Figure 5-1.
TRAINING DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL REVIEW
3. List below any additional training that you or your employees require. Please list in order of need (the most needed first, and so on).
4. List below any training requirements you believe will develop within the next year.
5. List below any other areas in which training can be of assis- tance to you and your employees.
Although the questionnaire is presented as an annual review, the same questions can form the basis for a first-time question- naire. The questionnaire can be sent to all management at the same time of year, or it can be sent to different groups, locations, or divisions at varying times.
The questionnaire requests information on:
1. How well existing training courses are meeting manage- ment’s requirements
2. Employees who may have individual training needs
3. Additional training that may be required
4. Training requirements that are projected for the near future 5. Other areas that training can assist
Question One—Satisfaction with Existing Training
Responses to the first question indicate how well existing training courses are perceived as meeting management’s needs. They quickly identify where there are concerns or dissatisfaction as well as what training courses are fully meeting requirements. In addition, they communicate information that can assist in improv- ing existing training courses.
If management is not satisfied with any existing training course, that requires immediate attention. It may be that the needs for such training have changed, and the training course re- quires revision. On the other hand, you may discover the training is not being delivered as designed. Whatever the case, discovering the reasons for management not being satisfied becomes your first priority. You do not want to be conducting incorrect or un- necessary training.
At the very least, such inputs should be followed up with a meeting, as soon as possible, to obtain more detailed information.
In the 1960s, a New York utility began a training course on how to install and weld steel pipe. All employees promoted to pipe installer were required to take the one-week course.
In 1996, the classroom, which was basically a welding work- shop, was completely updated at considerable expense.
However, the company had discontinued using welded pipe a decade earlier. Its pipe installers were no longer required to weld steel pipe—something the training department did not discover until 2000.
Question Two—Individual Employees
Question two is designed to discover whether or not the super- visor believes he/she has employees with individual training requirements. The supervisor, through performance reviews, ob-
servation, employee initiation, or organizational planning, may have identified these requirements.
Generally, the responses to this question do not provide much more than names for further investigation.
Questions Three, Four, and Five—Future Training Needs Questions one and two deal with current training requirements.
Their responses demand your immediate attention. Questions three, four, and five indicate future training needs and other ser- vices that training may provide. These responses are important but usually do not require immediate action. Responses to these three questions should be considered in the order of the ques- tions.
Responses to question three (additional training require- ments) can reflect both department training needs and individual employee training needs. They may identify the need for new courses and employees who are being considered for other posi- tions or who have stated career objectives.
In reviewing responses to this question, the order of impor- tance is vital. A new training course may demand immediate ac- tion while training to assist with a career objective may not.
Question four projects future training needs within the next year. Due to the short time frame, additional information about any described training should be quickly obtained.
Question five is a general question designed to obtain informa- tion on how else the training function can assist a department.
Sometimes the responses will focus on areas that fall outside of the training department’s area of accountability, however, valu- able suggestions are often made that can improve training’s effec- tiveness.
One thing about these last three questions: Managers generally are very specific in their responses to questions one and two, but with these questions responses can sometimes become a wish list. At other times responses may appear as something to write rather than a real need. At other times, responses may appear to be an attempt to provide some type of an answer to the questions rather than the identification of a real training need.
Performance Survey
Another often-used approach is to annually survey managers re- garding the training needs of their employees as identified through performance reviews. These surveys are usually distrib- uted at the time annual employee performance reviews are con- ducted. As mentioned earlier, in some organizations such a report is required to be submitted to the training department by all su- pervisors and managers at the completion of their employee per- formance reviews. Such a report form appears in Figure 5-2.
The upper portion of the form is for recording employees with performance gaps—measured gaps between actual performance and desired performance. The lower portion of the form is to re- cord employees who might have training needs other than those required to close performance gaps. In both cases, the urgency of providing such training is requested.
When forms are received from a number of supervisors and managers at the same time, the inputs for the two areas can be combined and then ranked by priority. Generally, you will want to deal with the performance gaps first.
Training Review Analysis
If you have only surveyed one or two supervisors, you can imme- diately move ahead to determine what type of training needs in- vestigation is required. However, if the questionnaires were sent to a number of supervisors and managers, combining their re- sponses and prioritizing is a next step.
If you used the annual training review questionnaire (Figure 5-1) or a similar survey, begin by listing training courses men- tioned in responses to question one that were rated a one—not satisfied. As you are doing this, you may discover more than one supervisor or manager mentioned the same course. If that occurs, indicate next to the course title the number of supervisors men- tioning it and their individual ratings. If they all rate it as a one, the course is apparently not meeting anyone’s objectives. However, at times, the same course may be given different ratings by different
Figure 5-2.