Training Analysis

Last reviewed: February 2017

Abstract

“Training analysis” refers to a company’s decision to evaluate its employee performance against the company’s desired performance outcomes and, in turn, to concentrate specifically on improving its training program (and by definition its incoming employees) as a way to align the company’s day to day operations with those same overall company goals. By clarifying its needs through careful and methodical evaluation and by focusing on training programs, a company can not only improve its overall performance operation but also ensure that new employees start with a clear understanding of what the company expects.

Overview

No employee starts at a company without needing some level of training. Although the interview process is designed to vet those candidates least qualified for a position, any hired employee brings to the company at best a background of in-field experience and/or a relevant education experience. They do not know the company itself. That company, whether involved in producing goods or providing services, conducts its operations in a way particular to that company. Of course, any new hire comes into a company with a broad learning curve—whether a lower echelon employee or a management/supervisor— to learn the basics of the company and its vision and its protocols and, in turn, to begin to contribute effectively to those same business operations.

According to conventional thought, companies do not need to spend a great deal of time refining a training program or an orientation session. Those sessions were often little more than a day or two spent shadowing those current employees engaged in that job or reading through procedural binders or viewing training videos, almost by definition impersonal. New employees would be given broad ideas about how the company functions, specifics about necessary paperwork to process the new hire, and then a walk-through of the facility or the office to meet the staff.

Because these presentations were stock materials they could not reflect current operations nor would they be expected to. Conventional thought considered the best training to be what followed these orientation sessions—that is, on the job training itself. New employees would simply learn by doing. Whatever training would be offered in these orientation stages would largely be considered preliminary. The new employee would learn best by actually doing the job. The trainee designation would indicate to coworkers and supervisors that special consideration might need to be extended but new hires were largely on their own to accommodate to the business operations. Whether assuming secretarial duties, performing customer sales, assuming a place within an industrial product assembly line, or whatever the business operation, the hire would learn by watching and by doing and by asking questions.

What is at issue here is organization performance, whatever the business, whatever the service provided or the goods produced. Offices and factories must operate at peak efficiency, but staffing is always changing. Turnover impacts companies as do retirements and terminations. Even promotions leave gaps in operations that need to be filled by hires who, in turn, need to be trained. Hires can learn ineffective practices from employees who have been at the company for a long time. Employees themselves, whatever company echelon they perform, develop behaviors, attitudes, and ways to do their job that sometimes do not directly help overall company performance.

New Hires. The conventional system thus placed enormous stress on the new hire. Most often, new hires were put on some sort of probation, often three months, as a way to assess their performance (rather than the company performance)—and even then the entire process really gave management no clear idea of how successful that orientation process actually had been. Ineffective performance—that is, employees who were ironically creating the very conditions management wanted to ameliorate—led inevitably to ineffective hires—nothing in the operations could be reasonably expected to change.

Training needs analysis posits a radically different model. New hires, the argument goes, become part of a company staff, and if the company monitors its own job performance and notices problems in critical areas, then expectations and deficiencies can be best addressed through rigorous attention to the training program itself. The definition, then, of what are termed training needs follows a kind of simple arithmetical formulation: A company takes its desired outcome, subtracts its current state of performance and operations, and what is left becomes the focus of the training, becomes, in essence, a training need.

The principal areas any company monitors are, thus, directly related to its training program. Those areas include customer service and overall interaction with those customers whether face to face or through electronic communications; time management—that is, how carefully and efficiently employees use the workday; morale and attitude; and the efficiency of the complete operation model—that is, how the different parts or departments or personnel of a company communicate, work together, understand each other in an effort to optimize business operations and in turn revenues and profit.

By measuring those desired outcomes (setting specific goals for each) and then comparing those desired outcomes with actual operations through a range of evaluative processes, a company can ultimately define its specific training needs. Thorough and careful training will lead necessarily to correct operations and in turn to operations far more in line with company expectations.

