Content area
Full Text
So, you have been asked to conduct a training needs analysis (TNA) in your organisation. What I see all too often is people undertaking a TWA instead; a Training Wants Analysis. The training practitioner usually starts by walking around asking people in their organisation what training they would like. If there are a lot of people to ask, the savvy practitioner sends out a paper-based or on-line survey. I call this the "smorgasbord" approach, because employees and their managers end up being offered a selection of courses -much like visiting McDonalds and choosing from their menu. Some practitioners even include tick boxes in their training wants survey to make selection so easy. What you end up with in all of these cases is little more than a wish list.
What's wrong with asking employees and managers what training they want? Nothing, if it is informed by the right mind set. With this tick-the-box approach, the training department may look as if it is satisfying real needs. But when push comes to shove and managers are badgering their staff to meet deadlines and serve customers, that course that looked interesting on paper is just no longer a priority. Even with a lovingly prepared training calendar and a slickly presented course handbook, the end result is, more often than not, practitioners complaining bitterly that hardly anyone turned up.
* Training wants leave you wanting
I see this type of Training Wants Analysis approach leading to these drawbacks:
1. Scarce training dollars are wasted on low relevance, low impact programs.
2. Training practitioners lose credibility as managers experience poor attendance rates at organised courses.
3. Managers increasingly source their training programs from elsewhere.
4. Employees become further dispirited as training resources are not helping them do their job better or to get ahead in the organisation.
5. The training department is the first to be downsized when times get tough.
What surprises me most is that after experiencing the frustration of low turnouts at scheduled courses and managers grumbling that training is a waste of their employees' time, a number of training practitioners go on to use exactly the same approach the next year. So, why do some practitioners repeatedly go after wants instead of real needs?...