Six Steps to Assessing Staff Training Needs

Effective staff training sets the pace of your business expansion and proves extremely beneficial to the organization. Any areas of your business, including customer service, current operations, morale, motivation and overall productivity of the employees can be improved through training that might otherwise hold or drag the growth of the entire organization. Analyzing the need for training and selecting the right type of training is the basic step in effective staff training.

The following suggestions can help you in accessing whether any developments have created gaps in the potential and actual skill levels of your employees that should be bridged by implementing appropriate training modules:

1. Analyze Business Plans, Policies and Procedures: Your business will tell you everything you if you analyze the recent changes. For example, training will facilitate a smooth transition for both the customers as well as the employees if you have implemented point-of-sale program or upgraded system management software. The employees will be willing and capable of handling changes on being adequately trained. The training will also strengthen their loyalty towards the organization by infusing the sense of being valued and supported.
2. Analyze the Demographic Profile of Your Customers: The changes in the demographic profile of your customers can create new opportunities and business potentials that require you to prepare your organization to utilize the available potential for business expansion. For example, if the new generation is showing trends for an increase in online services, you may need to train your employees according to the requirements for effectively handling the online demand.
3. Analyze the Feedbacks: The feedbacks from the customers, employees or even the managers can reflect the need for training in your organization. The surveys and forums create communication opportunities between the management and employees providing simple and effective methods of accessing hidden training needs. The feedbacks not only serve as effective grievances Redressal system, but also provide avenues of business expansion by highlighting staff training requirements.
4. Analyze Complaints and Frequent Problems: The recurring problems within the system or complaints might indicate the need for employee training. Many issues can be easily resolved by training the staff rather than considering them as the lost, dumb or inefficient workers to be fired. Therefore, the complaints and frequent problems should be analyzed whether training is required to solve the problem
5. Analyze the Training Needs of New Staff: The new employees might need advanced skills required to work as front-line employees and understand the organizational culture and structure of your organization. The training needs of new hires are extremely crucial and should be promptly addressed. Lack of training can affect the quality of service and thus prospects of your business.
6. Analyze the Training Needs for Retaining Employees: High employee turnovers can negatively affect your business prospects. You should implement sufficient opportunities to improve the skill levels of your employees and create avenues of their career growth within the organization or industry in order to retain skilled workers.
However, Ravinder cautions that training cannot be seen as one solution to all your problems. Training the employees doesn’t guarantee that recurring problems will be completely addressed. For example, unsatisfied employees may still decide to quit the organization after being trained, and you have to train your new employees again. Similarly, you may find that training doesn’t reduce the customer complaints against any front-line employee who needs to be shifted to another position or functional line. Accessing the training needs within your organization also requires your attention, and you have to prioritize your time for evaluating the training needs and overall benefits of such training. Developing and implementing right training modules also require planning to take care of the training needs of specific workers or functional divisions.
Once you analyze staff training in the right perspective, it allows you to reap the full potential of your employees by boosting their morale, motivation and efficiency through constant proactive support. The high morale, motivation and efficiency are the key factors that contribute to the growth and prosperity of your business. The assessment of training needs within your organization will provide great insight to improve your customer experience and create avenues of business expansion.