Final Paper MBA 635

TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS 1

TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS 4

TRAINING NEED ANALYSIS FOR POLICE DEPARTMENTS
Rymario Armstrong
Park University
HRM 635 Training, Development, and Evaluation
Norris Wise Ph.D
20210414

Training Needs Analysis (TNA)

It refers to the process undertaken by an organization to determine all its training to be completed over a given period of time to enable their teams to complete effectively their tasks as well as progression and growth.
Benefits of TNA
One benefit of conducting training needs analysis is to assist in the identification of available knowledge gaps that the employees have early before it turns to a bad issue. Highlighting a possible problem and devising means to tackle it is better than working on it when it has already arisen.
The process of needs identification helps in planning purposes for a given period of year. When the skills gaps are identified, then the members who require further training in similar areas are pulled together in a training that cover all the missing skills. This makes the whole task much easier, and you are more assured that the training selected will directly impact the business.
A training needs analysis assists to highlight training needs that may not have been considered before and is an indication that you require to do more trainings for various areas that will make ensure the staff in an organization are performing to their best (Denby, 2010). Without studying the training needs available, then the business is severely hindered from reaching it full potential.
Having a training needs analysis helps an organization to focus on the right areas that need improvement and the ones which do not require any additional training for the time being. Without knowledge gaps in a particular area, there is no economic and business sense to carry out training at the current moment.
Another important for training needs analysis is to allow only the right people to be put under the corresponding training sessions. If not done well, then the whole exercise would be a waste of resources for the business and skills that are of no or less relevancy and importance to the business.
A training needs analysis therefore allows for the management to only target the correct people for every particular training session, enabling each employee to have a personalized training that accrue the most benefits to them.
From conducting a training needs analysis, then it becomes apparently easy to prioritize the training needs in the sense that there are training requirements that need to be handled immediately and others that can be implemented in the future. The most important areas to handle for instance might be the ones that relate to customer service as they have direct impact on the business performance (Reed,& Vakola,2006).

Step 1: Determination of the desired outcome

The initial step in the training needs analysis is the identification of the intended performance standard or related business outcome. The intention is to establish the best way for the employees to undertake their core competencies.
When exploring the question of personal needs analysis of the employees so that a suitable training could be tailored to them, then a few sources could be relevant to arriving at a determination.
· Conversations with the organization management and also the team leaders.
· The different company documentations such as manuals, and lists of job duties among others.
· Evaluations of the employees who are excellently performing the current tasks that other staff require training.
Person Analysis involves dealing with potential participants in the whole process. This process helps to answer who to receive the training and how better they are versed with the subject under question, the learning style they apply and the likely facilitators of the training (Annett, 2003). It also seeks to understand if the employees’ particular section possesses the required skills as well as if there are changes needed on the policies, procedures, or software to necessitate the training (Anderson, 1994).

Step 2: Establishment of the present outcome

At the point of identifying how a given task should be carried out, the step that follows is identification of how the concerned staff are practically doing it.There exists different ways to establish how different employees are executing various tasks assigned to them in an organization, including:
· Observation of the learners while on the job
· Carrying out scheduled interviews with supervisors and managers in the organization.
· A proper analysis of the company metrics
· Analysis of the employee performance reports held by the line department.
On the identification of how the tasks should be done, then the next step would be to establish how the staffs are indeed executing it.
For example, if as a planner you consider having training that touch on processing of orders, then you might want to see that being done by the sales associates while at the job. Then from the responsible department one may end up asking for performance reports which contain statistics on the average basis how long it takes for the order calls.
Organizational analysis considers why the business needs training is necessary and the focus is on the strategies, goals, and objectives of an organization.  The essential questions that this analysis attempt to analyze is on who made the decision that the training was necessary and should be conducted, what solution the training would offer to the problem in the business and the history of other training sessions done by the organization.
Task Analysis details the actual tasks being conducted and considers the job analysis and conditions for the performing of the work. It helps specify the key duties and skills level that are required for stellar business outcomes. Therefore this ensures the training being developed is an inclusion of relevant links to the job description.

Step 3: Determination of the cause and course of the performance gap.

Now after establishing the specific performance gap, the next important step is to identify the cause followed by a suitable solution. Every likely factor that potentially can affect the organizational performance is investigated such as:
· Feedback from the line supervisors and departmental reports.
· Knowledge and skills that different employees possess from previous and past trainings.
· Employee motivation aspects.
· Capacity differences among the workforce of an organization.
· Tools and equipment available to the employees in their assigned activities.
To fully understand the performance of an organization’s team, several people should be interviewed to get their perspectives and then make own conclusions.
For example, in the case of sales issues, a chat with the associates could help to find out if a number of them had not been taken through a training of intricate ordering procedures. This is because the cause of delays in ordering calls could be due to time spent confirming some steps from the job manual. Or else, the cause for delay is due to od and obsolete equipment such as computers and that what is actually required is update on the IT systems and not employee training.
With the cause of performance problem having been identified, the establishing a suitable solution would be pretty easier. A training is therefore done where a, lack of knowledge and skills is responsible for the performance gap. The goal of a needs analysis should be to identify the embedded performance problem that is then followed by addressing how the proposed training would help solve the problem.

References

Anderson, G. (1994). A proactive model for training needs analysis. Journal of European industrial training.
Annett, J. (2003). Hierarchical task analysis. Handbook of cognitive task design, 2, 17-35.
Denby, S. (2010). The importance of training needs analysis. Industrial and commercial training.
Reed, J., & Vakola, M. (2006). What role can a training needs analysis play in organisational change?. Journal of Organizational Change Management.