Business RECOVERY after a Crisis, Win Again with TNA NOW!

Use TNA as a HRD Solution to Equip your Team to handle Setbacks during a Business Recovery

Move beyond business continuity issues. Now is the opportune moment for a leader to focus on a post-crisis tackling of setbacks during a business recovery. Globally, a new normal is settling in to influence a business rebound because of a changed market landscape. Would you foresee a demanding market environment later? If yes, how would you fast forward to a time of leading your organization during a post COVID-19 period? 

By and large, uncertainty is sky-high with the recent COVID-19 outbreak marked as an unprecedented major international crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, causing huge impact on people's lives, families and communities. Not before Plong, a prolonged severe impact from the Covid-19 pandemic poses a risk to the economy and financial stability, quoted from Bank Negara Malaysia in a news report by Daniel Khoo (4 Apr. 2020.) in TheStar Newspaper. Hence, the latest announcement to include building the capacity and skills of the people lined up with Malaysian initiatives planned to rebound from MCO (Movement Control Order) presents a chance for human resources based solutions. 

Many leaders may likely hesitate to turn to Human Resources Development (HRD) solutions. People solutions seem too fuzzy in contrast to more sophisticated conventional management toolkits for post crisis recovery. Hardly surprising as crisis management usually centres around slashing people centred budget. Thereafter, reduced investments in plants, machinery and equipment. Common leadership lessons caution us to manage risk with technically sound “hard and real'' solutions normally prescribed from a financial angle, regardless of business size or the magnitude of a crisis. Bad news for HRD solutions because context wise, a default investment rationalisation practice is trimming training activities, even at the slightest signs of a looming crisis. A study by Putta (2014) found that industry practice in challenging economic times caused reduction of expenses to improve the bottom line, such as eliminating entire professional development budgets. Instead of a vehicle to maintain efficiency, training is sacrificed as a cost. 

If you have the same view, this could be a time for you to decide if training is worth a different lens! And maybe you can also reflect on HRD solutions more extensively in the fibre of business growth or even recovery. 

Lucky if your business is listed in a handful of industries that historically thrive during recessions. The majority are struggling due to changing consumption and behavior patterns. Alarming news announced industry giants in aviation, oil and gas ,and even entertainment are bowing to pressure of massive national lockdowns.Somehow it could be worth exploring one type of HRD solution that can equip your team to win again after a crisis. The humble Training Needs Analysis (TNA) may just be your eureka to prevent your business graph from declining south! Hopefully HRD solutions are missing from the basket list of “I should have done that”? 

Undeniably the lukewarm reception is probably because TNA is more widely known to skew towards training outcomes in dealing will skills development. Outside of the annual cycle, TNA can act as a business management tool. While not a crystal ball, the TNA mechanism can be powerful if you express interest to identify training and development needs for better job performance in the future. Needless to say at the start of COVID-19 pandemic, post-crisis is a time set in the future. Consider for a moment an eye opening study from Putta (2014) reported that companies admitting training has “larger impact on the operational efficiency” despite being the “most expensive activity with regards to employee management.” On the account of people is the biggest investment, would TNA help to project forward people's value in business recovery needs? 

Scrutinising training investment details isolates the “trees” of training dollars against the “forest” overview of training linked to business goals.After a microscopic dissection of training activities to cut cost, a comprehensive review of a training plan should snapshot a spectrum of training needs at one moment in time. A complete TNA at various levels of the organisation can produce two outcomes, namely a training need and a non-training need. Both results are related to business goals, which is the main objective of TNA in the first place. Beyond this instance, a minority of forward leaders can use TNA to assess future business needs to win back the market after a crisis turbulence so that you and your team turn the tide to sail into victory again. 

Similar although a notch down from the global scale of COVID-19 crisis, contemplate a business challenge in an anecdotal account from a *Human Resources Development Consultant , who conducted a TNA study that witnessed the development of future-ready leaders and organisations through training and non-training solutions.  

Back around 2015, a market leader competing in a low entry-barrier industry commissioned the consultant to conduct a TNA project to align training priorities with the business goals. The organisational level TNA revealed uncertain sales trends because of competitors’ hit-and-run with price cutting strategy. This became an obstacle to the sales team and company to grow.The business owner was concerned about meeting the bottom line. Initial thought of advanced selling skills training seemed an overkill for the highly skilled sales team. Traditionally, the business owner supports sales training to varying degrees. The HRD consultant reviewed the TNA findings with focus on SWOT analysis against market research documentation. Thereafter, a non-training solution came about with the consultant recommending a product to market mapping exercise to determine the competitive landscape. From this TNA exercise, the business refocused on service support to complement sales. Business took off with an endless stream of service orders and contracts. At the same time, the sales team were eager to upskill with services and support training. Within a year from the TNA project, the sales and services teams doubled with a digitalized bigger warehouse to support business growth. 

When you target to gain back customers after an economic downturn, your sales team can be trained to recover lost accounts. Here, the business rebound goal is linked to the training for winning back customers. Only then, a training solution can act to eliminate a roadblock at team and organizational levels. Imagine if competitors trained their sales team to go for the same group of customers after a crisis, will your lesser trained sales team reach the same performance standards in the eyes of the customer? In comparison, you are bound to lose out if your team lacks the knowledge to interact and regain the customers’ confidence to return to you. Training solutions, such as this illustration, is clear cut to address a future skill. Protecting the turf is a dividend like any investment. However, the resulting returns are manifolds because a well-trained team multiplies results exponentially through human motivation that conquers setbacks to win again and again. Definitely this can apply for a rebound during an uncertain post-crisis business environment. 

Suffice that a conscious effort to expand exploration of TNA projects can end up with surprising people and business growth opportunities. In the instance of a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), this popular strategic leadership training tool can also be used for assessing employee performance so that the company can identify the training and development needs required to compete with or get ahead of the competition (The Star Online, 18 May 2015.). Put this way, the SWOT analysis component lifts the stature of TNA as a HRD solution - giving rise to the increase in company’s productivity by locating the areas of organisational performance that needed to be improved. Likewise for this matter, TNA is a friend to a business recovery plan! 

Coming back to a time after the dust of a crisis such as COVID-19 has settled, the murky uncertainty continues for weeks and even months later. Taking HRD solutions, such as TNA, could shine as a timely beacon of your commitment to equip your team with the right resilience and resourceful skills to clear setbacks in conquering the market continuously . Just like that, Human Resource professionals using TNA can help leaders and organisations with assessing people’s skills in advance to align training and non-training solutions with the company's post-crisis recovery goals and objectives in the future. 

Note: *Human Resources Development Consultant is the author of this article. 

References

Daniel Khoo (4 Apr. 2020.). Covid-19 pandemic test for financial resilience. The Star Online. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2020/04/04/covid-19-pandemic-test-for-financial-resilience

Priya Sunil (24 Apr. 2020.). Malaysia extends MCO to 12 May, one-time permission may be granted for return-home. Human Resources Online. Retrieved from https://www.humanresourcesonline.net/malaysia-extends-mco-to-12-may-one-time-permission-may-be-granted-for-return-home/

Putta, H. (2014) Impact of recession on training.IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM)e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 16, Issue 9.Ver. II (Sep. 2014), PP https://www.dhirubhai.net/redir/general-malware-page?url=42-44%2ewww%2eiosrjournals%2eorg

The Star Online (18 May 2015.). Training-needs analysis. The Star Online. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/smebiz/focus/2015/05/18/trainingneeds-analysis

Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). (2020, January 30). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Wong Siong Lai

I write on EXCEL-HRD from my work with leaders and organisation on HRD solutions to meet the bottom line.

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