is you
have to do
Measurable: There is a clear way of
knowing when you have done it.
Achievable: It is achievable within your
reasonable control
Realistic: It is a realistic goal, bearing in

mind the time and the resources available (doesnt mean it shouldnt stretch or
challenge you!)
Time-bound: There is a date or deadline
for achieving the objective.

Skills for managers

In order for TNa to be effective, line
managers need to have the knowledge and
skills to work with employees to help them
identify their needs and how to meet them.
The Malaysian National Occupational Skill
Standards (NOSS) is a good starting point for
identifying competencies for particular roles.
NOSS is a document that outlines the
dexterity required of an employee working in
Malaysia at a certain level of employment to
achieve specific skills. Manager can also be
instrumental in identifying individuals career
progression routes, based on the skills and
knowledge that exists within the organisation.

Creating a learning culture

a learning culture is one in which learning
is embedded across an organisation, it takes
commitment to establish a learning culture.
Here are some of the ways in which you can
encourage and raise awareness of the value
of learning:
Investing in people is a quality standard,
which encourages good practice in the
development of people across your
organisation.
Leadership if senior management and
line managers can appreciate and be
enthusiastic about the value of learning
and development for both themselves
and others, it will set a training culture
for the organisation.
People learn a lot from teaching others encourage people to share what
they know with others in writing, at
team meetings, at staff conferences and
events informally.
Get involved with the organisations initiatives such as encouraging employees
to continuously improve their knowledge,
skills and behaviours.

Individual Level analysis

It involves determining which employees require training and those who do not
in order to help an organisation prioritise
those employees. It is important to take into
account peoples career ambitions and personal development objectives.
In less complex organisational structures,
people may be demotivated if there is lack of
progression or challenge built into their work
as there are fewer opportunities to move up
the career ladder.
However, there is also a need to be realistic
about what you can offer by way of development opportunities and to not raise expectations too high.
a proper feedback system can be helpful
in getting a clearer picture of individual performance. This approach is suitable for those
in management or leadership roles.
Some questions to ask for your personal
development plan:
1. What do you want to get from your
work?
2. What are your strengths?
3. What areas would you like to improve
in?
4. Where would you like more responsibility?
5. What is preventing you from developing, as you would like?
6. Which interests or talents would you
like to develop?
7. How do you like to learn?
8. What skills or experience would allow
you to feel more confident at work?
The outcome of training-needs analysis
at an individual level should be a training development plan, which outlines
individual training needs, objectives,
and linking them to the agreed work
objectives.

Tna Training Cycle

To ensure that investments in training
and development have maximum impact on
individual and organisational performance,
a systematic approach should be used. This
approach involves five phases, which covers

the training needs as follows;

analyse: Study the environment in order
to understand it and describe the goals and
objectives required to correct performance
deficiencies (performance gap).
Design: Define the learning objectives, what
the learners need to do to learn the new performance (activities), and what will motivate
them to learn and perform. This becomes
your blueprint.
Develop: Elaborate and build the products
called for in the blueprint that was produced
in the Design phase (the finished product is
often called courseware).
Implement (Delivery): The implementation
phase develops procedures for trainers and
learners.
It covers the course curriculum, learning
outcomes, method of delivery, testing procedures and evaluation of the design.
Evaluate: Determine if the performers
and learning process achieved the desired
results. This is done through proper evaluation throughout the process cycle.

Benefits of Tna
Able to prepare systematic training plan
to support the company goals
Able to to apply different TNA tools to
enhance staff competency
Current staff will stay longer
Feelings of confidence, competence and
well-being in a good training
Staff know that whatever changes may
occur, they will be properly trained in
what they need to cope
Moving out of the organisation is a step
into the unknown
Meets ISO training plan requirements

n nHRC welcomes all those who wish to

register and participate in nHRCs portal www.
nhrc.com.my which is on free subscription
at the moment. the portal provides information related to HR, as well as templates and
samples of documents and letters that can
be downloaded. Questions from readers will
be answered in future columns. Please send
them along with your name, contact number
and email address to info@nhrc.com.my