The 3 Steps to a Needs Assessment for People Management Training

Planning People Management for Upskilling and training managers is a challenging task for several reasons. Managers usually have very busy schedules and little time for training. Training for first-time or mid-level managers will be different from training for those at more senior levels. And most managers will already have some knowledge and experience and will need training on areas that are less familiar to them.  

This means it is especially important for people management training to focus on factors relevant to the managers’ goals and day-to-day responsibilities. While performance is the most common concern, some training might focus on other topics too. Gaining a clear understanding of the managers’ requirements will make your training more relevant, attractive, and effective.   To do this, you will need to perform a training needs assessment.

This is a step-by-step business process used to gain insights into the gaps that your managers need to fill to achieve their performance objectives.   Here are three steps that you should include in your needs assessment program.  

Get Input from Your People

The first people to ask for inputs regarding how to train managers are the managers themselves. Many managers and high performers will know what responsibilities and business skills they want to learn from a training program, and what they need to learn before taking the next step. They will often be aware of the gaps they have relative to their competition, and what clients are asking for, and these inputs help you to highlight these factors.  

Non-verbal cues can help identify signs of concern such as low morale, which can greatly affect performance. Remember that responses can be filtered later. At this stage, simply try to maximize the input.  

Collect Information Internally

Once you have collected the insights from the managers, use internal data such as individual goal sheets, KRA sheets and business matrices to validate your findings. In addition, other indicators of the managers’ abilities, such as attrition rates, client reviews, and customer satisfaction surveys, should be considered. Confirm which of the managers’ concerns are the most urgent and essential to address, so that you can create the appropriate training that is targeted to resolving those specific issues.  

Gather Data from Outside Sources

Surveys, interviews, case studies, and other forms of market research on topics such as future skills can serve as good evidence to indicate what the future holds. Market predicters are a great way to confirm whether a change will have a high enough impact on the target audience to merit the training. Many training bodies, like ATD, and conferences, like Learning Technologies, also publish papers concerning the new techniques, tools, and methods for training. This information can help you to create futuristic training materials.  

Once you have acquired all the necessary inputs, you need to decide whether to create a training plan internally, or consult an external expert to help you create a training plan, including the development timeframe, budget, implementation process, and marketing of the training initiative.  

Creating and executing a holistic plan requires a variety of different skills and resources. Sometimes, these resources are not available in house or they are expensive. Outsourcing training is a very popular option where you enlist the help of external companies, so that you can benefit from their knowledge, expertise, and instructional designers.  

Learning providers like Ozemio give free consultations and will often share samples from similar organizations to help you and your stakeholders imagine what the completed training will look like. Are you sure that your readers will understand this abbreviation? If not, please write it out in full.