When an organization determines they have a problem, they often call in training to fix it (Stolovtich, Keeps, 2004). Before a training professional develops training, it is important to conduct a needs assessment. The needs assessment helps to determine if the problem is a training-related problem or non training-related problem (Noe, 2010). By making this determination before training is development, it can save an organization time and resources. The needs assessment includes an organizational analysis, task analysis and person analysis. This applies to any organization. For instance, if we were to complete a needs assessment for the Men’s Wearhouse, we would cover these areas as follows:

Organizational Analysis

The organizational analysis aids in determining if the organization is ready for training and if training is supported based on the company’s structure, history, technology, culture, leadership, and managers through interviews, observations and reviewing pertinent literature (Noe, 2010). In the case of the Men’s Wearhouse, this was founded in the 1970’s by, George Zimmer, a man who wanted to bring custom suits to the masses at affordable prices (Men’s Wearhouse, 2012). This vision blossomed and as the business grew, the founder treated employees as family and because of this and their commitment to bringing people in on the ground floor and helping them build a career, they were included in the Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work (PR Newswire, 2012). Company literature states that they are an “employee-centered” culture and “…Company's success is our commitment to promote employee growth through extensive and ongoing training programs” (Men’s Wearhouse, 2012).

As a patriarchal company that treats their employees as family, it would be important during a needs analysis to take plenty of time to first get the buy-in of the patriarch and then the “family” members at various levels of the organization.

Task Analysis

The task analysis determines the requirements needed to perform any given job. Task analyses focus on knowledge, behaviors, abilities and skills necessary to successfully perform the job. (Noe 2010). To determine what these requirements a training designer could review existing job descriptions or a complete a job tasks analysis. For Men’s Wearhouse, if a job description is not available, conducting a qualitative job analysis would identify the needs of the job through observations which would help to determine if the stated culture is as pervasive at it seems; and include interviews. The interviews would help to determine if employee growth is occurring through the existing training programs.

Person Analysis

The person analysis is also known as the individual analysis and focuses on identifying performance issues for workers already doing the job and whether they are caused by lack of knowledge, skills, behaviors , motivation, work-design and if they are ready for training (Noe, 2010). To gather the information required for the person analysis could include interviews and observations of managers and workers on the job; reviewing performance documentation or conducting surveys.

At the Men’s Wearhouse, it would be possible to use some of the findings from the Task Analysis by incorporate specific person-centered questions.


References

Employee-centered culture. (2012). Men’s Wearhouse. Retrieved from http://www.menswearhouse.com

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

PR Newswire. (2012). Men’s wearhouse name on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” List. Retrieved from http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2012/01/19/CL38237

Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2004). Training ain’t performance. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Truth about training in 90 seconds

To get to get to the truth, it helps to be familiar with the myths. Some myths about training have included the belief that if workers learn it they’ll use it on the job, if people learn more they will perform better, and telling is training (Hannum, 2009). These are just a few of the training myths out there.

With these myths in mind, recall a time when you attended a training session and walked away feeling good about what you learned and ready to apply it. When you return to work, you find the information covered during training was interesting, but you are unable to put it to use. All learners eventually stray away from using the new information and return to the familiar. Why does this happen? A couple of reasons, first, learners are human beings with limits to their information handling and storage limitations (Stolovitch, Keeps, 2011). So, lecturing or providing procedural information in a one way format will not take advantage of the other senses and learning channels, like visual, kinesthetic. Applying those and making the learning more interactive and demonstrative with plenty of opportunities to practice and share, transition to long term memory. Second, the ability to use what is trained lies in not just the ability of the learner to retain the information, but also in the company’s ability to provide the environment and support to utilize the knowledge. Finally, a lot of information can be delivered during training, but without thought to how it is grouped together to make the most of relationships and in chunks that can be processed by the learners, the less the learner will retain.

In summary, training is a tool, like a computer, or a calculator; and like any other tool, it has to be used correctly to maximize results.

References

Bahlis, J. (2006). Maximizing training impact by aligning learning with business goals. SALT 2006 New Learning Technology Conference. Retrieved from http://www.bnhexpertsoft.com/english/resources/salt06.pdf

Hannum, W. (2009). Training myths: false beliefs that limit training efficiency and effectiveness, part 1. Performance Improvement, Vol 48, No. 6. DOI: 10.1002/pfi.20084

Hannum W. (2009). Training myths: false beliefs that limit training efficiency and effectiveness, part 2. Performance Improvement, Vol 48, No. 2. DOI: 10.1002/pfi.20051

Stolovitch, H, Keeps, E. (2011). Telling ain’t training, 2nd edition. ASTD Press.