Thursday, March 8, 2012

Planning for a Needs Assessment

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.

8 comments:

  1. Adel,

    This is a great post. You did a wonderful job talking about a company I only really know through negative media. "needs assessment is the first step in the instructional design process," (Noe, 2010) and you my friend are off to a great start!

    Dani

    Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Dani, I have been working with Halliburton for over thirty years so far, moving between different countries and serving different positions. Away from my definite loyalty, it is a great organization with unique professional repetition, however, you know how the public media is sometimes get shifted towards specific directions for one reason or another. I think Halliburton should put some more effort in this direction. I really appreciate your feedback. All the best.

      Adel

      Delete
  2. Adel;

    This is a wonderful post. I love the way your graphics actually (speak) to and are aligned with the information in your post. The questions you pose are excellent, including the Halibuton graphics. That graph showing the correlation between training, knowledge, skills and competentcies really helped to understand the point you were making. According to Morrison, et.al (2011)there is a general consensus that illustrated test is conducive to learning the related text information. Ientifing that your references will come from the Haliburton Management System is an excellent resource. Mentioning and knowing that your company uses the Competency Model is more proof of your wisdom. The methods you chose to use to collect data are also excellent since time is an important aspect of Halibuton's training. The illustration that says her training will take her anywhere in the "INDUSTRY" is a great example of motivation (Stolovitch and Keeps, 2011). The training will not only benefit employees in their roles at Haliburton, but anywhere they should to go in the industry. That is awesome, Adel. Lastly, I like that you actually mentioned the need to assess if training is necessary (Noe, 2010). I think many big companies just train to train whether it is needed or not in certain situations.

    References:

    Morrison, R. G., Ross, M. S., Kalman, K. H., & Kemp, E. J. (2011). Designing Effective Instruction (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

    Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

    Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2011). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Celia,

      Thank you so much for the through feedback, I really appreciate it and I’m glad that the posted images and graphics did send the message I really wanted.

      I have been with Halliburton for long time, as I mentioned on my response to Dani, and I realized from the organization culture that the employees are the real assets for such huge and diversified organization.

      Noe, 2010, stated “ the greater the strategic role of training, the more likely the company will organize the training function using the business-embedded or corporate university models. Both these models emphasize that training is used to help solve business problems” This is why, in order to be able to develop around 70,000 employees, the organization established Halliburton University in Houston, E-Learn & web based systems, and Knowledge Management system along with many training centers in different countries all around the world. Again, thank you so much for sharing the ideas.

      Reference

      Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill

      Delete
  3. Hi Adel,

    My only knowledge of Halliburton is from negative information in the press. Your post definitely put a positive spin on my limited view of the company. The plan for your needs assessment is well thought out and thorough. I like how the choices in your plan took into consideration the company's need for fast paced decisions.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Natasha,

    I appreciate your feedback, I'm glad that I"m helping to show the real image of Halliburton as a great organization. Please try to visit the company website to know more. All the best,

    Adel

    ReplyDelete
  5. Adel,
    I agree with Celia, great use of graphics in you presentation. Thank you for sharing the Halliburton website and the information on Halliburton University in Houston. You did a very good job selecting the potential stakeholders for this needs analysis. I like the fact that you are using various data collection techniques to triangulate your findings during the organizational analysis. Which stakeholders will you involve in the data collection in this phase? Great use of the Competency Model Approach to identify personal capabilities and skills. Also, good use of various data collection techniques to verify findings during this phase of the evaluation.

    You mentioned that the information for the task analysis would be based on the Halliburton Management System. Is there a way to verify the accuracy of the tasks defined for each job category/family? What questions could you ask trainers, engineers and SME during the task analysis phase? You did a very good job on your needs assessment plan.
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Dr. Burke,

    The tasks for each job category / family are identified by the company subject matter experts and job incumbents who have been performing such job for long time and all tasks are based on the actual job duties that should be executed according to the company operations and safety procedures. Tasks and execution procedures are regularly revised for accuracy and procedural updates by the company experts. Updates are usually appended to the system and all concerned personnel will be notified by email to immediately implement such updates.

    The questions that could be asked to trainers, engineers and SME’s during the task analysis should provide more information about the tasks such as: How frequently the task is performed? How much time is required to complete each task? How critical is the task for a successful job performance? How difficult the task is, and how long it will take to learn it? Is entry level employee is expected to perform such task? ( Noe, 2010).

    Reference
    Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill

    ReplyDelete