Needs analysis and cost and benefits of learning and development (Research paper)
The Needs Analysis Process and Cost and Benefits of Learning and Development Introduction A pleasant good afternoon/evening to Ms. Thompson, our fellow classmates and members of my group which comprises Nathalia Scott, Jennylyn Edmund, Mya Riley, Raiannah Carrera, Jael Romano and Mckayla Williams. Our topics this afternoon/evening are The Needs Analysis Process and Cost and Benefits of Learning and Development. It is our aim at the end of our seminar today to give you a better understanding of these topics. We hope to accomplish this and as such we encourage you to actively participate in this lecture. A Needs Analysis is essential in assisting organizations in identifying the knowledge their employees may have and recognizing any gaps it may have it may have in the skills so they would be able to correct them as soon as possible. It identifies the area in which they need to prioritize and the individuals that need any training. On the other hand, Cost benefits of Learning and Development is to ensure that employee’s goals and performances are aligned with that of the organization. The team is responsible for implementing effective training methods, evaluate the organization as well as the individual employees to determine any developmental needs, they are also responsible for developing and implementing learning strategies and programs that would meet the organization’s need, while managing cost. Essentially, the two go hand in hand since one is responsible for identifying who and/or what areas training is needed, while the other is responsible for effectively implementing the appropriate methods and strategies to ensure success. In conducting this research, we look at topics which includes defining needs analysis and describing the process, describing the obstacles in conducting a needs analysis, comparing, and contrasting the different methods and source for conducting the analysis, explaining why training and HR professional should calculate the cost and benefits of training programs in the organization and explaining what credibility means when estimating the benefits of training programs just to name a few. After researching these topics along with others, it is our hope that we have successfully accomplished what we had set out to do. Define Needs Analysis According to (Bliech, 2018), Needs analysis is the process of identification, and evaluation of needs. It is the first step that should be taken to successfully develop an effective training program. This process aids businesses determine the specific training and training period they need to provide their employees for them to become productive and efficient. (Morrison, 2020) Describe the Needs Analysis process Employers perform needs analysis to determine what skills employees may need that would relate to the objective of the business. A needs analysis should be conducted in the following four phases. 1. A Concern: basically, this is where managers recognize that there is a need for training and this is as simple as recognizing a change in the behaviour of employees such as employees constantly asking co-workers for assistance with new systems, employees treating customers in an abrupt manner, there could also be a shift in their regular activities. The need for training can come from the external environment for instance if certain legislation for employees has changed or even a rise in crime can trigger a need for this. 2. Importance: the next step is deciding if the concern would be crucial to the effectiveness of the organization. There also needs to be a clear understanding of the goals they hope to achieve, plans they may have, introduction of products and services if any, changes in technology, practices, and regulations. It is also empirical that their strategy for training should support the goals the organization hopes to achieve. Cost is another concern, is there a lost in revenue based on lost productivity or customer dissatisfaction? And would there be a change if the problem was corrected since there would be a cost attached to training the employees. 3. Consult Stakeholders: These are key people who has a vested interest in the organization so their involvement with the process and the outcome would be of great importance. Obtaining agreement from top management is important, they need to know why the needs analysis is being done. Stakeholders need to have an input in the needs analysis process to ensure accurate information are collected and if there are success in the program. 4. Data Collection: this is the most extensive and involves documentation of the concern through collection of the information from three levels of analysis. Organizational, task and person or employee makes up the three levels of the needs analysis. The organizational provides information about its strategies and context, the task analysis provides information about the task, knowledge, skills, and abilities that would be needed to effectively perform the job, and person would give information about the employee’s performance level. Explain how to conduct an organizational, task and person analysis as well as a cognitive task and a team task analysis. Organizational Analysis Question: does anyone know what should be included in an organizational analysis? Put video here After seeing the video is everyone clear about what an organizational analysis is about? Basically, when you conduct an organizational analysis, you are Looking into the heart of the organization All elements are aligned for proper operation If one thing is off, it could interfere with the effective operation and or even a loss in revenue for the organization Task Analysis Analysing a specific task step by step to determine how it is completed is called a Task Analysis. However, once correctly done the task analysis would be broken down into primary tasks, subtasks, and procedures. One may ask why do I need to do a Task analysis? Well, the findings of a task analysis can help you ensure that you’re learning, and performance objectives are in sync with the task that your learners need to perform, it could also help decide whether additional