Speaker 1: The most important component of a good corporate training strategy is an understanding of what your organization's needs truly are. As the leader of training and development in your company, you may have a completely different idea of where gaps exist, and until you're able to properly identify the overall training needs of your employees, you are never going to be able to truly implement an effective strategy. Today, we will discuss six of the most important steps to include in a training needs analysis. These steps work well for organizations of any size and in any industry. Step 1. Understand when to use a training needs assessment. There are several circumstances where it's appropriate to use a training needs assessment. When there's a poor record of performance, if employees require the learning of a new skill, whether basic or specific, with the introduction of new employees, or the implementation of new technology. Step 2. Observe to develop your own understanding of why problems or deficiencies may exist. After taking a look at the existence of the potential for the requirement of a TNA, the next step is to use your own observations and experiences to determine whether or not these gaps are truly the result of a lack of training, or whether they may be attributed to something else. For example, your TNA may end here if you realize what appears to be a problem resulting from a lack of training is actually stemming from a lack of feedback from managers or problems in the recruiting and hiring process. Step 3. Determine what type of TNA you would use. After steps 1 and 2, if you've come to the conclusion it's time to conduct a needs analysis of your organization's training, you have three primary types of TNA to select from. These include organizational, task, and personal analysis. With organizational analysis, you're looking at how you can address gaps with the ultimate goal being the alignment of business and training strategies. An organizational analysis really relies on a top-down approach and a commitment to a culture of learning. Task analysis gets more specific and is a way to gauge specific knowledge, skills, and levels of expertise. Personal analysis approaches the process of conducting a TNA from an individual standpoint, where you look at your employees to determine whether they're lacking in some area crucial to their ability to perform in their position. Step 4. Conduct assessments and evaluations. Now that you've looked at the needs of your organization in a large-scale sense, it's time to begin drilling down to the specifics and looking at data. At this point in your training needs assessment, you can begin issuing various evaluations, tests, or assessments that will allow you to collect data that can then be used to specifically create training content. Step 5. Link competency results with specific training goals. Effective training on any scale requires a set of goals and metrics that can be used to evaluate whether or not training is achieving desired results. After assessing your organization's holistic needs and then looking at the specific needs of employees, it's necessary to then create a set of goals based on the results of your assessment. Develop benchmarks that are in line with training and corporate goals in order to then evaluate training once it's delivered. Step 6. Decide how training will be delivered. There are so many factors that come into play during step 6, including the makeup of your workforce, your budget, and technological capabilities. At this point, you've delved into where training is needed and how goals will be defined, so it's time to plan the implementation. Will you offer a blended learning environment, which combines e-learning and classroom training? Or perhaps you'll rely only on a learning management system, or maybe a combination of e-learning and mentoring? What do you think about the above steps we've defined in the process of conducting a T&A? Would you add any steps to the process based on your experiences? Or if you have any other opinions or suggestions, you can let us know in the comments below.