Traning and Development Assessment

Training Needs Assessment

Training Needs Assessment

Global Auto Processing Services (GAPS) began in 1998 operating within the U.S. Naval facility Port Hueheme, California as a vehicle processing company (GAPS, 2011). The Montgomery, Alabama facility that is a tier 2 supplier to KIA Automotive Manufacturing Association will be the focal point of the training needs assessment. GAPS believe their team members are the greatest asset. The leadership recognizes their team members are the ones responsible for their customer's satisfaction (GAPS, 2011). While GAPS focus is on enhancing and recognizing the capabilities of their employee's achievements, they lack an effective training and development program that would transform GAPS from an ordinary vehicle processing organization into a High Performance Organization.

Training Needs Assessment

A needs assessment is the procedure of collecting information regarding an articulated or implied organizational need that may possibly be met by conducting training. The need can be an objective to increase current performance or to improve an insufficiency (Miller & Oninski, 1996). At this time GAPS lacks an effective vehicle driver training and development program. The rationale of a needs assessment is to respond to the familiar questions: why, who, how, what and when (Noe, 2010). The reason why you conduct training is to attach the performance insufficiency to a business need. The benefits of conducting the training should be greater than the troubles being caused by the performance insufficiency. Conducting a feasibility analysis is one way to answer this question (Miller et al, 1996). Employees that should be involved in the training are those employees who can solve the deficiency. Conducting a target population analysis is a great way to determine as much as feasible about those involved with the deficiency. This will allow you to customize a training curriculum to capture their interest (Miller et al, 1996). By conducting a performance analysis you can identify what skill deficiency is to be fixed by a training remedy or suggest other remediation if training is not appropriate. The "what" of the needs assessment is to determine the best way to perform a task to get the best results (Miller et al, 1996). Conducting a task analysis to identify the best way to perform. If training should take place what is the best timing to deliver training because attendance at training can be impacted by business cycles, holidays, and so forth. Conducting a contextual analysis to answer logistics questions is a good place to start (Miller et al, 1996). When a new employee begins their first day at GAPS, they are usually just whisked away by their supervisor with minimal vehicle training. GAPS is a vehicle-processing center for KIA vehicles; it is important these vehicles stay in pristine condition until delivered to the dealership. This training needs assessment will analysis organizational, task, and personal needs to determine if GAPS needs to pursue a training intervention. The data received from the needs assessment allows the training manager to set the training objectives by answering two questions: who and what training is needed. Training is not always the solution (Noe, 2010) Organizational Needs Organizational analysis looks at the effectiveness of the organization and determines where training is needed and under what conditions it will be conducted (Noe, 2010). The objectives of this survey is to (Miller et al, 1996) :

* Determine environmental impacts and impact on operating costs.

* Examine changing work force demographics and technology.

* Evaluate organizational goals, resources available and training support.

The information required to conduct an organizational analysis can be obtained from a variety of sources including organizational goals, mission statements, and strategic plans. A training manager can turn to skills inventory, labor/management relationships, grievances, turnover rates, absenteeism, suggestions, productivity, accidents, observations, attitude surveys, customer complaints as other areas of the organization to glean information from an organizational perspective (Miller et al, 1996) Task Need Task analysis provides data about the knowledge, skills, attitudes and abilities needed to achieve optimum performance for a particular job (Noe, 2010). There is a variety of sources for collecting data for a task analysis such as Job description, KSAO'S analysis, Performance standards, Observation, Job inventory questionnaire, Interviews and Analysis of operating problem (Miller et al, 1996). Personal Needs Personal needs analysis involves determining whether performance deficiencies result from a lack of knowledge, skill, or ability (Noe, 2010). From a personal viewpoint, the training manager can examine if motivation or work-design is a problem, identify who might need training, and determine the employees' readiness