Components of Training Needs Statement A statement of needs should aim the following points:

• Achieving the commitment of resources, by demonstrating that such a commitment is warranted.

• Enable informed decisions to be made about the kind of resources and where they should be focused.

• Provide information that enables a relevant and effective provision of learning resources to be planned.

Some of the most important features that personnel and training specialists should consider in meeting these aims are:

(i) Target audience and training needs

This has already been discussed in the training matrix. (ii) Objectives of training

The overall objectives to be met out of a training programme and the performance requirements should be clear. Rest of the training strategy would depend on he clarity of the objectives to be achieved.

(iii) Justification of training

Operational justification, priority and urgency of training should be considered. Priorities can rarely be neatly or clearly established. They may look different from different vantage points in the organization, or to managers with different interests and there can be merit in opportunism! (iv) Type of training needs

It must be stated whether the training needs are once-and- for-all, recurring, or continuous and changing. It must be specified whether they require small amounts of training or more substantial, longer-term learning, or are complete areas of knowledge, skill or qualifications required.

(v) Kind of learning required

The nature of training whether it consists of theory or knowledge, of adaptation and development of existing expertise, of practical know-how, of a need to be exposed to new ideas or sources of information, or of changing attitudes. The training process would depend largely on these issues. (vi) Objectives of trainees

The trainees must be judged for their present range of experience and knowledge, their likely motivation to learn and learning styles, their availability for training, the characteristics and circumstances of their working environment which might help or hinder learning. Training is for the trainees and their characteristics have a lot of impact on the effectiveness of the training process.

(vii) Organization itself

The organizational factors are also an important factor while preparing a statement of needs. Some of the organizational issues to be considered while assessing training needs are:

• Is the organization’s culture hostile, neutral or supportive to training?

• What opportunities and/or constraints are there as far as traditional forms of training are concerned?

• Who currently has access to training and of what kind?

• What facilities and opportunities do or could exist at the workplace or elsewhere?

• What is the strength of the organization's commitment to vocational education programmes or continuing development?

(viii) Kinds of training provisions

The type of training provision can influence its effectiveness. The learning strategies are acceptable to the organization and the trainees also needs to be considered. For example, the issues such as support for informal on-the-job learning, for updating or for individual initiatives, advice and help that are available to initiate and sustain flexible individual learning etc. must be looked into.

Rosset has summarized the needs assessment process in an organization in the form of the following box (Box 3.1).

The basis of all training should be the achievement of the optimal situation from the actual situation. The actual situation is representative of the pre-training scenario in an organization. It is an indicative of a gap in the current systems. The optimal situation is the one, which is intended top be achieved out of the training. It is an outcome of the change that has been initiated by the training. In an organization, there can be several causes of training, as have been discussed earlier. The environmental contexts, the organizational issues and the attitudes and feelings of the people – both the trainees and the trainers, need to be considered while assessing the training needs in an organization. The effective solutions are a consequence of the series of activities, thus undertaken.

Basis

1. The optimal situation 2. The actual situation 3. Causes

4. Peoples’ feelings 5. Solutions

Steps

1. Select sources to be contacted

2. Determine the stages of assessment 3. Select and use need assessment tools

4. Create items/questions to use in seeking information 5. Consider critical incident analysis

Tools 1. Interview 2. Documents 3. Surveys 4. Observations 5. Focus groups

Box 3.1 Needs Assessment (Source Rosset, 1990)

As shown in the box, there are several steps to needs assessment, which have been explained in the earlier discussion. Typically, these include the selection of sources to be contacted for imparting the training. The stages of assessment need to be worked out and he selection of right need-assessment tools has to be made. Typically, the tools used are the questionnaires, whose effectiveness depends on the information that they collect. In order to collect the right

kind of information, the selection of question items (i.e. framing of the questions) becomes very important. Literature can be a useful basis for item selection. However, in the organizational contexts, the opinion survey can be an effective method of item selection. The views of the people who need the training, their supervisors and the top management can provide vital clues that can help to select the right questions. Some organizations make use of critical incident analysis as well. Critical incident can be a situation, which shows the need of training. It can become a starter of any training process. Even normal reports such as increased number of customer complaints, strikes, dysfunctional conflicts etc. can be certain critical incidents, which can initiate the training process in an organization.

There are several tools available at the disposal of the trainers to identify the training needs. The most commonly used tools are the interviews, documents (containing the organization’s record), surveys, observations and focus groups. The basics of these techniques have been discussed in several other chapters. Each of these has certain advantages as well as limitations and the trainer has to choose between these depending upon the specific organizational situations.

3.8 Summary

Any activity undertaken in an organization must be planned carefully, otherwise it will lead to the wastage of resources and efforts and not achieve the desired objectives While identifying training needs, it is important to take into consideration the environmental contexts. Specifically, this

would include the national and organizational contexts within which organizations are working. Training is highly influenced by the current developments such as the effects of legislation and national economic policies on the organization's markets and policies, the pace of technological development, competition, integration of economies, flexibility, increasing stress and rapidly changing patterns of government. The scope of training needs would include the three categories - at the level of all individuals, specific groups in an organization and particular individuals in an organization. The identification of training needs is very important because of three contextual changes - job changes, person changes and performance deficiencies The training-needs matrix is a useful tool for assessing the training needs and provides a summary of why training needs occur and for whom. Some of the ways by which training needs are identified are need identification by top management, an individual’s self assessment, systematic investigation structured assessment and peer review. Some of the most important features that personnel and training specialists should consider in meeting these aims are: Target audience and training needs, Objectives and Justification of training, type of training needs and kind of learning required.

Training is an important activity in the present times. However, it should not be undertaken for the same of doing it. There is a need for proper need assessment. Researchers have proposed several steps for identifying the training needs and their use should be made by the trainer judiciously.

3.9 Key Words