Training needs

No modern organisation can function well without providing continuous vocational training for its collaborators. The success of an organisation depends on investment in the level of training of its collaborators. There is no established procedure to determine actual training needs and then take the necessary measures. The future of the organisation must nevertheless be ensured by suitable training of the staff. It is therefore a priority task of the management to investigate the training needs of the collaborators and address them with appropriate measures.

The following aspects should help the responsible individuals for vocational training in the organisation to efficiently derive with minimum effort some essential clues on necessary decisions.

The identification of the training needs

  • must concentrate on the skills necessary in and for the organisation in a certain period of time
  • must include creative, methodical, social and communicative skills besides the technical requirements
  • must start out with the existing individual levels of qualification of the employees and include persons personally affected in the process in the analysis of needs and the choice of training measures.

The following steps for the definition of the concrete and personally related training needs are suggested:

  1. Analysis of the workplace with regard to its complex present and future qualification requirements (technical, creative-methodical, social-communicative) within the chosen time frame.
  2. Analysis of the level of qualification of the employee in this workplace, if necessary based on a personnel survey.
  3. Comparison between the necessary and the individually available qualifications of the present occupier of the workplace.
  4. Making decisions under consideration of longer-term personnel planning for the respective workplace and the individual prospects of the employee concerned (age, motivation for training, intellectual prerequisites, individual project of life, etc.). These decisions do not have to be connected with training consequences for the employee concerned. They can also lead to the acceptance of the employee without training or to a necessary reshuffle of workplaces.

Essential basic positions for understanding the chosen approach  and using the suggested checklists:

  • A training measure as a consequence of a personnel survey and an analysis of needs always presupposes a concrete analysis, since subsequent financial resources (particularly in small and micro enterprises) must be deployed effectively.
  • Within training measures targeting a person it is particularly recommended to start out with the strengths and interests, if necessary also making available new and innovative workplaces with a change of perspective. The collaborators then has a personal perspective within the enterprise and a valid motivation to train.
  • Although an organisation is more keenly interested in workplace related training and aims for operationally relevant additional qualifications, advanced vocational training must also be taken into account in the long-term in order to safeguard the middle management structure. Individual operational career planning has many advantages, since mutual familiarisation times and probationary periods as a rule do not appear. The disadvantage often lies in the lack of the necessary external impetus.