learning interventions are necessary to accomplish the desired goal. Some simple steps to consider when conducting a Task analysis includes. Identify the primary procedure – specify the procedure your learners are to perform but avoid being too broad, since you may be performing a task analysis that should be separated into many procedures. List the main tasks: identify and list the main tasks, however, do not be too broad or too specific, also use action verbs to describe each task. List the subtasks: This is where you break the tasks into sub tasks and go into details about each. Person Analysis according to the textbook Managing performance through training and development 7th edition, a person analysis is the process of studying employee behaviour and performance to determine whether their performance meets the work standard. It examines the knowledge, skills, abilities, and tasks performed by the employee, with an objective of determining which employees within the organization requires training. To determine what kind of training is needed employers can answer these three questions. Define the desired performance – this allow employers to compare employee’s performance level against the company’s standards to identify any disparities and see if there is a need for training. Determine the gap between desired and actual performance – self assessment of competencies, performance appraisals, work samples and formal tests are ways that employers could collect data about employees to compare with their performance level. Identify the obstacles to effective performance – effective performance could be hindered if there is a gap between the employee’s performance and the company’s standard, so it is important to determine the cause and have it corrected to ensure proper execution of their duties. Cognitive Task Analysis Cognitive deals with the part of human interaction that is not observable and is performed to gain insight into the knowledge representations, mental strategies, goal structure and thought processes that underlie task performance. Steps that are used to conduct a cognitive task analysis includes ? Mapping of the task ? Identifying the critical decision points ? Clustering, linking, and prioritizing them ? Characterizing the strategies used A cognitive task analysis is used to examine some of the following ? The differences in performance between an expert and the novices ? Decision making of expert ? The mental workload associated with complex controls and display ? The development and evolution of mental models Team Task Analysis As stated in the text Managing performance through training and development 7th edition, a team task analysis although like task analysis, it focuses on assessments of team-based competencies which includes ? Knowledge of tasks-specific goals ? Knowledge of tasks procedures ? Strategies and timing ? Knowledge of team members ? Roles and responsibilities ? Knowledge of teamwork It also deals with the skills and attitude associated with the tasks. You can conduct a team task analysis by ? Individual and group interviews ? Reviewing existing documents ? Observation and questionnaires ? Examining past important events There are three crucial things to take into consideration when doing an effective training needs analysis. ? Select the appropriate type of training needs analysis: The following are the three common types of training needs analysis: 1. Knowledge. This kind of evaluation is useful for figuring out how well-rounded new graduates’ knowledge bases are, particularly in terms of corporate regulations, compliance-related issues, procedures, best practices, and other topics. 2. Skills. Both hard and soft skills are considered in this analysis of skills. Both junior and senior employees are the target of this. 3. Abilities. This examination explores how the staff members manage themselves to become more action oriented as well as their capacity for critical thought and decision-making. 2. Identify the appropriate needs analysis tools: Different tools are available, and not all of them are suitable for use by all organizations. The easiest method to decide which is best for your firm is to determine the objective of your business or the rationale behind conducting a requirements analysis. The following list of tools and/or techniques is representative (Bleich, 2018): 1. Questionnaires. Using questionnaires can give a picture of how employees feel about the organization and what kind of training they expect, albeit they are not as dependable as other tools and methodologies. 2. Observation. For the observer to view and evaluate the employees in action, more than one scheduled and unscheduled observation session is necessary. 3. Interviews. This approach primarily targets managers and supervisors to help them understand the performance concerns of the employees who report to them. 4. Work evaluation. This entails looking at the output that certain employees create, both qualitatively and quantitatively. 5. Online testing. This approach uses online multiple-choice quizzes or a series of tests to evaluate an employee’s knowledge. 6. Competitive research. Knowing how your company compares to its rivals can help you pinpoint the areas where it falls short and/or shines. 3. Implement the steps required: Legault (2018) states that a successful needs analysis involves three processes, however, we may further break them down into four: 1. Deciding on the desired result. This step examines the targeted employee performance or business result. The managers and supervisors, job-related documents, performance and training assessments, and performance evaluations are some of the most trustworthy sources to turn to gather the necessary information. 2. Determining the result. The next stage is to determine the actual performance of employees to determine whether the goals are being fulfilled after knowing the desired goal in terms of performance and business outcome. You can complete this phase by employing observational and interviewing techniques, as well as by reviewing performance indicators and reports. 