14th June, 2011 Practitioners Approach to Training Needs Analysis I have been doing training programs for a number

of years now. Quite a few fellow trainers would agree to the thought that a lot more goes into training then what appears to be just a simple process of delivering a training program. Right from building on training needs at a conceptual level, converting it into a program design & content and then managing the logistics of the program, there are number of critical moments which are responsible for making training successful. In other words, there are plenty of places where things may go awry. In my own experience, there have been occasions where the training outcome has not been up to the expectations. In my own experience, there have been occasions where the training outcome has not been up to the expectations. The usual suspects being poor training delivery, average training content, disinterested participants, bad timing and many others. The reasons could be numerous and some of them valid as well; but at the heart of the problem is an understanding of the training needs. I had the opportunity to work for a company that had a strong focus on training its employees. There was a great infrastructure, system and team in place to enable the training process. Despite all this when it came to Training Needs Analysis there was much to be desired. For instance, this organization had the biggest training demand around Communication Skills. This was in line with what was expected but the challenge was to break this training need into various logical constituents like Verbal communication, Written communication, Assertive communication, Presentation Skills etc. Since the process of capturing training needs was based on the Performance Appraisal cycle, it was virtually impossible for the training team to revisit the training needs once the system was updated. The training team could only get to see the system generated report that indicated the number of people eligible for attending a communication skills program. While delivering a Verbal Communication program we could observe that there were number of people who had no problem with their Verbal communication, it seemed that their training need was wrongly captured.

This is where the role of the training manager becomes very important. Unless & until the training manger takes an initiative to capture the training needs correctly most of the line managers would not be able to provide the correct data. The initiative could be done at various levels. In my earlier experience of handling the training operations, I have found the following thinks working for me:

Educate the line managers on the holistic approach to capturing the training needs. Provide them with various possible training need scenarios and suggestions.

Make the training system robust enough to capture various levels of a training requirement.

Make brief qualitative descriptions of training requirement mandatory (this helps the training manger to understand the line managers thought process around a training need)

As a training manager learn to distinguish between the training need emanating from a specific business requirement; Role Based training need and Individual training needs. Its important to do this as the Business and Role based training requirements need to be handled differently and the Individual training requirements requires a different approach.

What business requires from training: In my experience, this is usually an SOS requirement especially in case of behavioural skills. Either there has been some kind of feedback or escalation from the end client or there are internal issues that have surfaced. Business Leadership wants to have a quick fix to these problems by organizing a training program in a jiffy. Lot of times I would get requests for conducting a team building program for reasons that could simply be not addressed in a training program. This is where the training managers ability to probe deeper and his understanding of the business come into play. If the training manger can convince the business leadership that training alone will not solve the problem, it helps in two ways, one The training manager avoids setting up himself for failure; second He

demonstrates his maturity and ability to think through a problem and suggest a solution (if possible). While consulting with our clients, we have a firm belief that any training need has two aspects to it- Behavioural causes AND Systemic causes. To explain the Behaviour and Systemic causes I will like to share an example; over a period of time we have received number of requests from clients to train their employees on Assertiveness Skills. In the process of analyzing the training needs we have observed that few organizations want their employees to go through an Assertiveness Skills training (aiming at a behavioural change) but the organization environment does not support any individual if he/she demonstrates an assertive behaviour (systemic cause of people not displaying assertive behaviour). Our inference has been that in such organizations even if you hold multiple Assertiveness training programs, employees will NOT display assertive behaviour. In fact this will only add to the contradiction and frustration in their minds. Our approach in case of a systemic issue is to be very candid with the clients and let them know that training alone will not be able to take care of the problem. However, if it is a combination of the two then yes some kind of training supported by an intervention at a systemic cause level can bring about the desired change. Training managers or consultants need to remember that training at all times needs to be done for the right reasons to produce the right results. Otherwise there could be a loss of man-hours and efforts for a lot of people. Role based training requirement: Role based trainings usually need to be executed for a larger group of people. It also reflects some kind of advance planning on the part of the leadership team for competency development of their team. This is an opportunity that can provide a good momentum to the training efforts. Since this is a planned effort with a specific objective, the training manager should conduct a thorough needs analysis to arrive at the exact expectation and the end outcome. A strong business understanding and knowledge of roles could be of huge significance when discussing role based training requirement with the line people. At the same time the training manager should be aware of the possibility that even a Role based training need may not eventually get met through training alone.

One of my training friends used to work for a software company where they decided to make Business consultants out of Software engineers. The expectation was that through Role based training they could build a consultants competence in the target group of engineers. Needless to say, this role based training did not yield the expected outcome. Training alone was not enough to make these software engineers play the role of consultants. During the training process it was observed that the target group had little understanding of business and not much willingness to learn the business perspective. They could just not see the broader picture. Ultimately, the initiative had to be called off. Probably, a more realistic view on what could be achieved through training would have helped. The initial phase of the Role based training may involve working around different aspects such as defining of scope, decision on delivery mechanism, pre or post assessments for effectiveness, follow up plan etc. The Role based training is usually a long-term plan that may involve calendar based training for the target role. One great advantage of the Role based Training for the Training team is that after the initial hard-work, the initiative proceeds on an auto mode for subsequent batches and the fruits of labour can be enjoyed for times to come. Individual training requirement: For a training professional meeting an individual training need could be a challenge because of two reasons The need may not get clearly articulated; Even if the need is clear, it may vary from one person to another and it is not practical to hold customized programs for individuals. A timely effort in making line managers understand how training needs should be discussed and captured can go a long way in generating REAL training demand. While playing a training managers role I have conducted awareness sessions for line managers on How to carry out appraisals (from a behavioural perspective). In these sessions I had also incorporated a small portion around how the training department expects them to capture the training needs of their team members. I found this exercise to be very useful as I was able to get more realistic training demands. Additionally, I had put some more effort in designing a good training

needs template, which helped the line managers to capture the training needs effectively. In terms of addressing individual training needs, it is easier for large organizations to find a good number of people with similar training needs. However, for a small organization addressing any unique training need becomes a challenge. In such cases, identifying open workshops can do the job for the training manager. Sometimes, sending people to open workshops also helps in getting a fresh perspective and adds to the knowledge pool of the organization. Most of the individual training needs require some kind of behavioural change as an outcome. Usually such kind of behavioural changes do not occur by just attending a training program. As a training professional, one should think about supporting mechanisms which can accentuate the learnings from training at different intervals. In my experience I have found post training assignments given to the participants as a good way to harness their learnings. Their success or failure in executing an assignment generates a good amount of learning. A Follow-up discussion on such experiences can help people in assimilation of learnings. Probing for Training Requirements: I have found the following set of questions helpful while conducting discussions on Training needs Analysis; you may use these to enrich your own probing on training needs:
1. How did this need arise; What was the trigger for this need? 2. What is the profile of target group of participants? (Designation, Role,

Education, Age, Experience)

3. What are some of the issues that have been observed or feedback received

about the target group of participants? 4. What is the business impact of this training need not being met? 5. Has anything being done to take care of this need earlier?
6. What should the participants be able to do after attending the training? 7. What is the priority of this training need compared to the other training

needs applicable to this group of target participants?

8. Who will be sponsoring or owning this training need from the line function?

Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps." - Helmut Schmidt In a nutshell I feel as a training professional it is important to know where you are going. In absence of a clear direction, one can unknowingly diminish the effectiveness of training processes and its significance in the organization. If you have done your training needs analysis well enough, I think you are good to go for the rest of the journey! Wishing you the best in your quest! Zia Alam Director, Whiteboard Consulting Pvt. Ltd.