How can you involve senior leaders in training needs analysis?

TNA is vital in organisations that are thinking of evolving and aligning strategy with people development, but it must go hand in hand with the Individual Development Plan (IDP) and thus have a broader perspective.

Senior leaders have to be involved in the training needs analysis. It is the most effective way for L&D to ensure the learning strategy is aligned to the organization's strategy.

Be prepared to ask these questions in a variety of ways to fully understand and to allow senior leaders room to voice their concerns in their own ways. For example, they may not speak the "language of training," so asking about "skill gaps" may not be fruitful. Instead, you could ask what people need to be able to do - now and in the future - that they aren't doing now. Then dig a little deeper into why they think that is.

It should never be one-way conversation, rather more listening accompanied by well balanced open questions helping the senior leaders define what they wish to achieve at the end of the process.

TNA should always be an open, on-going conversation between L&D and the business. Most importantly, L&D must speak the 'language' of business, understand the impact of verifiable ROI, and think beyond traditional learning methodologies to meet all the needs of the business (including time spent in training).

Just as L&D should not be 'order takers' from the business without a clear TNA, we should also not be dictating training to the business. The partnership between the business leaders and L&D needs to recognize each other's area of expertise. The business knows where they are experiencing challenges and pain points. L&D's area of expertise is knowing WHEN training can address those challenges and pain points, and HOW the training should be structured and implemented. Additionally, with how busy senior leader's schedules can be, it's important to have them agree to the initial plan and then assign SMEs that L&D can work with to keep the plan moving forward.

It is important to keep your senior leaders involved in the process. However you have to bear in mind their busy schedules. From the beginning agree a timeslot & schedule for a stakeholder meeting. Make sure you are fully prepared for these meetings, share important information in advance as well as an agenda. Keep the sessions organised and on time. For each session have a clear action list and work with your stakeholders to keep them on track for any actions they need to do.

Set clear expectations and deadlines, this would include the volume and context of meetings to update on progress. The meetings need to be a two-way street.

However, you must be clear and transparent about the need to define early on which data will be used so that the benefits and impact are easily measured.

Often, senior leaders can see L&D departments as “training order-takers” or “cost-centers” for business. Therefore, it is important for L&D professionals to go beyond attendance metrics and focus on business impact through data analysis and establishing ROI within the TNA proposal. In my experience, examining the quantitative data and the relationships between different key performance indicators (KPIs) or business variables adds dimension on top of the qualitative data I’ve collected. Getting close to the business pain points, gaps, and opportunities with data adds credibility and promotes collaboration. Data combined with models like Kirkpatrick-Phillips can show executives that L&D is part of the profit generating/saving enterprise.

Senior leaders possess invaluable insights into the strategic objectives of the organization and its future direction, so their involvement ensures that the TNA is not conducted in isolation but in a collaborative effort. By involving senior leaders, they can help tailor the TNA to accurately identify the training needs that will have the most significant impact on the company's success!

For any organization's training needs, the Training or L&D or OD Departments has to be involved in identifying the requirements while working with the respective functional heads. With the involvement of the senior leaders in the Training Needs Analysis, a larger perspective is added which is crucial to the growth of the organization, business, employee engagement, employee empowerment, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging. While involving Senior Leaders, the Training Department needs to ensure adequate data is available on how training will help improve the productivity of the team as well as ROI on Training.

In the process of involving senior leaders in training needs analysis (TNA), the emphasis on data-driven discussions is pivotal. This involves presenting relevant performance metrics and leveraging quantitative insights to shape the TNA process. Data-Driven Discussions: Encourage data-driven conversations, presenting relevant performance metrics. Facilitating Informed Decisions: Use the data to facilitate informed decision-making during TNA discussions with senior leaders.Encourage leaders to draw insights from the data, fostering a collaborative environment where decisions are grounded in a shared understanding of the organization's performance landscape.

Keeping senior leaders involved and providing important insight is vital, but don't forget the main reason you are conducting a TNA: identify skill gaps, performance deficiencies, and learning requirements among employees. So don't forget about the real, effective needs of the ones representing the company when you create your TNA, the ones that would like to boost their performance, productivity, leading to job satisfaction!

Remember to celebrate and communicate the involvement of all stakeholders. This is the opportunity to sell the benefits and promote further teams into this improvement journey.