Employee Training Development

Training Needs Assessment

Name

Professor Name

School

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outline

 

I.                   Introduction/ About the organization

II.                Needs Regarding Training Issue

III.             Individuals Receiving Training

IV.             Training Issues

V.                Training Needs Assessment Questionnaire

VI.             Development of Training Outcomes/ Learning Objectives Through Questionnaire

VII.          Outcome 1

VIII.       Outcome 2

IX.             Outcome 3

X.                Expected Performance

XI.             Performance Gaps

XII.          References

 

I Introduction/ About the Organization

Smart Shop Inc. is the name of the organization which requires training needs assessment for its training programs. Smart Shop Inc. is a network of retail stores with business around the world (Smart Shop, 2016).  Because the company has an international business structure, the organization needs to provide its employees with the proper training for doing business overseas.  The organization has an ok reputation in the market and does not want to damage it by not having the proper training in place to sustain and surpass its current reputation.  Currently the employees receive training consistently but they are still not performing to standard in accordance with the training program.

II Needs Regarding Training Issue

There is a need to analyze the situation thoroughly to identify the training issues.  While preparing for the success of the organization, it is required to make sure that no such issues are present in the system (Unknown, 2016).  First of all, there is a need to determine if the problem exists in the training programs. This may seems difficult but by analyzing each and every aspect of the training program and matching its consequences with the predefined blue print, it can be done.  Each of the issues must be considered and all of those should be arranged in a priority list. Most importantly management should identify each issue and try to find out the root cause of each. The followings can be considered while analyzing the issues (Dudley and Shaw, 2016):

• Why the problem is being created?
• How the performance can be improved using training?
• What are the required skills and knowledge for performance?

Along with determining the problem, there is a requirement of making expectations of the performance. During the process of recognizing the training issues, making expectation is an essential step to be successful (Shankar and Swaminathan, 2011). 

III Individuals Receiving Training

As the organization needs to work in different cultures and communication environments, each of the staff members working abroad should be given training on how to reach, respond, and deal with the people of the country they are working in or with.  This training should not only include the employees currently working in specific countries but employees with the potential to work in or with the country such as senior positions within the company.  A thorough assessment should be made to know the groups and individuals who will receive the training and the needed skills to be successful at the training.  This is important in saving time and money because there is no need in training someone that is not in line to go to a certain country or even sending someone to the training that does not have the basic skills to complete the training.

IV Training Issues

Smart Shop Inc. is facing the below listed issues regarding their training programs:

• The rate of error is very high
• Individuals are showing resistance to change
• Orders are not being completed on time
• Abroad stores are lacking effective communication to local suppliers
• High staff turnover
• It is very hard and slow to implement changes
• Increasing need of communication, leadership and teamwork

V Training Needs Assessment Questionnaire

Training needs assessment questionnaire will consist of four sections and under each section there will be many questions as given below-

Q1.Assessment planning is being done for-

a)24 months

b)                        18 months

c)12 months

d)                       6 months

Q2.Who and how will the process be documented?

 

Q3.Do you believe that existing process will meet future training development needs and aspiration?

a)Yes

b)                        No

 

Q4.  What is the maximum amount of time normally needed to train all employees on a 2 hour block of instruction without interfering with the work flow?

a)      1-5 days

b)      6-10 days

c)      11-15 day

d)     16 and over

 

Q5.Do you think personal circumstances and cost factors will prevent you from meeting the professional development goals?

a)Yes

b)                        No

Q6.Write three ways to improve the training needs assessment process in your organization?

 

Q7.Please add any other comments or suggestions you feel necessary for a successful Assessment Process:

 

VI Development of Training Outcomes/Learning Objectives Through Questionnaire

Questionnaires help to make the objectives clear to the HR Department, the employer, and employees so that they can all help to evaluate the components of the training need assessment programs.  The effectiveness of training needs assessments depends upon the adopted components of the program being delivered to the employees in a dynamic training environment.  Questionnaires also allows the employers and employees think critically about the training programs and their effectiveness.  Their responses are evaluated in order to improve the weak points of training program and the productivity along with the complete knowledge of the job (Shankar and Swaminathan, 2011).  Being absolutely honest while giving the answers to the questionnaire is the first and most important requirement of this process.   If the employees are not being honest while answering, it would not be beneficial and a waste of everyone’s time, effort and the company’s money.

VII Outcome 1

Improvement in the level of communication

The level of communication effectiveness was seen to improve to a big extent. More employees were able to communicate in the various languages that they were trained to use. These languages included those used by customers in the different countries that the company had branches. In did, the employees who were to be sent abroad were able to communicate effectively in the languages that the various countries with their branches use.

On the other hand, the employees who have undergone the training were seen to communicate more efficiently and fluently in the English language (Rummler, & Brache, 2012). This made it possible for the employees to communicate effectively with their seniors as well as the fellow employees.  The communication breakdown between the employees and the customers was amended and hence the transactions were carried out faster and as per the orders of the customers.

