Need assessment diagnoses current problems and future challenges to be met through training. The purpose of the need assessment is to identify the specific job performance skills needed, to analyse the skills and needs of the prospective trainees. The needs assessment involves analyzing the organization’s needs; the knowledge, skill, and ability needed to perform the job; and the person or jobholder’s needs. The mechanisms and symptoms are given below.
How to ascertain training Needs
The training needs of an employee can be ascertained by the following areas mechanism:
(1) Observation at the place of work i.e. the examination of the job performance and present skill levels of employees to find out the gap in skills which will exhibit the need for training.
(2) Interview the supervisors and employees to know the duties and functions of job incumbents, and their levels of satisfaction with the present job performance of employees. Any dissatisfaction will call for training.
(3) Comparative study of performances of good and bad employees with a view to identify the gap which will need to bridge up with the training.
(4) Production reports of each employee by the supervisors to identify the gap between budgeted and actual performance. Any negative deviations will need training.
(5) Review of personnel records to know employees’ past academic records, test performance, work performance , comments of supervisors, disciplinary actions taken, awards received for good performance, extracurricular activities etc to find out how far these match with the present job and performance. If not, training will be needed.
(6) Review of job description to know the nature of jobs to be done by an employee in a position within the organization, working conditions and the machines used of existing and future positions of an incumbent to identify the areas of improvement through training.
(7) Task analysis -an analysis of the job requirements to discern the level of skill necessary to do a job and to know the need for job redesigning to fit with the demand of the day. This information will tell about the need for training to employees.
(8) Examine the problems that employees have and analyse them to identify the need for training.
(9) Employees’ suggestions regarding changes in jobs and job conditions and any such changes will need further training to the employees.
(10) Examine the organizational needs, that is, the number of employees with various combinations of skills needed at each level and in every functional part of the firm for specified period. This estimation will identify the need for training, the topics of training and the number of employees to be trained.
(11) Assess the performance objectives to know whether current employees need training to reach these objectives.
(12) Person analysis to know the characteristics of the people required for the job and any discrepancy will call for training.
In essence, any gap between expected and actual results of employees in present positions and the future job demands will be the benchmark for estimating the need for training.
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