5 ways to map employee training needs
Anyone who works in training and development knows how challenging it is to offer courses that truly engage employees. After all, it is the involvement of people that will guarantee the absorption of knowledge and its application in the company's routine.
However, for each individual to understand everything that is transmitted and act in accordance with what they have learned, the experience of a course as a whole needs to generate value and identification.
This means that, before thinking about the format and content of a corporate course, it is essential to map the needs of the internal audience.
Knowing in depth the profile of professionals and teams will ensure the development of courses that are always compliant, avoiding rework and unnecessary efforts on the part of the T&D team.
Check out this post for five ways to map out who your audience is, their needs, the best ways to learn and apply them later to benefit the company's results.
- Who is the target audience
Quit creating courses left and right just because gut feeling. It's a big mistake made by many T&D professionals. Of course, corporate experience counts, but there is nothing better than knowing who a course will actually be taught to.
Conducting individual interviews with team members, in addition to managers, is a good tip. This way, you will understand what the needs, desires, desires, behaviors, questions, objectives and goals of that group of people are.
Skipping this step is a shot in the foot, as everything that comes later in the development of a course will depend on immersion in the target audience.
- What skills and competencies need to be developed
As the focus of any course or training is to improve employees' performance, you will need to identify gaps in skills and competencies, whether technical or behavioral.
This is where the training needs assessment process, or LNT, comes in. Instead of standardizing the application of a course for all members of a team, you, as a knowledge manager, will know what the main gaps are in the company, whether by position, function or department in which people work.
Surveys, focus groups, and self-assessments work very well in the LNT process.
- What will be the best resources for the public
Online, in-person or blended learning (mixed between the first two)? By surveying the students' profile, it is possible to understand which modality may work best. Also consider the availability of company investments and even physical and IT structure for their application.
Technology is also on the agenda. If an e-learning course is implemented, with hundreds of employees, for example, is it guaranteed that everyone has access to the internet and will be able to follow the course from end to end?
And if the course is in person, can all professionals always be present? Imagine a sales team, in the field all the time, with meetings. Perhaps, for this type of audience, an online and flexible course would be more worthwhile.
- What types of content to offer
Another important item is knowing your audience’s preferences in relation to content. Does gamification work? Is more videos and less reading better? Will knowledge pills be more effective than dense courses? Questions like these need to be raised.
You must ensure that the content taught is delivering the learning objectives. In this sense, understanding public behavior is extremely important.
Imagine a group of millennial employees only receiving text content. Most likely, it is not what will engage them the most. Therefore, carefully map out the behavioral issues that will benefit the application of what has been learned.
- How will they apply learning in their routine?
Being responsible for knowledge management also means visualizing how and when the target audience will be able to execute what was learned in a course.
In this assessment of the needs of the internal public, take into account how a professional will actually improve his performance, how a team will evolve and, of course, what the company's macro fruits will be in terms of results and improvement in KPIs.
Think about it: will what you want to teach make a difference in the work of these employees? You need to put yourself in the students’ shoes.
Once you know your target audience in depth, you will make better decisions.
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