If training needs assessments are so beneficial, why are so few companies performing them?

We’re undergoing a massive shift in the way organizations think about training and development. As companies race to find skilled labor, retrain their workforces and develop corporate cultures that foster better employee retention, talent development has become a top priority for many organizations. In fact, according to PWC’s Business Leadership in the World in 2018:

“CEOs are investing in continuous learning initiatives to reduce employee churn and provide development paths for employees to add skills.”

To respond quickly to these evolving business needs, L&D departments are increasingly opting out of formal training needs assessments. In fact, according to an ATD article published last month, only 56% of organizations conduct training needs assessments prior to developing course materials and training initiatives.

“When working on learning and development projects, many professionals immediately race to create course materials and roll out initiatives without upfront analysis of what is driving the need or how to ensure results. They often operate in an “order taker” mode, relying on information from the requester about content, learner needs, the duration of training, and project completion deadlines.” – Needs Assessment Obstacles to Avoid

If these training needs assessments are so beneficial, why are only 56% of companies performing them?

Because, let’s face it, they’re time consuming and expensive.

With tight timelines and even tighter budgets, many organizations simply don’t have/prioritize the resources to conduct such exhaustive analysis. No matter how informative it might be. Could it be that we just don’t need them?

Not so fast.

Building training without a needs assessment is a little like driving your car with no idea where you’re going. Bottom line: In order to maximize our training efforts and develop effective, fully-functional training, L&D needs to understand what their people know and where the gaps are. They need a faster, cheaper way to diagnose the training that needs to take place within their organization.

 

Training Needs Assessment in a Snap

Fulcrum’s Snapshot offers a simplified alternative to the conventional training needs assessment. This new product allows L&D departments to take a “snapshot” of their workforce’s knowledge – pinpointing the depth and degree of what each employee knows down to a single competency or skill. Using Snapshot, L&D departments can:

• Assess current training initiatives and learner mastery of core competencies
• Identify and target critical content and curriculum gaps
• Remediate knowledge gaps, enhance skills and improve accuracy of knowledge application
• Evaluate the impact of current learning systems against L&D strategic objectives
• Establish future efficacy benchmarks
• Collect performance data that will increase executive buy-in and validate training initiatives

The product is easy to deploy and delivers deep, quantifiable learning insights quickly, without taxing your budget. L&D departments can simply create assessments (using a range of Bloom’s) or pull assessments from their existing bank (making sure they have a mix of assessments). Upload the assessments into the Fulcrum Snapshot platform, and the system does the rest.

Then they’ll make their way through what is typically a 5-20 minute diagnostic. Snapshot’s AI and machine learning feeds the most appropriate assessment to determine the depth and degree to which each learner has mastered the material. Here Snapshot verifies application-level mastery, identifies “all-star” learners and predicts those who are at risk of not applying the skills on the job.

Interested in how Fulcrum’s Snapshot tool can help your organization build more efficient, effective training solutions with solid business impact? Contact us directly with questions or set up a quick demo of Fulcrum Snapshot.