5 Steps to Conducting an Effective Training Needs Analysis

Choosing the right training for your people can be a challenge. For starters, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. And, unfortunately, guesswork and assumptions won’t cut it. 

For learners, badly designed training programs can be a huge source of frustration. It’s hard to sit through irrelevant, boring training — and even more so when it’s taking you away from doing your actual job. 

So how do you make sure your team gets the right training, at the right time?

That’s where the training needs analysis (TNA) comes in. TNA is a process that enables you to accurately identify upskilling opportunities, and:

Get organised and plan your L&D for the next quarter, year, or more.

Efficient use of resources will save your organisation time and money.

Increase employee engagement, retention and satisfaction.

TNA plays a big part in lifting employee performance. Today, we’ll show you the best way to conduct a training needs analysis. 

Training needs analysis (also called a training needs assessment) is a process for identifying what training is needed, when, and by whom. It is the critical first step in designing an effective training program. TNA aims to support strategic goals by enabling teams to do their jobs effectively and fostering individual career development. 

Good analysis starts with the big picture and progressively zooms in to each layer of detail.

TNA benefits organisations and individuals in several ways:

Now that Industry 4.0 and the future of work are no longer on the horizon, but right on top of us, training is an urgent necessity. With TNA, you can make sure it’s the right training.

To conduct a training needs analysis the right way, start with big-picture, organisational goals. Then work your way down through each level of detail, gathering data and listening to your people. This will help you get to the root causes of performance gaps, and spot opportunities for improvement.

The five steps of the TNA process include:

1. Defining strategic goals
2. Outlining required skills and knowledge
3. Evaluating current skills
4. Locating performance gaps and causes
5. Establishing training needs

The three levels of training needs analysis are the Organisational, Task, and Person level. This is called the OTP framework for training needs analysis and aims for alignment between all levels. Although not the most widely-practised method, it’s the most researched and evidence-based approach recommended by experts.

The nature of your organisation will inform the kind of TNA you conduct. Will it be more compliance-focused, or people-centric? It is reacting to current performance problems, or anticipating future needs?

The biggest factors here are:

For instance, the resources you can consult will be very different at a large government-funded nonprofit to the ones you’ll have at a smaller tech company in a rapid growth phase. 

Organisational level

Traditional TNA approaches often skip the big why. They jump straight to the next question, instead, asking “what are our training goals?” The result? Training that doesn’t make an impact in the right places. Training for training’s sake.

In contrast, the new-school approach asks, “What are our organisational goals?” Then, it traces a clear line of cause and effect: connecting organisational goals, tasks, and people. 

Firstly, you’ll need to get some clarity with a high-level strategic analysis. Meet face-to-face with the key decision-makers — such as managers and team leads — to discuss organisation-wide goals and strategic priorities. Ask them to describe what success looks like, from their perspective.

From there, you should be able to get an idea of the organisation’s pain points (problems) and desires (goals). These usually fall into one of three broad categories:

You may notice that conversations drift toward operational goals, such as workflow efficiencies or lead times. But these are not ends in themselves: they can usually be traced back to one of the above goals. Try to discover why your interviewee wants to improve this area of operations. For instance, do they want to eliminate inefficiencies, thereby improving profits?

Task level

Now you need to discover the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that the organisation, as a whole, needs to achieve its goals.

Talk to the people who do the work. Ask them: will these skills, knowledge and abilities help you do your job better?

Talk to the people who asked for the TNA. Ask them: do these skills, knowledge and abilities align with the strategic goals?

Following these steps will enable you to draw a strong connection between organisational goals and the needs of individual people who work there.

Person level

Once you know what’s required, it’s time to figure out where you are. Compare job role requirements to current performance to find current skills levels.

Look at the state of your current training. What’s currently working well? What could do with improvement? And what needs to go?

Find out how people are actually doing their jobs. You’ll need to spend some time with your people, and gather a few different kinds of data around performance. Go out and observe people while they’re working — no amount of theorising can replace seeing the real thing.

This is where you may find some glaring discrepancies between what management says they want, and what is actually happening in people’s day-to-day jobs. Just make it clear to employees that you’re purely gathering information to help improve and personalise training — not evaluating them, or conducting surveillance.

If you have data available, you can use it to help you get quantitative insights and bolster your analysis. Try the following data collection methods:

Then, measure the results against KPIs and create data visualisations.

Person level

Now you can see that there’s a gap between where you are, and where you need to be. This stage of the analysis process asks: Where does the gap come from?

The cause of the gap may well be clear: a lack of knowledge, skills, or abilities. Or it may turn out to be caused by something else altogether. 

Factors that can influence performance:

In the end, a properly executed TNA asks if training is truly the right tool for the job. Will training achieve the desired outcome? Or do you need a non-training solution? 

Only suggest a training solution if the gap is caused by a lack of knowledge and skills.

If a training solution is the answer, prioritise training by impact on strategic goals — in other words, the return on investment (ROI) of each kind of training.

1. Look at the data you’ve analysed in steps 2, 3 and 4. 

2. Which skills would have the biggest impact on the big-picture goals? If you’re not sure how to measure this, try rating on a simple scale of 1-5.

3. Where are the biggest average skills gaps?

4. Combine the impact and skills gap ratings to come up with the most urgent skills across the company.

When it comes to making training recommendations, you can take a broad or a narrow focus. There is also a range of delivery methods available. Each approach suits a different kind of skills gap.

Ask: can this be taught internally? For instance, with skill-sharing workshops or collaborative learning?

If not: Look into a learning experience platform that can integrate with targeted short courses or micro-credentials, potentially delivered through flexible eLearning, aiming to teach a specific skill.

This learning approach is more likely to take the form of a larger blended learning program, and combine eLearning and on-site, face to face training.

Technical staff members may require communication training for providing feedback to external stakeholders. Production workers may need regular safety training to meet industry standards. New managers may need leadership training and coaching to adapt to their new role.

A best-practice training needs analysis starts with impact and works backwards. It centres on strategic goals rather than competence analysis. It makes effective use of data while valuing the perspectives of the people who do the work.

Conducting a training needs analysis is certainly worthwhile, but it can also be a lengthy, involved process. Depending on your organisation, it could be worth outsourcing. Training providers can partner with your department to conduct a training needs analysis and deliver customised training.