Training needs analysis (TNA) is a process of identifying and prioritizing the learning and development gaps of your employees, teams, or organization. It helps you align your training objectives with your business goals, improve performance, and optimize your training budget. In this article, you will learn how to conduct a TNA in six steps.
The first step of TNA is to assess the current situation of your organization, including its vision, mission, values, strategy, and performance indicators. You also need to analyze the external factors that affect your business, such as market trends, customer expectations, and competitors. This will help you identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of your organization and the areas that need improvement.
It is quite important to align training needs to short-term and long-term organizational goals as this ensures that the training and its outcomes are relevant to the business. This also ensures that the Learning and Development function of the business serves as a value contributor and is not just a cost center within the business.
If you're patient the data reveals its “story." So I continually ask: What’s the story that needs telling? There may be many stories (e.g., a training with cross-functional impact such as an enterprise system deployment). There may also be stories that are missing altogether. So, I dig deep for those as well. Often the stories an organization tells itself differ from objective observation. Yet, the stories matter; they provide context for & insight into the issues. They also lend texture to the characters (i.e., audience). So I stay curious, going beyond what's in front of me & asking tough, hard, embarrassing, and even dumb questions. Ultimately, what gets prioritized are any gaps in the story that, if filled, would lend greater cohesion.
To get Training need of employees, 1. We can check organizational need 2. We can take Managers Input 3. We can take feedback from employees about their self development need. Based on the above, we can develop the Training Calendar to cater the above needs.
The next step is to define the desired outcomes of your training, based on the gaps and needs identified in the previous step. You need to specify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) that your employees, teams, or organization should have after the training. You also need to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and indicators to measure the effectiveness and impact of your training.
Understanding answers to: “What does good look like?”, “How will we know we’ve succeeded?”, and “What difference will this make in the business?” is very important as these will help to measure pre- and post- training success and these answers can also provide messaging to be woven into training content.
The third step is to identify the target audience of your training, including their characteristics, preferences, and learning styles. You need to consider the size, location, and diversity of your audience, as well as their current level of competence, motivation, and readiness for learning. You also need to segment your audience into different groups or categories, based on their roles, responsibilities, or needs.
Once the target audience is identified it is very important to partner with senior leadership for these target training functions. The leadership must understand the ‘why’ behind the training and be able to support it such that the training audience gets support and proper time to spend on the training in order to see the maximum organizational impact.
The fourth step is to select the best methods and tools to deliver your training, based on the outcomes, audience, and resources available. You need to choose the most appropriate format, mode, and medium of your training, such as online, offline, blended, synchronous, asynchronous, or hybrid. You also need to select the most effective methods and tools to facilitate learning, such as lectures, workshops, simulations, games, videos, podcasts, or e-learning.
Methods and tools will also depend on the skill set of the team that will be delivering the training content. You might want simulations or games but if your team has no skill set for this you either have to bring in external resources or forgo the option for another solution. The same for videos and podcasts. Your team will need to have some decent equipment and expertise to create these. It won't do to have someone record a video and doing a voice over where you hear phones ringing in the background and lots of people talking. As these items are key for your training, you will need to make sure your training development team has the right equipment and expertise to creating lasting and effective content.
The fifth step is to design and develop the training content, based on the methods and tools selected in the previous step. You need to create engaging, relevant, and practical content that covers the KSA and goals of your training. You also need to apply the principles of adult learning, such as autonomy, relevance, feedback, and interaction. You also need to test and revise your content, to ensure its quality, accuracy, and usability.
Important part of development is testing. As a content developer it is easy to get too much of a narrow view and thinking your content is perfect, but your audience actually not being able to follow or understand what you are trying to cover. Have some dedicated end users available to proof test your materials. Use their feedback to improve your materials so they are fit for purpose.
The final step is to evaluate and improve the training, based on the indicators and feedback collected during and after the training. You need to measure the reaction, learning, behavior, and results of your training, using various methods and tools, such as surveys, quizzes, observations, interviews, or analytics. You also need to analyze the data and feedback, to identify the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of your training. You also need to implement the necessary changes and improvements, to enhance your training and achieve your outcomes.
I once heard, "You don't know what you don't measure". Even after we think we delivered a top-shelve training program, we really don't know unless we think about measuring its effect: performance metrics, feedback of participants, etc.
How a training will be evaluated should be planned from the onset as this will help ensure that the desired outcome of a training is envisioned and planned for as the training development process evolves. For example, if participants should be able to operate a specific machine at the end of a training program, then an evaluation plan at the beginning of the training development process should highlight this as a factor that will be evaluated to assess the effectiveness of the training.