Training needs analysis helps Sun to shine

When Sun Life Financial decided to implement Oracle Financials to help its accounting and finance employees, it commissioned a six-week training needs analysis (TNA) to facilitate the development of appropriate training materials.

According to Vivek Achary, of Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), which carried out the process, TNA is “a structured and quantified analysis of organizational training gaps and the identification of the most appropriate remedial measures. It is a cyclical process, not a stand-alone event. In keeping with the ‘perpetual beta’ principle, one TNA cycle feeds into the next, setting in motion a process of continual organizational improvement.”

While TNA should be part of organizational best practices, the following are signs that indicate a need for training intervention:

• a fall in workforce productivity – poor morale, accidents, absenteeism or disharmony;

• poor sales or an increase in negative customer feedback; and

• attrition, vendor issues and poor performance relative to the marketplace.

“For Sun Life Financial, the TNA began with a planning phase to understand the stakeholders’ expectations from the TNA team, the vision for training and the way forward,” explained Vivek Achary. “During this phase, TIS broke down the various tasks and processes involved in needs analysis and defined the timeframe for completing each activity.”

The subsequent steps in the TNA cycle were:

Deciding the type of TNA required. The six types of TNA are:

• 1.

  context analysis, which involves looking at the business needs or other training drivers;

• 2.

  user analysis, which is an analysis of the potential participants and instructors;

• 3.

  work analysis, which examines the tasks being performed;

• 4.

  content analysis, or looking at documents, laws and procedures used on the job;

• 5.

  training suitability analysis, or seeing whether training is the optimal solution; and

• 6.

  cost-benefit analysis, which involves analysis of the return on investment(ROI) of training.

In the case of Sun Life Financial, the TNA was work analysis, derived from the key training objectives.

• Sample selection and data collection. Having identified the main sources for data collection, the data required to complete the exercise and the methods of collecting the data, TIS staff held one-to-one interviews with Sun Life’s business process leaders to map the processes to different user groups and to the Oracle application components. The team held group meetings with the organization change management (OCM) team to familiarise TIS analysts with Sun Life’s learning culture and its receptiveness to e-learning.

• Data analysis and report generation. TIS conducted a detailed analysis of the data collected, which enabled the team to: map the various user groups to the user profiles created in the Oracle environment; recommend a modular course structure; map course modules to user profiles and groups; define the learning objectives of each course; recommend delivery modes for each course– both web-based and instructor-led training; calculate the approximate learning time for each course; define a structure for the development of training materials; and define an approximate schedule for the delivery of training.

According to TIS, the effort spent in conducting a TNA can bring impressive benefits in terms of producing highly targeted, and thus highly efficient, training materials. These can bring rapid improvements in productivity and thus help to achieve business goals in as short a time as possible.