A company focuses, then, not so much on the needs and deficiencies of incoming hires but rather on the company needs and the deficiencies in its current operations. Training analysis directly links those desired optimum outcomes to current staff behaviors and current staff procedures; incoming employees are viewed as critical elements in upping the general character and efficiency of the company workforce. Under this protocol, the hires are critical in the company’s broad evolution. New hires are no longer viewed as maintaining the status quo—rather, a company views its every hire as a new opportunity to better its operations. Training analysis is a way then to close the gap between operations and desired operations. Businesses can actually use training itself as a way to improve its overall operations and to better meet its targeted expectations and objectives.

Applications

Training analysis begins with what companies often find to be the most challenging area: the critical self-evaluation of its current operations and its current staff. Without that assessment (and it cannot be done once, but must be ongoing), training needs can never be fully and helpfully defined. First, a company must define what it expects in those critical areas—customer service, time management, morale, and efficiency—and what metrics it can use to determine what levels would be deemed optimum.

Setting Goals. Before undertaking a training needs analysis, a company has to distinguish what particular skills, behaviors, and attitudes cannot be taught even in the most measured and meticulous training sessions. After all, a training program is no place to introduce aptitudes that education and/or previous work experience should have provided. In addition, a new employee must bring certain characteristics with them—a training program cannot teach upbeat attitude, a sense of efficiency, logical thinking, organization, or a range of social skills. If such areas are critical to a position or to a company, the company relies on the human resources representatives to find the best hires initially.

A company must undertake a rigorous self-examination (Murphy, 2015). Most often, as preliminary to setting up a training needs analysis, a company hires an external agent to oversee the ongoing process. Sources of reliable data are few. Companies can use online customer survey responses and in-store customer evaluation forms. Personnel can themselves be surveyed or even interviewed (although that is time consuming and raises thorny questions about protecting confidentiality as a way to access honest responses). Managers and upper echelon management can be interviewed or even asked to provide detailed and particular assessments of their division or of the personnel directly under their watch, and they can be asked to provide self-assessments about how they are doing their job in an effort to target specific areas for improvement (Reed & Vakola, 2006). Focus groups made up of selected customers and/or clients can be impaneled to provide feedback, and employees who are departing the company either through job relocation or retirement or even termination can be given exit interviews as a way to better monitor business operations.

The best way to evaluate company operations is for the particular supervisor and/or senior management personnel to actually engage the operations first hand and observe the operations regularly (Stanley, 2013). Spot inspections often yield uneven results. Whatever the process, the interrogation of operations centers on basic questions: What would you change? Where is the company at risk? Where might the company do a better job? What operation elements are redundant? This information is critical for a company to define its performance gaps.

Because such information assessments can generate quite a list of operation deficiencies, a company before it begins to revisit its training processes inevitably prioritizes these deficiencies. Some are critical, some less so. Some can be addressed in training programs. Because training analysis is designed for long-term effectiveness, a company can use this data to build an operational profile. Once the prioritizing is set, the management considers options for actually putting those objectives into specific training programs.

The options are as varied and customizable. Programs can be designed to fit a company budget or to accommodate a business’s computer services. The extent of training may depend on how much staff time can be allocated for the training program, but a company should be able to offset the program’s cost with long-term gains in productivity. It is essential to be able to evaluate the program’s success and whether the company’s training program has met its broader needs.

Program Design. At the center of these protocol questions is how the company’s expectations can best be delivered. Often the preferred method involves person to person contact. Assigned facilitators can meet with small groups of new hires, or new hires can be assigned a mentor. With such protocols, hires feel more comfortable asking questions, clarifying procedures, and addressing their concerns. In addition, the hire(s) can meet others in the organization and become better acclimated socially. In addition, the company can sponsor off hour events—socials or weekend retreats as a way to help hires learn the company operations and in turn understand what the company expects and how best to move the company toward those operational desires.

Less efficient but often used, web-based information presentations can often raise questions with new hires, and they involve technology that may or may not respond appropriately, thus distracting from the session. If a company can afford it and has the facility resources, hires can be directed to nearby universities where, in cooperation with specialized faculty advisors, they can be walked through both the practical and theoretical paradigms that the company wants to actualize. If a company maintains other facilities, a hire can be sent to those facilities in an effort to demonstrate the reach of the company and the expectations of uniform productivity and operations. In any event, companies most often provide copious reading material to supplement the training process as a way to reinforce the information, which can be overwhelming.