3. Finding the appropriate remedy and the source of the performance disparity. After the problem is located, research into its underlying causes starts. This method entails looking into the variables that can impact an employee’s performance, including knowledge and skills, motivation, tools, equipment, etc. Finding a workable and efficient solution is made simpler by being aware of the issue and its root causes. Obstacles to needs analysis Since the goal of needs analysis is to identify the needs of the employees, it can also run into several problems due to faulty management and training practices. In this section, we will look at a few of those obstacles: 1. Incompetent or uninterested management: The management level of the company may be too busy or otherwise completely uninterested in assisting human resources to identify and evaluate the needs of their employees. It often becomes a struggle to convince management that extra resources need to be allotted to evaluate such needs, let alone get them on board to begin the process of evaluation. 2. Lack of time: Conducting a needs analysis is immensely beneficial for the company, but it is a tedious and time-consuming process. HR managers may often skip the planning process that involves analyzing needs and jump straight into a training program that they believe is best for the employees. 3. Leaving out new job roles: Since the modern industry is constantly evolving, new job roles rise to prominence. However, it is difficult to analyze their needs since data on such roles are often extremely limited. Thus, companies often focus on existing and well-established roles and fail to analyze the needs for newer roles. 4. Analyzing in retrospect: Companies often perform needs analyses in retrospect, that is, they perform the analysis based on last year’s training results, rather than brainstorming and projecting which needs might be more useful this year. This is sub-optimal and hampers the success of any training program based on such analysis. 5. Not aligning with the updated vision of the company: Every business sets new objectives and key results (OKR) every year. Any needs analysis for the current year needs to be in line with that vision. Companies often fail to update their analysis to meet this criterion and base their evaluation on previous results. 6. Ignoring previous feedback: The success of the needs analysis can be adequately judged by the feedback from the employees. Incorporating such feedback into next year’s analysis is key to the success of the process. 7. Not having a streamlined process: It is often the case that companies do not have a proper process in place that they can use for needs analysis every year, and only make certain tweaks to improve efficiency. Lack of documentation and inability or unwillingness to maintain yearly records of the analysis makes the process much more complicated than it has to be. Needs Analysis and Cost and Benefits of Learning and Development Compare and contrast the different methods and sources for conducting a needs analysis. There are three crucial things to take into consideration when doing an effective training needs analysis. – Select the appropriate type of training needs analysis: The following are the three common types of training needs analysis: 1. Knowledge. This kind of evaluation is useful for figuring out how well-rounded new graduates’ knowledge bases are, particularly in terms of corporate regulations, compliance-related issues, procedures, best practices, and other topics. 2. Skills. Both hard and soft skills are considered in this analysis of skills. Both junior and senior employees are the target of this. 3. Abilities. This examination explores how the staff members manage themselves to become more action oriented as well as their capacity for critical thought and decision-making. – Identify the appropriate needs analysis tools: Different tools are available, and not all of them are suitable for use by all organizations. The easiest method to decide which is best for your firm is to determine the objective of your business or the rationale behind conducting a requirements analysis. The following list of tools and/or techniques is representative (Bleich, 2018): 1. Questionnaires. Using questionnaires can give a picture of how employees feel about the organization and what kind of training they expect, albeit they are not as dependable as other tools and methodologies. 2. Observation. For the observer to view and evaluate the employees in action, more than one scheduled and unscheduled observation session is necessary. 3. Interviews. This approach primarily targets managers and supervisors to help them understand the performance concerns of the employees who report to them. 4. Work evaluation. This entails looking at the output that certain employees create, both qualitatively and quantitatively. 5. Online testing. This approach uses online multiple-choice quizzes or a series of tests to evaluate an employee’s knowledge. 6. Competitive research. Knowing how your company compares to its rivals can help you pinpoint the areas where it falls short and/or shines. 3. Implement the steps required: Legault (2018) states that a successful needs analysis involves three processes, however, we may further break them down into four: 1. Deciding on the desired result. This step examines the targeted employee performance or business result. The managers and supervisors, job-related documents, performance and training assessments, and performance evaluations are some of the most trustworthy sources to turn to gather the necessary information. 2. Determining the result. The next stage is to determine the actual performance of employees to determine whether the goals are being fulfilled after knowing the desired goal in terms of performance and business outcome. You can complete this phase by employing observational and interviewing techniques, as well as by reviewing performance indicators and reports. 