So, you’ve taken the time to assess your group’s organizational training needs. This is something you as a leader must do on a regular basis, as leadership is all about directing people through organizational learning as they adapt to your guidance. As a leader, this is a hallmark of your skill and plying your craft. Well, the final step in a training needs analysis is the identification of specific training requirements to fulfill the identified needs, that is, transferring needs to objectives.
Organizational Training Needs – Transferring Needs to Objectives
Training objectives serve two main purposes, the first being that define the exact knowledge that will be transferred during the training, and it answers the “how” question as well, i.e. in a successful training session. Training objectives are the keys to a successful training . If developed properly, they are both specific and measurable, and will tell employers what they want their employees to do, to do better, or to stop doing.. It’s important that the objectives you set should be measurable, so be able to determine the effectiveness of the training after it is completed.
Objectives
Ok – let’s look at how to determine our training objectives. Well, there’s no clear science to this, but a good first step is looking once more at the strengths and weaknesses of your team. Find out exactly how they can work together, with guidance and cooperation, to achieve specific goals under various situations. With this information, you should be able to look at your needs and figure out how to divide the needs into smaller unites that combine to make a whole.Once you have these smaller units, you can make them goal points, markers of accomplishment and training, vis a vis a set of objectives. But, within each of these should be smaller sets of objectives still. Objectives such as basic grasping of the material individually, objectives of unanimous understanding, and objectives of testing the current state of learning in practical application.This is a series of smaller tasks that makes approaching the whole much more manageable and far less difficult. When you unitize the needs and overall goal in this way, it is easier to keep metrics on what is and isn’t working with the training, and on the levels of progress being made. You can also easily work out how much time should be spent per unit on training and therefore how long the training overall should take.With these objectives clearly outlined, a proper strategy and model for organizational learning should be easy to work out and implement as well, since a series of discrete parts are easier to forecast and formulate around. The sum of the parts do make up a whole, but in the case of setting training objectives, having the sum of the parts to approach is often easier for planning and monitoring.It is not a requirement that training objectives be written down, but clear and measurable objectives should be thought out prior to the start of the training session(s). Specificity is important – setting a clear goal, within a specific task. The training objectives should also describe the important conditions under which the individual will demonstrate competence and desired performance levels should be spelled out quickly, and again, should be measurable.A good example of training objective would be as follows:“At the conclusion of the training, the customer service employee will be able to have an average resolution time in addressing customer requests within XX minutes”Or“At the conclusion of the training, the Salesforce employee should be able to input the lead account data within XX time period”
Conclusion
Finally, the training objectives should be shared between those conducting the training and the learners, so as best to strengthen communication and expectation. It will help the trainee focus on what the end goal is, ensuring a higher chance of success.So, as you see, when it comes to organizational training needs, assessment is a key point, but then you must, absolutely must, translate these needs into a series of small but significant objectives. Readers who want to learn more about organizational learning should read more here
Once you have these smaller units, you can make them goal points, markers of accomplishment and training, vis a vis a set of objectives. But, within each of these should be smaller sets of objectives still. Objectives such as basic grasping of the material individually, objectives of unanimous understanding, and objectives of testing the current state of learning in practical application. This is a series of smaller tasks that makes approaching the whole much more manageable and far less difficult. When you unitize the needs and overall goal in this way, it is easier to keep metrics on what is and isn’t working with the training, and on the levels of progress being made. You can also easily work out how much time should be spent per unit on training and therefore how long the training overall should take. With these objectives clearly outlined, a proper strategy and model for organizational learning should be easy to work out and implement as well, since a series of discrete parts are easier to forecast and formulate around. The sum of the parts do make up a whole, but in the case of setting training objectives, having the sum of the parts to approach is often easier for planning and monitoring. It is not a requirement that training objectives be written down, but clear and measurable objectives should be thought out prior to the start of the training session(s). Specificity is important – setting a clear goal, within a specific task. The training objectives should also describe the important conditions under which the individual will demonstrate competence and desired performance levels should be spelled out quickly, and again, should be measurable. A good example of training objective would be as follows: “At the conclusion of the training, the customer service employee will be able to have an average resolution time in addressing customer requests within XX minutes” Or “At the conclusion of the training, the Salesforce employee should be able to input the lead account data within XX time period”