Because the template of training analysis assumes it will be ongoing, companies follow up the training sessions. Evaluation of the training analysis process is vital. (HR Space, 2009). New hires are asked within the traditional 90-day probationary period to provide helpful feedback on the success of the sessions. Supervisors can observe whether operations, as defined by the company’s own need assessments, are being better met (Carman, 2013).

Viewpoints

Critics of training analysis as a commitment of company resources point out that critical areas of company performance cannot actually be traced to worker performance. Problems with outdated equipment, for example, poor performing computer software, soft marketing and down sales all contribute to productivity and efficiency (Shipley & Golden, 2013). The larger issue raised by training needs analysis, however, is far more simple: A company cannot train attitude, and attitude is largely indicated by research to be the most critical factor in job performance and, consequently, in overall company performance. If a company elects to invest its time, its man hours, its monies into a more elaborate training protocol, hard quantitative data indicating the actual impact of the program is virtually impossible to secure. After all being trained appropriately does not guarantee performing appropriately.

However, a training analysis does provide a company with a clear imperative to maintain constant overview of its own performance, a logic for reviewing its operational goals, and a compelling reason to monitor closely the performance, behaviors, skills, and attitudes of their own workforce. A commitment to analyzing the training process is a commitment to the future of the company itself, and the process provides continual opportunity for refreshing skills and improving known weaknesses (Hegarty, 2016). That, human resource management research indicates, can create a more unified community-like workplace. Training analysis argues that addressing company problems begins with company employees. Effective monitored training sets clear expectations and better clear ways to meet those expectations.

Terms & Concepts

Aptitude: A particular skill that addresses a particular company’s operational need.

Learning Curve: The expectation of a preliminary period in which a person must come to understand a process or operation.

Orientation: A business session, webinar, or conference in which new hires are introduced broadly to company policies and operations.

Outcomes: Specific goals set by a company.

Performance Gap: The difference between how a company theoretically wants to operate and how it actually operates in real time.

Probation: In business hiring, a period of learning for new hires in which their behavior and skills are carefully monitored and evaluated to ensure long-term productivity.

Turnover: The pace at which a company loses employees, who must be replaced and new hires trained.

Vet: In business, the rigorous process of advancing only applicants with credible experience and/or education.

Bibliography

Carman, M. (2013). Hitting the mark: Using training needs analysis to improve customer satisfaction. Training & Development, 40(1), 10–11. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=90278482&site=ehost-live

Hegarty, T. (2016). All aboard the training needs analysis. Money Marketing, 43. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=114872033&site=ehost-live

Murphy, N. (2015). Reliable TNA in seven steps. Training Journal, 29–32. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=100182502&site=ehost-live

Reed, J., & Vakola, M. (2006). What role can a training needs analysis play in organisational change?. Journal Of Organizational Change Management, 19(3), 393–407. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=21403157&site=ehost-live

Shipley, R., & Golden, P. (2013). How to analyze and address your organization’s learning needs. T + D, 67(3), 29–31. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=85852329&site=ehost-live

Stanley, T. (2013). Good training programs don’t just happen. Supervision, 74(2), 8–11 Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=85020585&site=ehost-live

HR Space. (2009). Training & Coaching Today, 16. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=37704002&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Court, C. M., Prothero, G. B., & Wood, R. L. (2015). The value of training: Analysis of DAU’s requirements management training results. Defense Acquisition Research Journal: A Publication of the Defense Acquisition University, 22(2), 154–173. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=102346043&site=ehost-live

da Silva Viana, F., & Souki, G. Q. (2015). Proposal for an interactive analysis model of training and management of strategic alliances. Business Management Dynamics, 4(7), 12–23. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=110238213&site=ehost-live

Ghosh, P. (2015). Training needs analysis: A comparative study of private sector vs. public sector hotels in chandigarh. CLEAR International Journal of Research in Commerce & Management, 6(6), 68–79. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=119728770&site=ehost-live

Handshaw, D. (2014). Training that delivers results: Instructional design that aligns with business goals. New York, NY: AMACOM.

McGoldrick, B., & Tobey, D. (2016). Needs assessment basics. Second edition. Alexandria, VA: Assessments for Training Development Press.