The Need Analysis Process

The Need Analysis Process

Concern

Employee performance is critical to the growth of every organization. Its effectiveness can be improved by conducting a training analysis. The need analysis helps in determining the performance gap within the firm. It is usually a procedural process that begins by first identifying the concerns that call for the training. The interests are the needs that require the organization to address. The Wealth Management Group currently deals with many concerns that range from poor interpersonal relationships between the employees and the managers. Some employees feel they are left out in the promotion programs because of the poor relationship between them and the relevant managers. This is evident in how Heather narrates his lack of promotion due to his poor relationship with Jack, her supervisor for being a Chinese. Most employees feel they are left out in the promotional activities due to favoritism. Jack, a certified management accountant and the manager of marketing narrates how he failed to secure the Director of Training and Development program that Peters currently occupies due to favoritism among the managers. Besides, most of the employees do not see the importance of a lecture-based training program. Most of the employees believe it is a waste of resources. This calls for the need to train the employees on the benefits of the lecture-based training programs. Finally, there is also a need to provide training on employee working relationships to improve the organization’s performance.

The importance of the concern

The above concerns are ranked based on their importance. I will analyze the various interests to determine their importance to the performance of the organization. The identified matter is terminated if it’s found to be of little importance. However, if the concern is of importance, the person in charge moves to the next stage.

Consultation of Stakeholders

Stakeholders are consulted to determine their effectiveness. Stakeholders are those who are interested in the firm and whose actions affect the company’s performance. For the Wealth Management Group, the stakeholders that need to be concluded will include but not limited to the employees, the manager of customer services, supervisor of the employee benefits and services, and the investment adviser. The purpose of consulting the key stakeholders is to review the impacts of the identified concern.

Collection of Information

Determination of the validity of the concerns is dependent on the information gathered from various stakeholders. I will employ interviews based on a face-to-face meeting to collect data from multiple stakeholders on the needs for training among the employees. I will conduct a weekly conversation with various stakeholders such as the administrative assistant, manager of accounting, customer service manager, supervisor of employee benefits and services, and investment adviser.

Level of Training Needs Analysis

Training needs can be analyzed based on different levels. Organizational needs analysis is a competency-based analysis where the concern is related to the competence of workers in their workplace. This type of training addresses the need to improve the productivity of workers at the workplace in meeting the organization’s objectives. In terms of organizational analysis, I will consider the strategic alignment. The concern or the need must be strategically aligned to the goals of the organization. The vision of the wealth management group is to be the leader in client relationships. The needs of training must be aligned with the vision of the organization. The environment of the organization also determines the importance of concern. The training must be capable of improving both the external and internal environment of the organization. Besides the environment, the concern to be addressed must be cost-effective in terms of the resource requirement. The cost-effective training program is prioritized. The training to be adopted must also be relevant to the organizational context. Wealth Management Group has a people-oriented managerial style. The need analysis must, therefore, be aimed at improving the managerial style adopted by the organization.

Task Analysis

The training needs to be adopted must relate to the skills, knowledge, and attitudes of the workers in their jobs. The training needs must be to improve the worker’s skills, knowledge, and attitude in enhancing their productivity. This will involve identifying the target jobs that need training, the description of the skills and knowledge requirement with such specialization. Besides, the task analysis will involve developing the rating scales to determine the most important concern, surveying the incumbents, analyzing and interpreting the information gathered on the skills and knowledge that requires training as well as providing feedback to the employees.

Person Analysis

The training needs must be able to meet the individual needs of all the organization’s workforce. Besides, it must be able to develop the worker’s interpersonal skills. For instance, MWG’s workers lack interpersonal skills in relating to their supervisors and various mangers. The training needs to be adopted should be able to improve their interpersonal skills. To arrive at the most appropriate training needs, I will define the organization’s desired performance, determine the performance gap that needs to be improved and identify the obstacles towards achieving such training needs.

Setting the Desired Outcomes of the Organization

An effective training program must have predetermined outcomes or goals that it aims to achieve. This can be achieved by establishing the workers’ performance gaps (Holloway, Arcus, & Orsborn, 2018). As previously stated, the organization has deteriorating performance due to lack of proper relationship, as pointed out by Richard, the investment adviser. Besides, the training need should provide solutions to the identified performance gaps. I will also identify where the training is most needed. This will involve collecting information from various stakeholders to determine where the practice is highly required. Besides, I will establish the type of training required and who needs the training. To achieve an effective training program, I will discuss the learning objectives of the training, how the training should be designed and delivered as well as establishing the evaluation criteria for the outcomes of the training program

The Training program

Based on the organizational analysis, task analysis, and person analysis, Wealth Management Group requires a training program to improve the working relationship among the workers and their relevant authorities. According to the information I obtained from the employees, most workers have poor interpersonal relationships with their managers. The majority of the workers have failed to be promoted due to their poor relationship with the relevant managers. Various forms of discrimination also facilitate the poor interpersonal relationship among the employees and the authorities. For instance, Heather has developed a poor working relationship with her supervisor Jack for being a Chinese. She feels that racial discrimination has contributed dramatically to her failure to be promoted. There are also concerns about the lack of work ethics among the employees. The same is also evident in how Jack, a certified management accountant, and the manager of marketing narrates fails to secure the position of Director of Training and Development program that Peters currently occupies due to his poor relationship with the manager in charge. Besides, most of the employees do not see the importance of a lecture-based training program. Conclusively, I feel training on the importance of a good working relationship between the workers and their seniors is of importance to the Wealth Management Group. Exercise on a good working relationship will improve workers’ skills and knowledge that will enhance the organization’s performance.

