Training Needs 3: Industry, Job, and Task-Related Needs
Summary: Some of the needs you may uncover during your assessment are related directly to the industry, the jobs within the organization, and the tasks within those jobs. Let’s look at these needs and how to assess them.
When you begin your organizational needs assessment, you’ll find that many of the needs you discover are related to the overall industry and the jobs within the organization. This information can certainly overload you if you are looking at the organization’s training needs as whole. So the best way to tackle these needs is to break them down based on industry, job, and task. Let’s define each area and then look at some of the best ways to assess needs in those areas.
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Training Needs 2: Existing Training
Training Needs 2: Existing Training
Summary: A great starting point for an overall organizational needs assessment is current training programs.
Before you begin assessing various organizational areas for training needs, it’s a good idea to start with training that already exists. Existing training can be centralized, that is, run by the training and development department. On the other hand, individual departments may have training programs going on at those levels, as well. These programs can be well known, or perhaps they may be “covert”. For example, some departments may have an on-the-job training program that may be as simple as a first day or first week checklist. The idea behind the determination of existing training is not to expose any kind of “secret” training, but to determine how training can be made more effective. (more…)
