Training - Needs Assessment

Training Life Cycle - Step #1 Needs Assessment

In my last post I introduced my version of the Training Life Cycle; containing 5 basic steps. In this post I will spend more time on Step #1 - Needs Assessment.

Priscilla R. Lish Consulting Services ©2015

In my opinion this is the most important step in the process.  It is also the step most often skipped in many organizations. Why? Because managers can sometimes be intimidating in telling the training department that they know what is needed in their department and please "make it so." How do you argue with an executive? The simple answer is that you don't. This is where relationship skills come into play. You as the training manager must find the middle ground and make use of the opportunities to educate your client by asking questions, restating understanding and making recommendations.

For example, I was once approached by an Executive Vice President with a request to deliver training to his direct reports on effective communication. "I want you to start training next week and make it about 3-4 hours."  I had three choices for a response:

• Sure, I will clear my busy calendar and drop everything I'm doing for you. Monday at 8:30am OK for you?

This response will put you into a tail spin.  It will compromise the work you've already committed to doing for other clients and, trust me, not even that glass of red wine you have at the end of the day will help you feel better.

• You can't be serious?  What makes you think I've got nothing better to do?

This response will probably land you in the HR office for insubordination.  I don't recommend this one - EVER!

• OK, do you mind if I ask you a few questions so that I can understand what your expectations are?

This response says, "Your needs are important to me. I want to help by understanding your expectations and desired outcome." It's the perfect opening to launch into the needs assessment.  It also gives your racing heart time to recover.

Below is a job tool (you'll find that I'm very visual and love quick and easy tools in my line of work) that addresses this step for trainers and managers.

Priscilla R. Lish Consulting Services ©2015

There will be a lot of negotiating in this step. The manager needs a solution as quick as possible while the trainer wants to make sure that she delivers the best solution to meet the manager's expectations. I find it best to schedule a second meeting after getting the answers to the needs analysis.  Part of creating a recommended solution is to talk to peers, other departments and actual team members about the needs. You have to be very careful not to make it sound like "your boss thinks you're failing - what do you say about that?" Once again, it's all about the relationships with employees at all levels of the organization.

My approach is to ask "how are things going?"  I have yet to meet an employee that is unwilling to tell you what's going on - especially if they're unhappy about something.  Use open ended questions like:

• Tell me more.
• Why do you think that is happening?
• How long has it been going on?
• What do you think would be a good solution?
• Have you talked to your manager about this issue?

Always ask that last question.  It let's the employee know that it's his responsibility to discuss issues with his manager.  If he is unwilling to be part of the solution then he has no right to complain.  The key is to get a feel for what's happening in the department.  This insight will help in recommending an appropriate solution.

Next week I'll post examples and recommendations to be successful in presenting solutions to the client.  Until then, let me know your thoughts and have a great week.

Training Life Cycle

© 2010 AForestFrolic, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

My first experience with training took place 30+ years ago (I was very young when I started) while working as a reservations agent at a travel company. After several years as a General Manager for a large camp resort in Central Florida I was cooked. As it turns out I was not smarter than the average bear. Being an onsite manager is not lucrative at all - even with free housing! It truly is a 24X7 operation and I was plain tired of being the one where the buck stopped for any and all problems. Campers or "guests" as we called them were not always kind. They didn't care about the "picinic" baskets. Some of them were quite demanding and unrealistic. Things like, "An alligator ate my tent! Why is it so hot here? When is this rain going to stop? Your washing machine ate my clothes. The bar closes too early. Your grocery store doesn't carry the brands I like.  It's just a hurricane, why do I have to leave the campground?" These and many other crazy complaints were just enough for me to want to find another job. The year I was called on Christmas Day because the lift station malfunctioned and the entire campground was soaked in several inches of raw sewage was the straw that broke the camels back. It was time for Boo-Boo to look for a new job!

"Punching in, pt. 1", © 2006 Marcin Wichary, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

I longed for a simpler job. One where I punched a clock, did my job, punched the clock to go home and let some supervisor worry about what went wrong in the operation while I enjoyed a nice glass of red wine. I had to talk the company into hiring me because I was over qualified. I assured them that this job was exactly what I wanted to do and I would be the best reservations agent ever. Three weeks into the job I realized I had made a huge mistake. What was I thinking?  I was bored to death!  I felt trapped.  But, I made a promise. Anything less than my best would be a reflection on my integrity, something I very much valued.  So, I did the only thing I knew to do - I became a hand-raiser. 

Hand-raisers are those employees that are always up for anything above and beyond the scope of the job they were hired to do. For me, anything off of the phones was an opportunity to showcase my skills in hopes of getting noticed and promoted.  That's how I was introduced to training. 

Every year the reservations staff would be scheduled for "training" on new product offerings, in this case Travel Insurance. The content was provided by the vendor and the training manager presented the materials to the staff via several sessions over the course of a couple of weeks. I had raised my hand to help out and was selected to copy the participant materials and prepare the training room prior to each session. This entailed turning on the overhead projector (I included a photo for those of you that may be too young to know what I'm talking about) and making sure that the slides were in order for the trainer during the session. This also meant that I had to sit in on every single session to track attendance and parking lot issues.  It was painful!!  I heard the same presentation over and over until I had nightmares about it. Painful!!!

Photo Credit: "Overhead Projector", © 2010 ceiling, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Towards the end of the sessions the training manager became sick. Honestly, I think she just couldn't stomach one more session. Consequently, since I had been present in every session, I was asked to cover and conduct the last few sessions. I was mortified!  Speaking in front of people especially peers was not part of my plan. Now mind you, all I had to do was flip through slides and point out what had changed in the insurance coverage. Still - I was terrified!

Fortunately I didn't die as expected and received good reviews on the post-training assessments. This led to more work with the training manager and the company investing in my development by sending me to various training  and facilitation workshops. Eventually I was promoted into the Training Manager position and started to learn curriculum design. I moved quickly in the organization and had the privilege of developing many training programs, both in leadership and job-specific skills as a Curriculum Designer at the Corporate University.

Having spent many years conducting learning needs assessments, developing training materials and facilitating training I've learned a couple of things that may be helpful if you currently work in training for your company or you're in operations in need of training products within your company.

First and foremost is the training life-cycle.  Just like anything else in business, regardless of industry, there is a process flow for training per below:

Priscilla R. Lish Consulting Services ©2015

There are many models of training steps or life-cycles available for training professionals.  If you type in "training life-cycle" in Google you will get 99,000,000 results. My philosophy is to keep it simple whenever possible. Through the years I have blended many of the tools into this simple 5 step process.  It's what I use when I sit down with a client to discuss training needs and educate them on the overall process.  My clients don't need to know all of the details involved in each step, but if we are going to be good partners in this shared responsibility they need to understand the basics, especially as it relates to timing.

The next five posts will be dedicated to each step in the process, again, based on my personal experience as a facilitator and curriculum designer.