Training Needs Assessment

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stphillips

Scrutinise your team's and organisation's training needs carefully.

Abigail's boss has asked her to train her department on recent legislative changes affecting her industry. The session is due to last an entire afternoon and, without giving it much thought, she asks everyone in her team to attend.

Once she starts the training, however, she realizes that not everyone needs to be there. Some of her colleagues are giving up half a day's work to learn new skills that they will never use.

Without thinking about who needed to know about the new legislation, Abigail wasted time and resources training team members who didn't need to be there. Her department also lost out, because people were pulled off high-value projects to attend the session.

Abigail could have avoided this situation by doing a Training Needs Assessment (also known as a Training Needs Analysis). In this article, we'll look at how you can use a Training Needs Assessment (TNA) to gain a better understanding of the training your team needs.

About the Tool

When you're thinking about how to develop your team's skills, you need answers to the following questions:

• Who needs training?
• What training do they need?
• Why is it important?
• How will you deliver the training?

Training Needs Assessment is a structured way of answering these questions.

By comparing existing skills and competencies with the skills you want people to have, you can make an informed decision about the type of training each person or team needs. You can then develop or source a training program that addresses these needs.

Why Use a Training Needs Assessment?

Using a TNA helps you...