Organizational Wellness

Training Needs Analysis: What It Is & How to Conduct One

Last Updated Nov 1, 2024

Time to read: 9 minutes

Let's say you want to find ways to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the workforce to enhance business operations. The problem? None of your employees have an AI background. Even worse, your competitor introduced a new AI-powered pricing strategy that increased revenues by 30%. You fear your organization may lose its competitive edge quickly.

While you can follow in the footsteps of your competitor, your best option may be a training needs analysis. With a training needs analysis, you can match company goals with the skillset of your existing workforce to see where upskilling or new hires may be necessary. That way, you can position your organization to achieve its future objectives.

What Is a Training Needs Analysis and How Can It Be Useful?

A training needs analysis is a comprehensive review that matches business objectives with employee skills. It identifies skill gaps so you can proactively address them through upskilling or hiring additional workers.

Using a training needs analysis, you can define missing skills and skills necessary for growth. Many organizations incorporate the findings from a training needs analysis when setting their annual hiring, training, and employee development budgets. They're also helpful for identifying new positions to hire for or departments to create.

Conducting a Training Needs Analysis: Step-by-Step Guide

Conducting a training needs analysis can be a detailed process, so it's important to know how to approach it before diving in. Here’s how to create a training needs analysis that drives real value for your organization.

Step 1: Identify Organizational Goals and Objectives

First things first: what are you hoping to achieve? Is the analysis for the entire company or a specific department? Are their future business goals executives want to accomplish with the help of skilled employees? Or are you looking to improve specific processes within the organization?

Your training needs analysis will look different depending on your goals. If you're doing a company-wide analysis, sit down with the executive team to discuss their vision. A conversation can help you understand what they're looking for. If your analysis is for a specific department or process, try meeting with the involved stakeholders.

Another consideration is time. Are your goals short or long-term in nature? For short-term goals, you can fill in skills gaps with contractors. For a more long-term approach, you may need to hire new employees or implement upskilling and reskilling training opportunities.

Step 2: Gather Data from Multiple Sources

Your next step is probably the most time-intensive — gathering data. You can assemble data from several resources to get a pulse on current employee skills. In fact, the more sources you use, the more valuable your training needs analysis may be. Here are a few tools that may come in handy.

Resumes

Your employees probably provided a resume when they first applied to your organization. While their resume may not contain their most up-to-date education and skills, it's a good starting point for a training needs analysis.

Resumes may be helpful for specific departmental or process-oriented training needs analyses. For instance, if you need someone with a project management background to oversee a specific task, an employee who earned a degree in project management could be a good fit.

Just beware of using outdated information:If a resume is over a year or two old, it can be useful to combine it with other resources.

Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

Many employers use their HRIS to track employee education and skills, among other details. If your organization uses an HRIS, quickly review the information it contains. You may be able to use information from it in the training needs analysis.

If your HRIS needs updating, consider using it as an opportunity to gather information. You might email workers asking them to share their current education and skills in the HRIS so you have it for your training needs analysis.

Employee surveys

Your workers are a gold mine of information. After all, they're the ones who handle tasks on a daily basis. They can probably tell you exactly where they could use a little training. Send an anonymous employee experience survey to learn where they feel upskilling could help. You can also inquire how they prefer to undergo training, such as online courses or in-person classes.

Performance reviews

Do you have an annual performance review process? If so, grab the latest stack of assessments to pinpoint missing skills. Look for management comments highlighting skill deficiencies and note them in your analysis.

Observations

If you're in tune with your workforce's responsibilities and tasks, personal observation might highlight areas for skill improvement. For instance, observe your customer service team to see how well they interact with clients and note opportunities to improve employee communication.

Interviews

First-line supervisors and managers can inform you of any skill gaps in their departments. Consider scheduling a meeting with stakeholders to get their insights on where training could help.

Skills assessments

An assessment test can help you gauge employee capabilities and identify gaps in some skills. You can use them to assess hard skills, like computer coding, or soft skills, such as communication and leadership abilities.

Industry trends and benchmarking

Comprehensive data gathering may also include surveying the competition through HR benchmarking. Look at recent job postings for companies in your industry and see if you note any specific skills they seek. That can alert you to changes in your competitor's strategies or objectives.