VIII Outcome 2

Improvement on the rate of production

The other result achieved by the training is the improvement on the rate of production. Before the training, the rate of production was relatively low in comparison to the expectation.  In fact, the customer orders were produced at a very slow rate leading to the continued loss of customer goodwill loyalty.  The competence of the employees were low before the training was offered to them.  Only a few of the employees were able to produce and meet the orders made by the customers on time.  Orders from abroad were the worst affected by the incompetence of the employees.  In fact, complaints were a usual thing for the organization.  This was tarnishing the good reputation of the organization in the eyes of the world as well as those of the other stakeholders.

The training brought about competence to the employees.  The level of production was done at a faster rate, and this saw the organization meet the customer orders on time.  This brought about the increase in the knowledge of the employees on the various aspects of production.  The workers produced orders as and when they were due to no delay. After the training, production depended on the orders that were placed earlier than the others.

IX Outcome 3

Improved Teamwork

Teamwork was improved after the training.  Before the training, the employees performed their duties independently.  They worked as if they were in a competition.  One could not expose his or her inabilities to the fellow employees.  This saw the output of the employees get below the expected level. The quality of production was poor.  There was a poor perception of the way the employees should carry out the production as well as the other activities of the organization as a team.  The belief of the employees was that the employees only needed to perform at a personal level and disregard what the other employees were doing (Zairi, 2012). This brought about the inconsistency in the products produced as well as the processes of the organization.

The training transformed the perception of the employees towards teamwork.  They started consulting each other on the various issues about the organization.  The workers improved the consistency of the production process as well as the other processes that were associated directly with them.  No specific activity or success was now associated with a particular individual in the organization.  The rate of production increased because the communication amongst the employees became more effective as the employees were now more open to each other.  Meeting of the orders placed by various customers was made faster as the employees assisted each other when was having difficulty keeping up.

X Expected Performance

The management anticipated various aspects of performance out of the training.  These were based on the objectives that had been set to be achieved by the training-induced on the employees.  These were aimed at improving the level of performance.

The error rate was expected to be highly reduced after the training.  The level of defect products was expected to reduce to a zero level.  This meant the reduction in the wastes as well as the scrap in the production process.

The meeting of the orders from the customers was expected to be timely.  The orders were expected to be fulfilled on or before the time that the customers had stipulated.  The level of urgency of the orders was supposed to be taken into account in the production such that the most urgent orders were intended to be met first and the others to follow in that order.

The communication ought to be effective throughout the organization as well as beyond. The employees were expected to have the basic knowledge of handling and communicating effectively to the customers as well as the management (Hays, & Singer, 2012).  This was expected to promote the teamwork amongst all the employees in the various functional departments.

XI Performance gaps

The errors were not completely eliminated.  There was still a significant level of waste during the production process.  This increased the costs faced by the organization as a whole in the course of correcting the defects.

On the other hand, meeting of the orders was not met with the objective levels.  Still there remained some traces of late orders even after the training.  Few of the orders were processed later than the stipulated dates. 

XII Conclusion

As a conclusion, training is seen to be a great need for the performance improvement in the organization.  However, training ought to be a continuous process to cater for the performance gaps that are likely to occur even after training.  All training should also entail some sort of evaluation format to be conducted throughout the year.  This will give the company and employees a sense of how they are doing and if certain employees need a refresher course or the training needs to be tweaked to be better understood.

 

XIII References

Brown, J. (2002). Training needs assessment: A must for developing an effective training program. Public Personnel Management, 31(4), 569-578.

Dudley, L., & Shaw, J. (2016). Assessing your training needs: Needs assessment to training goals. Retrieved May 28, 2016, from http://managementhelp.org/training/systematic/needs-assessment.htm#blogs

 

Hays, R. T., & Singer, M. J. (2012). Simulation fidelity in training system design: Bridging the gap between reality and training. Springer Science & Business Media.

 

McClelland, S. B. (1994). Training needs assessment data-gathering methods: Part 1, survey questionnaires. Journal of European Industrial Training, 18(1), 22-26.

Rummler, G. A., & Brache, A. P. (2012). Improving performance: How to manage the white space on the organization chart. John Wiley & Sons.

Shankar, G., & Swaminathan, J. (2012, July 3). Perceived effectiveness of training and development. Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/39641/1/MPRA_paper_39641.pdf

Smart Shop. (2016). Welcome to the smart shop || Travel and beyond. Retrieved May 28, 2016, from http://thesmartshop.in/

 

Unknown. (2016). Training needs assessment survey from HR-survey.com. Retrieved May 28, 2016, from http://www.hr-survey.com/TrainingNeeds.htm

 

Zairi, M. (2012). Measuring performance for business results. Springer Science & Business Media.

 

Attachments:

• 1502174718-Assignment 2 Draft 2.docx