Before we determine that a training need exist and choose a training method, it is important to determine what type of training is necessary and whether trainees are willing to learn (Noe, 2010) This will be determined through a process known as needs assessments.
To complete this week’s blog post about how to perform needs assessment plan I have chosen Halliburton organization which is one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the energy industry.With nearly 70,000 employees in approximately 80 countries, the company serves the upstream oil and gas industry throughout the lifecycle of the reservoir – from locating hydrocarbons and managing geological data, to drilling and formation evaluation, well construction and completion, and optimizing production through the life of the field ( Halliburton, 2011).
Halliburton management in one of the countries decided to initiate an ambitious nationalization program by doubling the number of local employees through hiring around 300 engineer of different specialities with different levels of experience.
The company needed to prepare a well designed training program in order to cover the knowledge and skills required for each job duties as well as the troubleshooting procedures to ensure that the newly hired engineers will be competent to meet the high level demands of the company services. A needs assessment was necessary to determine what type of training is required and how the trainees will be handled. Needs assessment typically involves organizational analysis, person analysis, and task analysis.
Getting the buy-in from the organization stakeholders as well as involving them in the needs assessment is very important to identify the role of training in relation to the company’s business strategy and the human resource practices in the company, and how the training may affect the attainment of financial goals for the different product-line services (Noe, 2010). The stakeholders in our process will be the Area vice president, the Business development manager, the country Product-lines service managers, the departments managers, supervisors and coordinators, the training manager, the instructors and SME’s , as well as the trainees.
The organization analysis will focus on identifying how the training program will be aligned the company strategic direction, what do we need from the managers, peers, and employees for this training to succeed, what organizational resources should be devoted to this program, do we have enough experts to help in developing this program content while understanding the business needs, will the trainees perceive the training program as an Opportunity, what might the customer need to know about the training program. As time is an important concern within the company fast past operating environment, the answers would be collected from a combination of short interviews, instructors and individuals focus groups meetings,along with already available data that are collected for other purposes such as inventory sheets, daily reports, and operation meetings records ( Noe, 2010).
Person Analysis focuses on identifying whether there is evidence that training is the solution, who needs training, and wether the trainees are ready for training, do they have the prerequisite skills, attitudes and beliefs needed to ensure they will master the content of training programs. It is important during this process to evaluate the person characteristics, input, output, consequences and feedback. Competency Model approach will be of great help as it is already used by the company to identify personal capabilities, including knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and personal characteristics ( Noe, 2010). The training staff and direct supervisors will have enough time to collect all the required information about the new employees during the orientation period ( sixty days) by using face to face interviews, observation, questionnaires, hands on practices and written tests.
Task analysis involves identifying the different tasks and the training that new employees will require in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities, this will be based on their distribution within the different company’s product-lines. The references for different required tasks will be mainly based on Halliburton Management System, that is very well established and includes a wide range all the tasks for each job category / family.
The analysis phase is considered to be the building block for designing the training program, It defines the program objectives, contents, needs, methods, development phases, how to deliver the learning and ways to measure its success.
References
Halliburton, (2011). Corporate Profile. Retrieved on March 8, 2012 from http://www.halliburton.com/AboutUs/default.aspx?navid=966&pageid=2458
Halliburton, (2011). Carriers website images. Retrieved on March 8, 2012 from http://www.halliburton.com/public/careers/pubsdata/related_docs/EVP_brochure_final.pdf
Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2011). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