3. Finding the appropriate remedy and the source of the performance disparity. After the problem is located, research into its underlying causes starts. This method entails looking into the variables that can impact an employee’s performance, including knowledge and skills, motivation, tools, equipment, etc. Finding a workable and efficient solution is made simpler by being aware of the issue and its root causes. Describe the obstacles to conducting a needs analysis and how to conduct a rapid needs analysis. Since the goal of needs analysis is to identify the needs of the employees, it can also run into several problems due to faulty management and training practices. In this section, we will look at a few of those obstacles: 1. Incompetent or uninterested management: The management level of the company may be too busy or otherwise completely uninterested in assisting human resources to identify and evaluate the needs of their employees. It often becomes a struggle to convince management that extra resources need to be allotted to evaluate such needs, let alone get them on board to begin the process of evaluation. 2. Lack of time: Conducting a needs analysis is immensely beneficial for the company, but it is a tedious and time-consuming process. HR managers may often skip the planning process that involves analyzing needs and jump straight into a training program that they believe is best for the employees. 3. Leaving out new job roles: Since the modern industry is constantly evolving, new job roles rise to prominence. However, it is difficult to analyze their needs since data on such roles are often extremely limited. Thus, companies often focus on existing and well-established roles and fail to analyze the needs for newer roles. 4. Analyzing in retrospect: Companies often perform needs analyses in retrospect, that is, they perform the analysis based on last year’s training results, rather than brainstorming and projecting which needs might be more useful this year. This is sub-optimal and hampers the success of any training program based on such analysis. 5. Not aligning with the updated vision of the company: Every business sets new objectives and key results (OKR) every year. Any needs analysis for the current year needs to be in line with that vision. Companies often fail to update their analysis to meet this criterion and base their evaluation on previous results. 6. Ignoring previous feedback: The success of the needs analysis can be adequately judged by the feedback from the employees. Incorporating such feedback into next year’s analysis is key to the success of the process. 7. Not having a streamlined process: It is often the case that companies do not have a proper process in place that they can use for needs analysis every year, and only make certain tweaks to improve efficiency. Lack of documentation and inability or unwillingness to maintain yearly records of the analysis makes the process much more complicated than it has to be. Cost and Benefits of Learning and Development Introduction Training and Development is the most essential feature that an organization considers, along with being significantly important to Human Resources (HR). What is Training and Development? According to the IBM, Training and Development is the initiatives of educational programs within companies that are originated to boost the job performance of an employee or a group. These workshops typically include advancing a employees’ knowledge, behavior, and skill sets and fostering greater incentives to improve job performance to increase the overall effectiveness of the organization. Training workshops can originate autonomously or with an educational administration system, whose goal is the employees’ long-term development. Customary training programs include orientations, classroom lectures, case studies, role playing, simulations and computer-based training, which is also inclusive of e-learning. Insert this video into the power point • https://youtu.be/mEsQ90W4xrs Training and Development Challenges • Skilled humans fuel the global economy: Digital skills remain vital, but soft skills have become more important. • Skills availability and quality are in jeopardy: The half-life of skills continues to shrink, while the time it takes to close a skills gap has ballooned, forcing organizations to find ways to stay ahead of skills relevancy. • Intelligent automation is an economic game changer: Millions of workers will likely require retraining and learning new skills, and most companies and countries are ill-prepared for the task. • Organizational cultures are shifting: The digital era has introduced the need for a new business model, new ways of working and a flexible culture that fosters the development of critical new skills. 1. Explain why training and human resource professionals should calculate the costs and benefits of training programs in their organisation. It is important to note that when conducting a training program, the main hope is to see an improvement in the employees’ learning, critical thinking, behaviour towards the job and a positive impact on the organizational effectiveness. Evaluation includes determining how well the training programs have worked. Data on participant satisfaction with the program’s deliverables and their ability to use what they learned in the training at their place of employment are collected as part of this assessment. Depending on the type of training provided, various tools are available for program evaluation. Benefits of Training Evaluations: • Evaluation ensures accountability- Training evaluation makes ensuring that the deliverables are not compromised and that the training programs follow the skill gaps. • Check the cost- Evaluation makes ensuring that the training initiatives improve the standard of the work, employee conduct, attitude, and acquisition of new skills while staying within a predetermined budget. Since businesses all over the world are attempting to reduce costs without sacrificing quality, evaluation simply seeks to do this with training. • Feedback to the training/trainer- Evaluation provides feedback to the facilitator or trainer as well as to the overall training process. It is simpler to comprehend the flaws in training and the changes that must be made to the training approach since evaluations access people at the level of their work. Organizations employ a variety of techniques to evaluate the financial, or monetary, advantages of training. Return on investment (ROI) and utility analysis are two of