Training Needs Assessment for Business Performance

Training needs assessment is a crucial process for determining the requirement of training in an organization. It helps in improving the knowledge, skills, and attitude of employees and contributes to the overall performance of the organization. This article discusses the importance of training needs assessment, its process, and its benefits for business performance.

Running Head: TRAINING 0
HRM

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Individual training needs assessment is crucial for business performance
Training needs assessment is a process for which every organization undergoes for
determining the requirement of training in certain period. It helps in allowing the individual
to improve their knowledge and skills. In recent time, individual training has become
essential aspect of the human resource management. It not only helps in improving the
knowledge, skills, and attitude of employees but also motivates them (Alasadi and Al Sabbagh,
2015). In today’s business environment, it requires each of the individual to perform the
complex task in more effective, efficient, as well as safe manner. Training is required when
any of the members are not performing up to an expected level of performance. In addition to
this, it also helps in improving the overall performance of organization (Cekada, 2010).
Hence, whenever training program is required to be conducted, there is need to assess the
needs of individual training in the organization. In this way, before starting a training
program, it is essential to carry out the training needs assessment.
Training needs assessment is one of the crucial steps that need to be undertaken before
commencement of any training. Training needs assessment is the process of finding out
whether there is proper need for particular training or not. The major emphasis of the training
program is to impart the new skills, knowledge, or abilities so that performance of individual
person can be taken to the new dimension. Training needs assessment is done whenever a gap
between the actual and expected performance between an individual, and group is being seen.
In this way, the first step in the training needs assessment is to find out the gap in individual
performance. After the identification of problem, training needs assessment check whether
these problems can be solved through training. It is true that training requires the
commitment of time, money as well as several resources (Lakshminarayanan, Pai and
Ramaprasad, 2016).
Training on an individual or personal level finds out whether the person require some
competencies in order to meet the expectation of any different or new task. It is founded that
whenever any individual is performing poor, training needs assessment helps in identifying
the reasons for such poor performance and address the deficiency. Knowledge regarding the
individual competencies can also be taken from several sources such as personal review,

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performance appraisal, assessment centre data, and proficiency test. In every organization, a
training needs assessment identifies the individual person current level of knowledge or skill
in one or many of the areas (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright, 2017). Based on it, it
finds out the competency level required for their specific position or any other position within
the organization. In this way, rather than making assumptions that every employee requires
the similar kind of training, management can make the informed decisions regarding the
proper way to address the gap of competency among individual employee.
It is founded that assessment of training needs assessment should be done in methodical and
elaborate manner is required to be comprehensive. These are required to be trained either on
the soft skills or on the technical skills. It is true that training need differs from organization
to organization as well as from employee to employee. Therefore, it can be stated that
training is essential aspect of every job. In this way, HRD function in every organization
should pay attention to such process for the success of organization. Once need for individual
training is identified, HRD function is required to prepare the checklist of employees. This
will provide the scientific method to the organization in assessing how many employees are
required to assess on what kind of skills (Pfau, 2017).
Effective training needs assessment requires the organization to perform certain steps. In the
first step, it is required to check the performance of the organization as well as staff member.
In is divided into two parts. The first part is associated with the current situation that
determines the current state of knowledge, skill, and ability of the recent of any of the future
employee. Another part is desired actuation. It put emphasis on the required job task or skill,
abilities that are need for accomplishing objective. After fulfilling the step one, the next step
is to identify the same to the organizational realities, goals, or constraints. Therefore,
organization must determine whether the needs that are identified are real or not. In case, if
some of the needs are have no or low importance then it can also do better by devoting the
energies for addressing the problems of human performance. In order to get success,
organization then identifies the causes of that performance problem of individual. After the
identification of personal and organizational needs, it is essential to identify the specific
problem opportunities or areas of the organization. It is true that each organization know its
performance requirement (Jha and Kumar, 2016). Therefore, it can identify whether individuals
are performing their job effectively or not. Besides this, whether employees know how to
perform their job effectively. In case, if employees are performing effectively, then there is