Section II

Types of Training Methods for the Training Programs

The initial training needs identified in the previous section can be undertaken through various training methods. Different methods can be applied to provide a training program to the employees. This section discusses the various ways used to dispense lecture-based training.

Instructor-Led Classroom Training

This type of training involves the application of lecture-based materials to dispense knowledge and skills to the employees. Wealth Management Group has widely applied this type of method based on lectures to train its employees. Although the use of a lecture-based program is highly criticized by the majority of employees citing it as a waste of time and resources, the use of lectures allows the trainees to interact with instructors. To effectively achieve the previously identified outcomes, I will employ lecture-style presentations such as PowerPoint to provide training to the employees. The instructor-led classroom will be critical in meeting the training need as it ensures a positive relationship between the employees and the authorities. Although the method effectively achieves the learning objective of the organization, the plan will be limited by the impact of Covid-19 as it requires the trainer to be physically present. The social distance among the trainees can be a significant challenge to maintain due to the large workforce that has enrolled in the training program.

Interactive Methods

The method is similar to instructor-led classroom method as it entails the use of lecture material in dispensing the training knowledge to the employees. However, it differs from the instructor-led classroom as it incorporates the use of interactive methods such as small group discussions, case study reviews, role-playing, quizzes, and demonstrations. The purpose of applying these interactive methods is to ensure the training session is interactive and full of fun to create an environment that allows workers to share their personal work experience. Unlike the instructor-led classroom method that is mainly unidirectional in developing the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the workers, interactive methods through the use of various interactive practices ensure multi-lateral learning that allows workers to learn from each other. Wealth Management Group faces interpersonal relationship problems between the employees and the managers. Interactive training methods help improve interpersonal relations as it enables quieter to feel comfortable speaking out for themselves. To effectively meet the training program’s learning outcomes, I will organize interactive classes weekly based on the interactive methods to train workers on the benefit of a good working relationship.

Hands-On Training

This method trains workers on the learning objects on practice practices. Although the above techniques are efficient in providing written materials to the trainees, the hand-on training method capitalizes on the importance of practical experience in dispensing the required skills, knowledge, and attitude to the workers. Workers develop long term memory on the skills taught during such training. The workers under the training program interact with the experienced workers of the organization to gain practical insight into the curriculum taught. Besides, this program is resource conservative since it is cost-effective. Conclusively, I will employ hand-on training methods to give the workers the practical application of the training need.

Computer-Based and E-Learning Training Method

This training method is an online-based training method that eliminates the use of an in-person facilitator. The technique will be highly applicable as it helps in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic. I will weekly pose the learning objectives in the organization website or web app so that the trainees can understand what is expected of them on the training needs. Besides, I will use online resources such as videos and reading material to accompany the coursework, hence enhancing their learning experience. Moreover, the Wealth Management Group has a large workforce. To meet the training needs for a large number of employees, the use of a computer-based and e-learning training method allows a large scale of workers to be trained at the same time (Bohlinger & Müller, 2019). Although this method is imperative in meeting the training needs of many workers at the same time, especially during this pandemic, it becomes difficult to determine whether the workers are actively participating in the training program. I will, therefore, employ this type of training method for the workers that work from home.

Video Training

This technique applies various online phenomena to conduct the training need analysis. For the complex topic that the workers would take time to understand, I will employ animation for the program’s visual illustration. Besides, I will be employing the use of a live-action style to create an interactive session between the employees and the trainer. An effective training method should be accessible, affordable, more comfortable to learn, and allow the trainer to change the lesson plan’s content.

Coaching and Mentoring

Most of the workers at the Wealth Management Group are opposed to lecture-based methods based on the long hours they spent during such training. The coaching and mentoring training method eliminate the long classroom hours spent during the lessons. Besides, this method will supplement the other training methods, besides the interpersonal relationship between the employees and their managers. This method gives a practical shape to the knowledge, skills, and attitude learned throughout the training program. In sum, the above techniques can be used to achieve the training needs analysis.

Section III

Lesson Plan for the Lecture-based Training Workshop

The practical training method relies on the lesson plan to achieve its learning objectives. The table below summarizes the detailed lesson plan for the lecture-based training workshop. It is imperative to note that the lesson plan considers the impacts of Covid-19 to ensure no trainee is disadvantaged. The lesson plan incorporate both online classes and classroom-based classes to manage the prevailing situation.

Table 1: Detailed Lesson Plan for Lecture-Based Training Working

Reference

Bohlinger, S., & Müller, C. (2019). Training Needs Analysis. Internal CONTESSA Report.

Holloway, K., Arcus, K., & Orsborn, G. (2018). Training needs analysis–The essential first step for continuing professional development design. Nurse education in practice, 28, 7-12.