the often-utilized techniques. In addition to the direct and apparent expenditures, the training has several other costs. Return on Investment = Program benefits / Costs x 100 Example: If the cost incurred towards a training is $80,000 and the benefits in terms of overall improvement in productivity and quality is $400,00.00. Let’s calculate the ROI. 400,000/80,000 x 100 = 500% In other words, every dollar the company spends on training results in a gain of $5.00 in productivity. Utility Analysis This is the duration of the training’s effects on the learner, the relative importance of the training program, the significance of the job or profile for which the training was intended, and the expense of delivering the training. To calculate the utility of a training program, there are several factors to be considered. These include: – The effectiveness on the training program. This is the difference in job performance between an employee that is trained and an employee that did not receive training. – The standard deviation of job performance. This is the difference there in the job performance of untrained employees and the monetary value of this difference. – The number of employees trained. The more employees who are trained the greater the utility. – The time that the training benefits will last. The longer the effects of training will last the higher the utility of a training program. 2. Calculate the various costs of training programs What is Costing? Costing is the process in which the expenditures of the training program is identified. It is a very important procedure for both the designing and evaluation of a training program for an organization. This process is very complex and time consuming and as such training specialist try to avoid it. Some management may be skeptical about the theoretical strengthening of costing, while others may say that not everything is quantifiable. However, there is an increased pressure for HR and training professionals to exemplify the equity of their programs, as companies would be eager to know their return on the training investment made. There is a difficulty in taking a decision for the executives, as their concern increases around the financing and time in training and development for employees. Employers sustain both direct and indirect costs through Learning and Development program initiatives provided to their employees, they include: • Direct cost, which is the trainer’s salaries, any equipment that is needed for the training, course materials, food, and refreshments as well as the cost to travel to and from the training site if necessary. • Indirect cost is not particularly part of the training programme are expenses that are necessary to support the programme. Administrative support, trainer prep and planning and the cost of marketing training programmes are all cost that would have already been incurred even if the training programme was to be cancelled. • Developmental costs are incurred while the programme is being developed. These include doing the needs analysis and developing any instructional media such as videos and the design of the training media. • Overhead costs are not associated with the training but are required for the general operation of the training. This includes the training facility and equipment maintenance. • Trainee compensation costs refers to the salaries and benefits paid to trainees while attending the training programme. The reason for this is because they are training and not working, they should still be paid. 3. Compare and contrast cost effectiveness evaluation and cost benefit evaluation. The benefits of a training program can be calculated in monetary and non-monetary terms. Evaluation of training cost can be divided into two categories: Cost of effectiveness is the analysis of training cost in monetary units to the benefit of training in monetary terms. Examples of monetary benefits: – Production increase – Production waste – Scrap savings Cost benefit evaluation is the analysis of training cost in monetary units (dollar value) to the benefits derived from training in nonmonetary terms. Examples of nonmonetary benefits: – Trainee Attitudes – Customer satisfaction – Absenteeism To determine the Net benefit, we must first know the cost of a training program and the benefit in monetary terms. Net Benefit = the benefits – Cost of a training program *Insert video* Credibility The cost effectiveness evaluation has one major issue, that is Credibility. According to Cambridge dictionary, Credibility is the power to inspire belief or trust. The data must be accurate enough to make the process seem believable for the assumption to be accepted by managers and clients, to indicate that the process works. It is also very important to note that during our discussion of the cost and benefits of training programs and how to calculate their return on investment and utility is all based on estimations, and the assumptions and judgements are determined through this same estimation of monetary benefits for the training programs. Despite the rigorous quantitative appearance, trainers should ensure that both management and clientele on the cost factors and the measurement and estimation of the benefits. Both the assistance of internal and external experts when creating benefit estimates aids management, as the information would be credible as the experts are very knowledgeable and familiar with the situation. Increasing the credibility of benefit estimates • Take a conservative approach when making estimates and assumptions • Use the most credible and reliable sources for the estimates • Explain the approaches and assumptions used in the conversion • When results appear overstated, consider adjusting the numbers to achieve more realistic values • Use hard data whenever possible Do not put in the question and answer that is for the group knowledge when miss asking questions Question: What is the difference between cost benefit evaluation and cost effectiveness evaluation. Answer: The difference between both is that cost benefit looks to see if the benefits outweigh the cost whereas cost effectiveness is more focused on how much it costs to get a certain amount of output.