How to Get the Best ROI from Your Training Needs Analysis Strategy
The Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is an essential first step in ensuring that you are training, and development programs are successful. TNA helps identify if training will solve a performance problem, and identifies specific performance areas requiring training, who needs training, and how the training should be designed. Conducting a TNA is essential to gaining a return on investment in your training and development program. By taking the time up front to do your research and develop a well-thought-out plan, you can ensure that your training program meets all its objectives and provides real benefits for your organization.
Table of Contents
Introduction
As an HR or L&D manager, you are always looking for ways to improve the performance of your team. Whether the goal is to increase sales, improve customer service, or enhance workplace safety, one of the best ways to achieve these objectives is through training. But not just any training will do. To be effective, the training must be tailored specifically to the needs of your team. That is where a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) comes in.
What Is a Training Needs Analysis?
The Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is a process designed to answer questions related to training and development programs. Training needs analysis helps identify if training will solve a performance problem, and identifies specific performance areas requiring training, who needs training, and how the training should be designed. Conducting a training needs analysis is essential to gaining a return on investment in your training and development program.
A training needs analysis is a systematic process for identifying the gap between an organization’s current state and its desired future state in terms of employee knowledge, skills, and abilities. The analysis considers both the individual and organizational levels.
Why should L&D managers pay more attention to their learning strategy?
Why Is Training Needs Analysis important?
TNA is important because it helps ensure that training is effective in solving performance problems. All too often, managers invest time and money into training programs that do not actually address the root cause of the problem. By conducting a training needs analysis ahead of time, you can avoid this pitfall and ensure that your training dollars are well spent.
Most importantly, conducting a Training Needs Analysis can help you put bottom line numbers to the benefits of training. Defining the return on investment (ROI) for the training helps build your business case for future training in your department. When decision-makers see concrete evidence that investing in employee development results in tangible benefits for the company, they are more likely to sign off on future training initiatives.
Conducting a Training Needs Analysis typically consists of five steps
1. Define business goals and objectives
What are you hoping to achieve through employee development? Examples might include increased sales, improved customer satisfaction scores, or even reduced safety incidents.
2. Conduct a task analysis
Conducting an analysis of the skills required to complete a task will help you get a better understanding of exactly what employees need to know and be able to do on the job.
3. Evaluate current state
Once you have identified all the tasks involved in achieving business goals, you can assess employees and track their progress with more efficiency.
4. Determine desired future state
Based on your evaluation of employees’ current levels of knowledge and skill, determine what level they need to attain to perform their jobs effectively.
5. Identify gaps and viable solutions
Finally, compare employees’ current levels against the desired future state to identify any gaps using Yaksha assessment platform to address specific needs.
After completing all five steps, you should have a good understanding of the specific areas where additional training should be conducted as well as practical options to show that training should be administered to your teams.
Here are effective best practices to achieve a high ROI with your training program
- Before Training Begins, Do Your Research
Any successful training initiative starts with valuable information. A carefully planned TNA will give you answers to these questions: What business goals do we want the training to help achieve? What are the current practices that are not working well and need improvement? What individual or organizational competencies are required to support the new desired behaviors? By answering these questions, you can determine what content needs to be included in the training program and how it can be delivered most effectively. The best solution in these situations is to use a comprehensive assessment platfrom like Yaksha. Yaksha platform is the ideal partner for recruiters, tech managers, and L&D professionals to build the best tech teams by offering fully customisable and role-specific assessments for hiring, deploying, and upskilling tech talent, along with actionable insights.
- Getting Stakeholder Buy-In for Your Training Plan
Once you have identified the business goals of the training program and gathered all relevant information, it is time to get stakeholder buy-in for your plan. This includes decisions about who needs to be trained (individuals or groups), what type of training delivery methods will be used (e.g., classroom instruction, eLearning, job aids, etc.), and what are the estimated costs associated with implementing the plan. Be sure to get input from key stakeholders early in the process so that they understand the proposed training solution and buy into the plan. This will make it much easier to get budget approval and secure scheduling commitments further down the road.
- Creating a Learning Path That Meets Business Goals
Now that you have a solid understanding of what business goals the training program needs to achieve and what type of learner will be participating in the program, you can start designing your learning path. A well-designed learning path will consider different learning styles and provide learners with targeted content that meets their specific needs while also helping them build confidence as they progress through the program. Remember, each learner is different, so it is important to create a learning path that provides flexibility and allows learners to move at their own pace. Finally, do not forget to include some form of assessment at the end of each module so that learners can demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge and skills.
Conclusion
A well-executed needs assessment is the key to a successful training and development program. It can help you identify which areas of your business need improvement and what specific skills your employees need to learn to make those improvements. The Yaksha assessment platform can help you conduct an accurate and efficient needs assessment, so you can get the most return on investment from your L&D spending. Have you tried using Yaksha for your training needs analysis? If not, contact us today and let us show you how it works. We are confident that once you see how easy it is to use, you will be convinced that Yaksha is the best tool for assessing and meeting the training needs of your organization.
