Training Needs Assessment in Americares

Conducting a training needs assessment with a focus on the following: 

1) What stakeholders would you want to make sure to get buy-in from?

Americares is a global health nonprofit organization that aims to save lives and improve people's health in vulnerable communities. Its principal activities are to respond to emergency situations caused by natural disasters, war, and health epidemics. The emergency response may lead to a long-term recovery program that may lead to the creation of an organizational country presence. To conduct an organizational country-level training program improving specific health capacities within a community, stakeholders involved would be the top-level leadership team, the country directors, key employees occupying the roles in which the training would be implemented for or by, employees managers, finance headquarters team, technical unit experts or SMEs, and other headquarter roles that directly work with the country offices. It will be beneficial to have local community representatives at the level of the government participate in a training needs assessment phase.

2.) What questions would you ask (and to whom would you address them) during the organizational, person, and task analysis phases?

An organizational analysis seeks to understand the organizational context (Noe, 2015). To the leadership team, questions assessing whether the training would meet the organizational objectives and strategic goals would be asked. The finance and other country directors would need to answer whether there is enough budget to cover the training for their teams and determine what environment is required for successful training, checking for available equipment and resources. The training participants would need to determine whether the training aligns with their professional development and if they can access the training.

The person analysis focuses on who needs training. Organizational leaders must determine what employees need to know and do to accomplish organizational goals.  Employee managers and technical experts will answer questions about who needs to be trained, and trainees will also answer questions about whether training is relevant to them and whether they want to be trained. Trainers must also answer questions about how best trainees will be identified for training. 

The task analysis phase will ask leadership questions about whether the organization has the necessary skills and capacity to perform highly and deliver on the organizational goals. Managers and country directors will need to assess what roles training will have the most significant impact in ensuring that the job’s requirements are met. The trainer will also answer what tasks the employees should be trained in.

3.) What documents or records might you ask to see?

• The strategic goals of the organization, 
• Any benchmarked training data from the industry for required or needed skills 
• Performance assessment records and or professional improvement plans.
• Have a recorded interview with identified trainees.
• Other survey records or observatory notes obtained from observing trainees perform their roles.

4.) What techniques would you employ (see Table 3.2 on page 124 of the Noe text), and why?

 It may be preferable to have the training built within the organization by a team of technical experts in collaboration with stakeholders. This will also help in aligning the training with organizational goals. The training will be developed considering the learning environment, what kind of resources are available, and the literacy capacity of the learners. It will also enable a practical definition of what indicators would track and measure the transfer of learning. Building the training in-house also allows for easily modifying content or design.

Reference.

Noe, R. (2019). Employee Training & Development (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781260140279