Best Practices for a Training Needs Analysis

A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) assesses where training requires improvement. This process will help you gain key insights and identify training gaps.

How well your team is performing or productivity levels can indicate issues with your current training. Worker productivity has been decreasing across several industries.

Training plays an important role in increasing productivity, because it provides support for continuous innovation in the workforce. Thus, evaluating your training needs is vital to improve productivity.

When you want to assess where training requires improvement, you want to provide a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). This structured process will help you gain key insights about your learners that you need to know to identify gaps in training, including their critical needs, specific goals, and how your learners are motivated.

There are many ways to conduct a training needs analysis. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

1. Determine Required Skills and Knowledge With a Workplace Profile

To ensure clarity in your training, it’s essential to map out what knowledge and skills workers needed to fulfil the responsibilities of their specific roles. You can do this by creating a profile for the workplace that defines these parameters. You can include learner demographics, such as experience and education. Compile and use this information to draw important inferences, such as ideal employee count per department.

2. Determine Strengths, Weaknesses, and Performance Gaps

Search for performance gaps that exist between the current state of performance and your preferred performance levels. Conduct interviews with all internal stakeholders, including employees, frontline supervisors, and senior management.

For example, you can ask employees what their roles include, if they have any performance improvement suggestions, and what their desired learning opportunities are. Ask frontline supervisors questions geared towards employee observations, and senior management questions regarding operations, such as what may be causing the performance gap.

3. Evaluate the Data

Examine interviews and current training materials thoroughly to point out the existing training resources’ weaknesses, performances gaps, and strengths. You’ll spend the most time on your TNA during this evaluation process. This thorough evaluation will help you identify the key skills to focus on during training, how training should be delivered and who needs it.

Try blended learning, e-learning training courses, or in-person workshops.

4. Provide Recommendations by Writing the TNA

Record your recommendations for training materials and tools in the form of a detailed TNA. This will ultimately help drive improvement aids in offering training direction. Identify when the training will take place, who it’s designed to help and how it will be distributed. You can include the purpose of the evaluation and its expectations, as well as the data analysis methods and details on how the information will be collected. Be sure to include what you discover and suggestions for consolidating and delivering content.

For example, you can use digital content distribution apps in combination with digital printing services to create training courses that are blended.

Final Thoughts

When you provide your workforce with support for innovation, you can help increase productivity and improve profitability for your business. However, it’s essential to use TNA best practices to identify performance gaps and whether or not your training material is on par. By doing this, you’ll be able to drive performance improvement to their desired levels.

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