Step 3: Analyze the Data

What's next? A complete data analysis! Get all the details you've gathered and begin looking for trends — but keep your objectives in mind.

Make a list of current employee competencies. If you're looking at a specific department, your work may be easier since you will have less data to analyze. However, if your training needs analysis is more extensive — say, for a large company — it may take some time to drill into the details.

Some HR professionals prefer to separate training needs according to behaviors, knowledge, or skills. For instance, better communication is a behavior, but knowing how to code in Python is a skill. You can use your best judgment based on your objectives.

While you may find a variety of skills gaps, some may be more urgent than others. For instance, if you're planning a wide-scale social media marketing project next month but don't have anyone with expertise, that's an urgency. On the other hand, improving employee time management skills may be less pressing.

Step 4: Develop and Implement Training Programs

After identifying skills gaps, you can invoke training and development programs to retrain or upskill employees. The techniques you use to educate employees may vary depending on the type of skill, extent of training needed, and employee availability.

Online Learning

Thousands of online courses can help upskill your employees. Since all training occurs online, employees can take courses from the comfort of their homes or workplaces. This method is excellent if you want employees to learn a specific skill, earn a certification, or even obtain a degree.

Classroom Training

Another option is classroom training. It's less flexible than online learning but may be better for employees who prefer in-person interaction with their instructors. Classroom training may also be ideal for short workshops in the office.

On-the-Job Training

Not all skill development requires formal, instructor-led training. On-the-job training through more experienced employees is a viable option in many situations. For instance, if you want your accounting staff to beef up their Excel skills, see if there's an Excel wizard on the team. Your employee might be willing to train staff on the Excel skills they need to perform their job.

Step 5: Evaluate Training Effectiveness

Did the training program yield the results you were hoping for? You'll find out in this step. Consider giving employees a few weeks to refine their new skills, then assess how well they implement them on the job. You may ask managers and supervisors to step in and provide their insights since they work directly with staff. They can tell you if they notice an improvement or if additional training may be necessary.

You may also get feedback from training participants. Ask employees how useful they feel the training was. Did it meet their expectations, or are there areas for improvement? For each evaluation method, set a few metrics to measure the ROI on training and its effectiveness.

Stakeholder and participant feedback can help you determine whether the program works or if some tweaking is in order.

Overcoming Challenges in Training Needs Analysis

A training needs analysis is a significant endeavor, and you may encounter a few hiccups. Here's how to overcome them.

Lack of Time and Resources

Performing a training needs analysis can take some time, depending on its scope and objectives. If you are short on resources, consider asking management for extra support. You might hire a contractor to assist you with data gathering or get help from a colleague with a little extra time to spare. Remember, your first analysis will likely be the most cumbersome. Once it becomes part of your regular processes, it gets easier.

Resistance to Change

Are you hearing a few groaning comments like "We've always done it this way" or "This seems like a waste of money"? That's a sign your staff isn't 100% on board with training. Nip it in the bud by getting buy-in from stakeholders. When executives and management promote training as beneficial for the organization and individual employees, your team may change their tune.

Data Overload

There are a lot of resources you can turn to for data gathering, but you don't have to use all of them. Start with one or two you think best fit your objectives. You can always use additional sources if needed.

The same goes for objectives. If you start with multiple objectives, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Try picking one specific goal, then add others if required.

A Training Needs Analysis Can Uncover Hidden Opportunities

What will you find once you conduct a training needs analysis? Probably a lot of opportunities to upskill your workforce and add value to the organization. And guess what? Allowing employees to learn new things creates an atmosphere that values growth and supports workers — a win-win for everyone!

Do you know what also supports organizational health? Employee wellbeing benefits. A holistic, well-rounded wellness program allows employees to access benefits for their physical and emotional wellbeing. With the right program, your team can join a gym, enroll in fitness classes, get nutritional advice, and use mindfulness tools to combat everyday stress.

Wellhub offers a variety of wellbeing programs that employees can customize to fit their needs. To learn more about our program, speak to a Wellhub wellbeing specialist today!

Company healthcare costs drop by up to 35% with Wellhub! (* Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.) Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist to see how we can help reduce your healthcare spending!