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Unit 3: Needs Assessment

 Organisational Climate Analysis: The climate of an organisation speaks about the Notes
attitudes of members towards work, company policies, supervisors, etc. Absenteeism,
turnover ratios generally reflect the prevailing employee attitudes. These can be
used to find out whether training efforts have improved the overall climate within
the company or not.
(b) Task or Operational Analysis: This is a detailed examination of a job, its components, its
various operations and conditions under which it has to be performed. The focus here is
on the roles played by an individual and the training needed to perform such roles.
The whole exercise is meant to find out how the various tasks have to be performed and
what kind of skills, knowledge, attitudes are needed to meet the job needs. Questionnaires,
interviews, reports, tests, observation and other methods are generally used to collect job
related information from time-to-time. After collecting the information, an appropriate
training programme may be designed, paying attention to (i) performance standards
required of employees, (ii) the tasks they have to discharge, (iii) the methods they will
employ on the job and (iv) how they have learned such methods, etc.

(c) Manpower Analysis: Here the focus is on the individual in a given job. There are three
issues to be resolved through manpower analysis. First, we try to find whether performance
is satisfactory and training is required. Second, whether the employee is capable of being
trained and the specific areas in which training is needed. Finally, we need to state whether
poor performances (who can improve with requisite training inputs) on the job need to be
replaced by those who can do the job. Other options to training such as modifications in
the job or processes should also be looked into. Personal observation, performance reviews,
supervisory reports, diagnostic tests help in collecting the required information and select
particular training options that try to improve the performance of individual workers.
To be effective, training efforts must continuously monitor and coordinate the three kinds
of analyses described above. An appropriate programme that meets the company’s
objectives, task and employees needs may then be introduced. Further, the training needs
have to be prioritised so that the limited resources that are allocated to fill training gaps
are put to use in a proper way.

It is obvious from the foregoing, that no assessment of training need is going to be
successful without a thorough knowledge of the job itself in all its aspects and a thorough
knowledge of the personal achievements of the job holder. It is this second factor where
the identification of training needs is often unsuccessful, since the investigator doesn’t
have the required facts in his possession.
However, the collation of the information about how many of the necessary qualities the
jobholder (or candidate) already possesses is often more difficult to ascertain. Face-to-face
interview techniques by the assessor are most profitable, although not always practicable.
Where questionnaires, forms and other non-personal techniques are used, there always seems
to be a lack of important feedback on attitudes and performance standards, often psychological
in nature, which cannot be determined in writing.

3.5.1 Training Forecast

Any changes in the future will usually bring about training needs, so research will have to be
carried out to forecast the developments that are to occur. This function is always least tackled in
the training needs analysis, especially in companies employing no training specialist, where
line managers, responsible for their own internal training, often fail to set aside some time to
review their future needs. The following future needs will force the company to train or retrain
its employees:

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