Imagine you’re going to buy a new car.
But the address you were given took you to the corporate headquarters, instead of the location of the dealership with the actual vehicles.
You arrive at the correct location, but all the doors are locked, the lights are off, and no one is answering the phone.
You’re inside the dealership and the types of cars you’re seeing are drastically different from the types of cars you expected to see.
You come across a car that you like, but the keys are nowhere to be found.
Imagine you’re finally inside the vehicle and the brake pedal is missing, there aren’t any knobs on the radio, and there’s no steering wheel.
At the end of it all, you have a car, but it’s definitely not what you’d envisioned when you woke up that morning.
This may sound like the worst version of “Murphy’s Law”—a spiraling situation that no one has any control over. And while no one would ever willingly put themselves in a situation like that, it mirrors many of the pitfalls seen by corporate trainers. Trainers can be given an address to the wrong location. Training rooms or even entire buildings can be locked minutes before trainings are scheduled to begin. Basic equipment like projectors or laptops can be missing, employees can arrive lacking vital information or worse leave without vital information. Attendees can arrive to the wrong location, wrong training or can choose not to arrive at all.
Obviously, not every training delves into a state of chaos though. So, what separates a “good training” from a “chaotic training?” Is there some secret that helps trainings go smoothly? Put simply, yes.
Through the creation of a Training Needs Analysis, a tool that allows clients to have a plan that is targeted and effective, not only will you be on your way to a successful initial training, you may prevent the need for remedial training.
Continue reading for a guide to developing your own Training Needs Analysis.
Step 1: Develop an Organizational Profile
Who are your employees? What can they currently do? What are the steps for tackling that task? Will their tasks be changing as your systems change, and what will be the steps for tackling those new tasks? It’s crucial to understand the current state of your organization before any changes can be made.
Parsing employee-related tasks and which employees complete these tasks will also begin to give you a basic roadmap to ensuring that the right people are trained on the right material. It will also allow you to recognize any organizational redundancies before transitioning into a new system increasing the chances that you’ll become more efficient as a result of the change. Be cautious of separating people based only on their titular role though. Be cognizant of employees who branch out and cover multiple bases; regardless of which category an employee falls into, you don’t have to worry about whether someone will be missing crucial information when you have an appropriate workforce profile. When an employee has just sat through hours of training and you ask if the training session will be useful in helping the employee to tackle their responsibilities—the answer should be yes.
Step 2: Identify Possible Compliance Issues
After you identify your workforce, it’s a good idea to verify that the skills that need to be taught are compliant with your current policies. Compliance has variables ranging from a variety of levels—federal regulations, state regulations, industry-specific regulations, brand regulations, and personal restrictions. Ensure that those regulations and restrictions are clearly documented so it’s easy to communicate what they are across any training stakeholders. The last thing you’d want is to train someone on a topic only to discover that something you taught them, they cannot legally do.
Acknowledging compliance issues early helps cut some of the fat of unnecessary training—potentially eliminating the need to discuss certain topics. Spending some time recording these rules and regulations upfront saves employees from being trained on topics that they should not and will not be completing.
Step 3: Audit Existing Materials
You are about to overhaul a system, shift your organizational culture, and potentially completely alter people’s tasks, one size does not fit all in this scenario. It’s time to develop a training curriculum that will work within those factors. You will spend a majority of your time developing this stage. It’s important to know that training materials do not only include the agendas that will be used and any additional documents you will need to print (although those are incredibly important to consider as well). It will include re-evaluating existing trainings materials and adjusting them to fit the needs of your specific organizational needs.
Some questions that may need to be asked during this stage include both large and small aspects of the training: How many people will need to attend multiple trainings? Do you have enough space to hold all of the people who need training, or will you have to look into additional space to train? Who will give access to these training locations? Will every employee have a computer provided, or will they need to bring their own? What about computer chargers? Will you need extension cords or HDMI cords or other cords?
Don’t be afraid to allow follow-up questions to build upon your responses. Why spend the time completing steps one and two if your training is just going to be a boilerplate template that you hope works for your specific organization?
Step 4: Looking Ahead
Track everything. The most effective way to know what worked and what didn’t during a transition like this is to keep a record of activity. Knowing who attended what training and completed what task will make it easier to see if your trainings and training plans were valuable. Many organizations operate under the impression that because they’ve done something one way before, that’s still the best way to complete that task. A consultant might think that because something worked for one client, it should work for another. This is a mistake.
The first three steps involve taking a look at the current state of your organization and building a plan from there. The changes you make moving forward with a training plan should operate in the same way. By tracking different training outcomes, through attendance, through a post-training survey, through a task-completion test, you give yourself the data to be able to adjust training techniques or steps that aren’t measuring in expected way. If these factors are overlooked, it can cause frustrations or mistakes that aren’t easily resolved. Using data to back up recommendations helps to ensure that what might be “recommended” doesn’t overshadow what will be best fit for your specific organization.
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Good trainings don’t just happen. They won’t fall into place. They must be molded like clay by taking the right people and putting them in the right locations to receive the right information in the right method. Using the steps above as guidance will assist you in moving in the right direction for your specific organization, so when it comes down to the actual training you’ve set yourself up for success. This is not a process you should be going through alone. The earlier all stakeholders are brought onto a project, the more likely the correct information will reach the correct people. Now that you know the secret sauce to a successful training, here’s to the shifts you’ll see in your organization as it weathers new changes. Expert facilitators on the athenahealth team would love to help your organization develop your own Training Needs Analysis. Reach out to your Customer Success Manager to gain a point of contact or contact us at athenahealth.com.