Employee training programs and need assessment methodology

Training Programs for Employees

As the globe has penetrated into the epoch of twenty-first century, it has transformed almost every facet of life that even includes the world of commerce. As an outcome of it, the business community has converted in a more competitive platform. This evidently exhibits the fact that challenges are being confronted by more or less every organization regardless of its size, and that too at an unprecedented rate. Due to this reason, the need for an efficient as well as effective work environment has become a fundamental necessity in order to sustain not only the position in the market place but to generate profits as well (Daly, 2011).

Considering this aspect of business, the human resources have always played a pivotal role for the success or failure of the organization, and hence, are considerably the most significant asset for an organization. However, to make the human resource more effective and proficient, it is imperative to have an employee management system that can particularly focus on various critical aspects such as employee motivation, employee trainings, and so forth (Daly, 2011).

Use of Need Assessment for Training Sessions for Employees

Employee motivation in the today's time has become a challenging task for the organizations for which organizations hire professional and proficient personnel that can cater vast arenas to motivate the employees. In this regard, HR Training and Development personnel is the key responsible workforce that performs the jobs duties such as need analysis, development of training methods and feedbacks surveys in association with the departmental heads with the core purpose of skills enhancement of the employees.

Organizations on timely basis ought to organize training programs for its employees so that it can not only benefit the organization but also improve the skills and abilities of the employees. However, before the employees can undergo a training course, the initial and principal step is to have the need assessment.

The need assessment is performed with the primary aim to expose the performance deficiencies of the employees, as it measures the gap between the required performances vs. The current performance of the employee. Several assessment methods are present that can bring the performance deficiencies of the employees to surface with the fact that they are required to undergo a training program in order to remain competitive on the current job position. Amongst the various gap analysis methods SWOT analysis of individual employees, 360 Degree Evaluation, Graphic Scale, Checklist Evaluation method, Critical Incident method and Management by Objectives method (MBO) are few to mention (Dessler & Phillips, 2007). These have been observed as few fruitful assessment ways to determine the performance deficiencies.

Training Implementation Plan for Employees

Training is considerably one of the most difficult tasks for an organization, because, if even a small step or a small action goes wrong, the entire training program would be counted as a failure. Therefore, the entire process of training is very crucial to perform. However, training implementation plan is usually a four step plan:

1. Need assessment

2. Designing of the training program

3. Implementation

4. Evaluation (feedback)

The designing of the training program needs to pay attention to various aspects in order to successfully perform the training. Taking into account the customer service training, the training instructor should have the practical administrative arrangements, in which he/she should prepare training materials along with activities prior to the training sessions. In fact, the trainer should also have a good physical set-up, as it proves to be a successful for the training program. This clearly exhibits the fact that training rooms should not be either very big or very small, as it might make the trainee uncomfortable and for a customer service training, this aspect plays a very important role.

In order to have successful implementation of the training program, it is imperative for the training constructor to review the agenda and the objectives of the training program. This develops a level of interest and helps the employees be cognizant concerning what they would be trained about. Moreover, it would result in employees' attentiveness and activeness during the training.

Since customer service training is all about handling and managing customers, thus, the trainer should establish good rapport with the participants when carrying out the training program. They can do so by greeting participants to give them a moment of ease or by calling them from their first names or by encouraging informal conversation and so on. Building the rapport with the employees during the training would enable the trainees to implement the same practice when dealing with clients at the customer service desks.

Motivation Ways for Employees to attend the Training Class

Since the key component to understand is the mindset of the employees and keep them motivated at all times in order to retain their loyalty with the company and to get maximum advantage from their expertise for the benefit of the organization. Therefore, training and development is one of the most effective and efficient way that can help the employees to enhance their skills and continue to grow on a broad spectrum. In addition, training and development is also a fruitful aspect that facilitates in employee motivation to provide maximum output with proficiency. Unfortunately, reluctance in attending training class is the most common element that is observed amongst many employees. However, this can be resolved with various options.

One of the means that prove to be effective is motivating employees to attend the training sessions is to offer incentives to the employees upon successful completion of the training programs. Incentives or some type of benefits are considerably the most fundamental means of motivation. Since the training programs are designed with an intention to benefit the company as well as the employee, therefore, small incentives such as an extra day off or some raise like bonus would definitely make an impact on the attendance of the employees for the training classes.

Another significant reason that has been noticed amongst the employees for not showing interest in attending the training class is the attitude problem. To better resolve and deal with this issue, the managers should have individual assessments in order to identify the reasons of demotivation or the barriers or the fear factors of non-participation in the training. By doing so, the manager or the team leader would be in a better position to elucidate the value, worth and significance of the training sessions. In fact, by emphasizing on the win-win situations, the team leaders would be able to motivate the employees to attend the training class.

Survey to Collect Feedback from Employees who attended Trainings

Feedback after the training program is one of the pivotal steps that should not be ignored or overlooked by the organization. Survey to collect the feedback on the training aids the organization to identify the effectiveness of the training sessions that were conducted for the employee's better performance and enhancement of skills.

The survey must include the question related to the level of satisfaction of the employees concerning the training sessions. This is particularly due to the reason that satisfaction level would truly reflect the employee performance and productivity after the training sessions. Therefore, the survey forms ought to ask for the opinions of the employees related to the overall training course so that the employees are able to present with their ideas in a more clear and open manner.

Following is the survey questions that can be included in the survey form to collect the feedback from employees who attended the training:

1. Did you participate in this training course?

Yes

No

2. How would you rate your level of knowledge or skill on this subject on an overall basis prior to this training course?

Beginner

Advanced Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced Intermediate

Expert

3. Rate your level of satisfaction with the following components related to the training course. (Mark that 1 refer to not at all satisfied and 5 refers to very much satisfied)

Ease of the registration process

1

2

3

4

5

The training materials

1

2

3

4

5

The level of instruction on training course

1

2

3

4

5

Usefulness of the course content

1

2

3

4

5

Length of the Training

1

2

3

4

5

4. Rate your level of satisfaction with the following components related to the training instructor. (Mark that 1 refer to not at all satisfied and 5 refers to very much satisfied)

Knowledge of the instructor

1

2

3

4

5

Preparation of the instructor

1

2

3

4

5

Friendliness of the instructor

1

2

3

4

5

The instructor's capability to integrate interactivity

1

2

3

4

5

Pace of the Instructor to deliver the training course

1

2

3

4

5

5. Rate your overall level of experience of the training

Poor

Bad

Moderate

Good

Excellent

6. List up to 3 aspects about the training course that you liked

7. List up to 3 ways in which the training course could be improved.

8. If you have any additional comments about the training course, use the below space.