How to identify employee training and development needs
Regular training and development for all members of staff should be an integral part of your business culture. It helps you stay ahead of your competitors by keeping up with the latest developments in your sector. It’s good for staff retention, because employees can progress their skills and boost career development. It’ll help you attract top talent, as people want to work for businesses that care about their ongoing development. And, since it can improve job satisfaction, it’s likely to score points in the employee wellbeing department.
But, you need to offer training that’s actually going to have tangible benefits for both parties.
Our latest article looks at how to identify employee training and development needs in your organisation:
Decide what you’re trying to achieve
As a company you will have clear goals on what you want to achieve so it would pay to develop your training and development plans in line with these objectives so you can decide where to spend your training time and budget. Whatever your goals may be, having the entire C-suite onboard, skilled up and ready to move towards these goals will inevitably help when it comes to figuring out which areas need strengthening with extra training.
Set clear expectations for each job role
To identify employee training and development needs, you must first set clear expectations for each role within your business. This creates a benchmark that allows both parties to monitor performance against.
Review job descriptions when new positions are created, or when making substantial changes to existing roles. Doing this makes it easier to understand what skills an employee needs if they are to be successful in each role, and in turn, it will help you identify skills gaps and potential training and development needs.
Monitor employee performance
Measuring your employee’s performance should be a way in which you support employees rather than use it to penalise them. Measuring performance in a positive way can be a valuable tool in identifying development opportunities.
Set clear goals for employees and respond to performance nose-dives on an individual basis. Understanding why performance is on a downward turn puts you in a better position to respond positively and offer the appropriate training.
Conversely, if an employee continuously always goes that extra mile, you could work with them to set more challenging goals to stretch their abilities and empower them.
Check in with your employees
Employee feedback on the areas that they feel they could benefit from developing in, can be a valuable addition to your training and development plan.
Alongside employee surveys, use focused employee evaluation to encourage honest and open feedback. This will create helpful dialogue about career development and progression and help you identify specific employee training requirements.
You don’t need to set up special meetings, simple one-to-one meetings can offer perfect space for open conversations and honest feedback and help both parties align on the same page.
One simple way to do this is to ask employees to rate their job satisfaction and performance and then ask them what could be done to improve the scores. Also ask employees to comment on your current training and development programme to understand whether it supports their career goals.
Don’t restrict your business to individual level feedback, ask managers for feedback on employees and compare that with employee self-evaluation to identify differences. It is equally useful to ask for employee feedback on managers to identify any clogged cogs in your well-oiled machine.
Use personal development plans
Letting employees lead their own personal development can have a profound effect on their motivation and their engagement in your business. It empowers them to take responsibility of their career, and lets them know their progression is respected. This will subsequently filter down into the hard work they do for your company, so it’s a win-win all round.
Well-managed personal development plans, that are employee-lead, improves communication and helps identify new training and development needs as your company grows.
For more information how to identify your workplace training and development needs contact our expert HR team – Hertfordshire’s leading HR consultancy, bringing your business the benefits, protection, and experience of an entire HR department.