Friday, December 9, 2011

Training need surveys are a waste?

-
Many are conducting surveys throughout the world and lots on money has been spent to collect data for training need assessments.

However these survey data are purely perceptions and opinion in nature.  It is analogous to a doctor asking the patient on his sickness.  He may get the wrong answers such as the symptoms and not the causes.  The respond from the patient may be influenced by how the doctor has phrased the questions.  More often, the patients may not know his own problem.  Thus, they give the wrong signals and  messages to the doctor.

The first step in TNA should be identifying the critical performance gaps.  Performance analysis could be done on the company's financial statements.  ROE chart could be used to zero down on on non performance management areas.  Gaps are drawn by comparing the companies performance with industry standards.

From the performance gaps, we could zero down to the relevant job holders.

The second step in TNA is to determine whether performance gaps were caused by incompetency or other factors.  Training would not be necessary if the cause is other than lack of competency.

The third step is to determine if performance was due to or contributed by either team effort or individual job holders.

The fourth step in TNA is profiling the competency of job holders based on best practices of the standards.  The bosses and the job holders are interviewed and observed to determine the depth and breath of their competencies.  Competency gaps of each relevant job holders are identified.

The fifth step in TNA is choosing the right delivery strategies and matched them with the accrued benefits to justify the training.

Indeed, perception and opinion surveys would not help in identifying training needs.  Meaningless data are being processed and results churned into unrelated training activities to establish set performance goals.

Opinion and perception surveys to obtain training needs are definitely a waste. Please stop them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our approach has always been benchmarking
Overall Performance - Performance gaps - key job holders - competency gaps - training needs







Arriffin Mansor 012-2786282

No comments:

Post a Comment

You are welcome to comment on thse materials. Your feedback is invaluable in improving my materials.