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no need for training. However, if employees are not performing well in the organization, then
training can prove to be the proper solution for such problems (Carter and Traill, 2018).
Training needs assessment of individual can be done at any time but it is actually done after
the hiring, during the performance reviews, or when performance improvement is needed for
the career development plans. These are beneficial for performing all these assessments
periodically in order to determine the needs of the organization, individual skills, and
knowledge and also for the effectiveness of training programs. In recent time, several
changes occur frequently that cannot be cope up by all the employees. Due to this,
performance issue can occur (Manna, Singh and Sharma, 2016). By undertaking the training
needs assessment program, performance issue can be identified and remedies can be taken
through effective training. On part of issue in individual performance, performance
management can prove to be the effective measure. By taking the training needs assessment,
it becomes easy to find out the appropriate target audience. If employees or individual person
is not performing satisfactory, there is assumption of lack of certain skill or knowledge. In
spite of this, poor performance can actually be due to lack of communication, lack of
delegation or may be planning skills of the manager and supervisor (Shrestha, 2016).
Training needs assessment is crucial for the better performance of the business as it helps in
improving the individual employee performance. It helps the organization in identifying any
kind of knowledge gap in the employee. It also highlights the potential problem and tackles it
properly. Training needs assessment also allow organization to take proactive approach.
Some employees are able to cope up with all the changes but still some employees lacks in
getting those (Davis, Cutt, Flynn and Mowl, 2016). In such situation, training needs
assessment will provide the addition training to some employees in certain areas by covering
those skill gaps. On essential task with training is to schedule the training in effective
manner. It is also essential to ensure the right people on the right training sessions. Therefore,
TNS that is training needs assessment also helps the organization in deciding who all are
required to attend the training session. It is obvious that there will be wastage of time if staff
members will frequently attend the training session that is of no use for them. It will therefore
enable in targeting the right people for each of the training session (Singh and Shukla, 2018).
In the limelight of above discussion, it can concluded that assessment is an essential tool for
determining the need for training for specific reason. It helps in the development of
individual as well as organization for accomplishing the specific objective or goals. By

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undertaking such assessment, it becomes easy for manager to observe the performance of its
staff and any change required on their part. By completing the training needs assessment, it
assists the organization to see on which areas it has to focus exactly. It might also help in
highlighting the areas where no improvement is required on part of individuals. In this way, it
can prove to be helpful for the success of the organization. In this way, training needs
assessment is quite helpful to track the deficiency in the performance of employees and
identify the training need for such deficiency.

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References
Alasadi, R. and Al Sabbagh, H. (2015) The role of training in small business
performance. International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 7(1), p.293.
Carter, S. and Traill, S. (2018) Developing staff skills in e-resource troubleshooting: training,
assessment, and continuous progress. ALA Editions.
Cekada, T.L. (2010) Training needs assessment: Understanding what employees need to
know. Professional Safety, 55(03), pp.28-33.
Davis, T., Cutt, M., Flynn, N. and Mowl, P. (2016) Talent assessment: A new strategy for
talent management. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Jha, B. and Kumar, A. (2016) Employee engagement: A strategic tool to enhance
performance. DAWN: Journal for Contemporary Research in Management, 3(2), pp.21-29.
Lakshminarayanan, S., Pai, Y.P. and Ramaprasad, B.S. (2016) Competency need assessment:
a gap analytic approach. Industrial and Commercial Training, 48(8), pp.423-430.
Manna, R., Singh, A. and Sharma, P. (2016) Does Training Need Analysis Help to Minimize
Competency Gap: An Investigation. Amity Journal of Training and Development, 1(1),
pp.109-131.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M. (2017) Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Pfau, R. (2017) How to identify the training needs of employees. United Kingdom:
Routledge.
Shrestha, R.B. (2016) Reflecting Rapid Market Appraisal: A Practical Tool for Training
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Singh, A. and Shukla, T. (2018) Role of Training and Development on Work Proficiency:
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