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.
Alice,
ReplyDeleteYou made a very good point that spending the time up front to do a needs assessment for training will save the organization time and resources in the long run. Since the success of the Men's Wearhouse is based on their commitment to an "employee centered cultured" and promoting growth through extensive and ongoing training; what documentation would you want to review to determining if this is occurring? Besides the managers who else might you want to survey and interview during the organizational analysis?
Even if a job description is available doing a survey and interviews of employees and managers would help to verify if a gap exists between training and needed skills. Who else besides the employees and managers would you want to survey and/or interview during the task analysis phase. Would there be any value in interviewing or surveying customers and suppliers? What about during the Person analysis phase? What other documentation besides performance reviews would you want to look at?
Mike