Your assessment of the training needs assessment process described by the Vice
President in the memo.
Include any additional recommendations you would make in regard to training needs
assessment. Be specific.
For us to be able to assess the training needs assessment process that was described
in the memo from the Vice President of Operations, we went through the steps of the
needs assessment process and based off of the information provided evaluated
whether we felt like their training needs assessment actually followed the correct
process. We started off by looking at the organizational analysis. Once we went
through evaluating their organizational analysis we then went through the steps for the
person analysis and task analysis.
Organizational Analysis:
This must be done and assessed first, before an assessment of the person analysis or
task analysis can be done. Now, in order to assess this we first had to determine if
what the Vice President of Operations was suggesting for training supported Noe Suites
strategic direction. We felt that training in the “recovery” area of customer service
sounded like it would in fact support the company’s strategic direction. We believe this
even without having information regarding the company’s mission, values, vision, etc.
because companies in this industry must have high levels of customer service in order
to succeed. Any company in this industry that is weak in any area of customer service
has the potential for failure.
In order to complete this assessment of the training needs assessment process that
was done by the Vice President, we then had to determine if this training would receive
positive support from the managers, peers, and employees. As well as if Noe Suites
has the funding for this training; if the time is available based on scheduling; and if they
will be able to provide the proper expertise for this training.
From the information that was provided in the memo by the Vice President of
Operations, we have come to the conclusion that these two critical components of the
organizational analysis were not actually completed. We can only assume that the
training would receive support, but there is no indication in either direction as to whether
or not peers, managers, and employees would have a positive attitude towards training
activities. There was no information regarding any type of employee, manager, or peer
evaluation done that indicates they would support this training. In regards to
determining if the training resources (i.e. funding, time, and expertise) would be
available we are given the information that the expertise is available through the use of
the two well-known consultants. However, there is not any information regarding what
this will cost or who will cover the areas for the employees that are in the training, since
they will be gone for three hours.
So to conclude with the assessment of this part of the training needs assessment and
based off of the information provided we can say that it truly was not done completely.
As mentioned there is no indication that there were any evaluations done to determine if
the training really will have positive support from managers, peers, and employees; as
well as the Vice President of Operations didn’t seem to mention whether or not Noe
Suites can afford for these two consultants to come in and do this training, nor did he
determine how the staffing situation would work while the employees would be in the
training.
Person Analysis & Task Analysis:
These two are typically done together, when training needs assessment is done
properly and after everything in the organizational analysis has been completed and it’s
been determined that all signs mean ‘go.’ However, because we were able to make the
assessment that the organizational analysis was not actually done and based off of the
information provided in the memo from Vice President of Operations we can make the
assessment that neither of these analysis’ were done either.
So to conclude our assessment of the training needs assessment that was done by the
Vice President of Operations we can say that there was not an actual needs
assessment done to determine if in fact training in the area of recovery is actually
necessary.
Now, what we would recommend that the Vice President of Operations do would be to
conduct a full training needs assessment before conducting this training.
He would first need to compare to the company’s business strategy and the training
course objectives and determine if they were in-line with one another. Next, there
would need to be interviews done with managers, trainers, and employees to determine
if the training would receive the positive support needed for employees to successfully
complete the recovery training and implement the techniques provided into their day to
day activities. The VP of Operations would need to get with the accounting department
and determine if they had the funding in the budget to allow for this training and the
staffing department to determine how the different areas would be staffed while the
regularly staffed employees are in the training.
Once the organizational analysis has been completed and everything has been aligned
and is a “go” the VP of Operations can then go ahead and start on the Person and Task
Analysis portion of the training needs assessment. In order to complete the person
analysis portion we would send out questionnaires to all employees we thought needed
to be trained and have them complete the questionnaires and submit them back to us.
These questionnaires would ask the questions necessary for us to determine if each
employee truly needed this training or not. It would consists of questions about how
he/she would respond to certain situations that would require a recovery situation to a
customer. In the process of doing the person analysis we would also prepare the task
analysis, this would be done before the questionnaires were sent out to the employees.
This is because during this phase we would be gathering the specific information for
each of the positions that would be affected by the training. We would meet with
managers and employees in the positions to develop a list of the tasks that most
regularly performed, then confirm our list of tasks with SMEs for those positions. Once
this is information has been gathered and confirmed we would then send out the
questionnaires and be able to determine who exactly did need training and who was
lacking the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the job within each of the different
positions.