“In this blog, we will take you through everything there is to know about training needs analysis and its benefits.”
Do you have an employee training program in place but the results are not what you expected? Did your training program fail to cater to the needs of your employees?
If yes, you must be wondering why you failed. Why, even after investing a lot of money and time, your training program couldn’t reap the desired benefits.
The answer to this is simple. The training program that you chose for your employees didn’t align with the needs of your workforce. While the program must have been effective in itself, it wasn’t the right choice for your employees.
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Now, the question here is, how do you ensure that a similar situation doesn’t occur in the future? Through training needs analysis. And what exactly is training needs analysis?
Related: How to identify the training needs of employees: 7 ways to start
Find an answer to this question with us at Graphy. If you are an organization planning to adopt an efficient and effective training program for your employees, let us take you through what training needs analysis is and its benefits.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Everything you need to know about training needs analysis
What is a training needs analysis?
As the name suggests, training needs analysis is the process of identifying the training needs of employees to develop an efficient training program for them.
A training program is meant to develop the skills and knowledge of the employees and help them become valuable additions to the company. Now, most organizations today have an employee training program in place but how do you ensure that the program that you have chosen best aligns with the needs of your employees?
The simple answer is: training needs analysis.
Training needs analysis ensures that your employee training program caters to the needs of your employees and serves the purpose it was meant to.
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When you adopt a training program of your liking without conducting a thorough analysis of your employee’s needs you take the risk of failure. Simply because if your training program doesn’t teach your employees what they need to learn, it is nothing more than a wasted effort.
To better understand what training needs analysis is, let’s have a look at the key steps involved in the process:
Related: How to develop an employee training program in 2022
Identify the goal of the training program
The first step to training needs analysis is having a clear goal in mind regarding what you wish to achieve from your training program. Once you have this goal in place you would know which areas you want your employees to be proficient in and can, therefore, curate an effective training program.
For instance, if your goal is to develop a technologically proficient team, you would know what kinds of employee training programs will cater to your needs. Once you have a goal in mind, you can target the corresponding skills and help your employees develop them all using an effective training method.
Do a skills evaluation of your staff
Once you are sure about your end goal behind implementing the training program, next comes evaluating the skills of your staff.
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Setting a goal would help you not down those specific skills you wish to imbibe in your employee. Then through an evaluation, you can determine if those are your employee’s strengths or not and then select an employee training program accordingly.
Related: How to create a training module: A step-by-step guide
Identify the areas which need improvement
Once you evaluate the skills of your staff, you would know which areas need improvement. It will highlight the gap between the current level of your employees and the desired level.
Now that you know this, all you need to do is select or develop an employee training program that best targets the concerned areas. In case you plan to develop an employee training program on your own, make use of Graphy, our online course platform and build one in an easy and efficient fashion.
This is how training needs analysis helps you identify the needs of your employees and come up with a foolproof training program.
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How can training needs analysis benefit your organization?
Now that you know what training needs analysis is, let’s have a look at how it can benefit your organization. That way you would know why you need to adopt it today!
So, let’s go through the major benefits of training needs analysis.
Related: 5 popular employee training methods for workplace training
Help identify skill/knowledge gaps in your team
Employees are the greatest assets of any company. They have the potential to take your organization to the heights you have dreamt of but at the same time, if your workforce is not efficient enough, it can lead to your downfall.
And that is why training needs analysis is of key importance. It helps you identify the knowledge gap between your workforce and bridge them using an effective employee training program.
A thoroughly done training needs analysis would:
- Identify the strengths of your employees.
- Help find areas where they lack.
- Find scope for improvisation.
- Help you pinpoint the skills your employees need to develop.
So, in short, one benefit of training needs analysis is that it could become a catalyst for the growth of your employees.
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Help come up with the perfect employee training program
The intent behind training needs analysis is to help choose/build the perfect training program for your employees. Once you identify the skill/ knowledge gap in your team, you can use that information to come up with the perfect employee training program.
There are several employee training needs analysis methods including:
- Questionnaires and surveys.
- Observe and examine their work.
- Collect work metrics and identify the areas where they lack.
- Psychometric tests like numerical reasoning tests or verbal reasoning tests.
- Interviews with line managers or heads
- Conduct formal assessments like discussions or online tests.
Using these methods you can identify the skills that your employees need to develop in order to become better contributors to your company’s growth and then come up with a training program accordingly. This is another major benefit of training needs analysis.
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Ensures the success of your training program
A training program that is developed after properly considering the needs of your employees is meant to succeed. Training needs analysis ensures that you are able to identify the areas that require improvement and come up with a proper plan. That way you will never miss the mark and invest in a training program that would only end up wasting your time and money.
So, another benefit of training needs analysis is that it takes the possibility of you conducting an ineffective training program and wasting your money and the time of your employees out of the picture.
Related: Online course evaluation surveys 3 smart ways to get feedback [+1 template]
Helps determine who all needs to be trained
While employee training programs are key to the growth of any workforce, it doesn’t mean that all employees need to participate in all programs that you conduct. They only need to attend the ones that will add value to their skillset.
For instance, a senior-level HR, attending a training program meant to help employees develop their communication skills would be nothing more than a complete waste. The time they would have spent doing something productive would be wasted on doing something which is of no value to them.
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In short, if your employees are trained in skills that they already are the best at, they would simply be wasting their time and feel drained. That would definitely lower their productivity.
So, how do you determine who all needs to attend a particular training program? Through training needs analysis. And that sums up another benefit of training needs analysis.
Help identify otherwise hidden scopes for improvement
The employee training program that you have in place might be working in favor of your business. But are you sure that it is the best program out there for your team?
Your training program might be effective but there might be several areas that it is not targeting. And training needs analysis helps you look at the training needs of your employees from a new perspective.
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Sometimes through training needs analysis, you are able to identify those growth areas that you never considered before. Something new might surface that you never knew was limiting the potential of your workforce.
Related: Best LMS to sell online courses in 2022 – Graphy
To sum it up:
These are the major benefits of training needs analysis. By now, you must be convinced as to why you should conduct one at your organization. So, without any further delay, engage in training needs analysis and find the perfect training program for your employees.
Launch your employee training program with Graphy
Are you an online course creator or an organization looking for a secure and efficient platform to launch an employee training program? If yes, then Graphy is the one-stop solution for all your needs. With us, you can build comprehensive and well-designed courses and market them well with our integrated marketing tools. You can build your own branded websites and mobile apps.
So, choose Graphy as your online course platform without any delay and build we well as launch your online course in the best way possible.
