Thank you all so much for your contributions. I never cease to be amazed and humbled by the generosity of the training community - definitely confirms that I've made the right decision moving from counterparty risk analysis to Training, Learning and Development.! I wish all of you a successful, fulfilling and happy 2011.
Does anybody have any ideas apart from the usual PDPs, SWOT analysis, Annual/monthly Appraisals etc for identifying training needs in an organization? Thanks in advance for sharing.
4 Responses
perhaps slightly off-the-wall…..
We had a "Training Needs Amnesty"; an opportunity for (senior) people to own up to all the things they knew that they couldn’t do (or do well) because they were new technology/theory that had come out since the people had been deemed to require training….you know the attitude of some senior people; "I didn’t get where I am today by owning up to the fact that I don’t know how to…….." or "I cannot possibly confess that I, the most highly paid person in the department, am not able to do that which I expect an office junior to do"
It was a very enlightening activity which was backed up with one to one training sessions, off site coaching and other interventions that saved directors from having to attend training sessions with staff 57 grades below them. There were a couple of instances where senior people (and that is long-serving as well as high-up) were "nominated" to have some development by anonymous people who constantly found themselves having to cover for or do favours for their nominees.
It is politically sensitive but had some very high impact (in a positive way) outcomes…including one male manager discovering that he was very close to being accused of sex discrimination because he couldn’t operate the photocopier and always asked one of the female staff to do his copying for him…
I hope this helps
Rus
http://www.coach-and-courses.com
Identifying Training Needs
This is the most original response I have received – most have been variations of the usual themes (I’ve posted the same question on the LinkedIn CIPD community). Many thanks, much appreciated.- ‘Desola
Card Sort System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_5mIfJCHdk
Identifying Training needs
— Karen Gregory-Reader Training Consultant
I love the training amnesty idea and would definitley consider using that one. One way we acheive understanding of training needs is by liaising closely with our Quality and Compliance Manager. he regularly carries out quality call monitoring (we have a call centre environment here) and this brings us data on areas where call centre staff are misunderstanding or incorrectly applying processes/ data protection and basic customer service skills. It’s not the definitve answer but gives us an excellent insight into those areas. We can then discuss with the agents and their Team Leaders the best way to address those areas. Not too exciting, but it really helps