RightTools™: Learning Needs Assessment - Applied Assessment Platform™
The people process is more important than either the strategy or operations processes. After all, it’s the people of an organization who make judgments about how markets are changing, create strategies based on those judgments, and translate the strategies into operational realities. To put it simply and starkly: If you don’t get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business.
- Larry Bossidy
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
RightHands Resources Provides A Strategic Approach to People Development
The Learning Needs Assessment Tool That Points You Toward
Performance:
Every important business decision requires research and evaluation: yet the process of assessing the skills and knowledge of our workforce is frequently overshadowed by the zeal to implement solutions. A needs assessment is the first and most essential step to driving organizational performance through people development.
The Applied Assessment Platform™ is:
- A learning needs assessment that is customized for your organization—there are no generic questions
- A live assessment tool that can be accessed and leveraged for organizational initiatives
- A tool that evolves with the learning needs of the organization, (organizations can input and update data, reassess learner populations and gather additional analysis for all training and business initiatives)
- An electronically based application housed on a secure server*
* Assessment can also be delivered as a paper based application
A Fundamental Assessment Tool That Will Provide the Foundation For All Training Initiatives
The RightHands Resources Applied Assessment Platform™ Will Do The Following:
- Determine what is needed organizationally with respect to training and
development - Identify gaps in skills and knowledge, (technical and business/interpersonal skills)
- Identify the learning solutions or processes that will address the learning gaps
- Identify the learning solutions that will most impact performance and growth
- Establish learning goals and objectives for planning and structure processes
- Align learning goals with the organization’s mission, business, and performance objectives
- Determine the prioritization, sequencing and implementation of learning solutions
- Provide a platform for alignment, uniformity and consistency with respect to training and people development
- Provide a cost gap analysis of proposed training and establish cost-efficient processes that strategically address organizational learning needs
- Recommend methods to leverage the value of training investments to address the cross-functional needs across the organization
- Provide an assessment tool that can be accessed for ongoing training and organizational initiatives
Take a Deep Dive—Understand the Barriers to Performance and Growth
The RightHands Resources Applied Assessment Platform™ provides a much deeper dive into the organization’s needs and performance drivers. The assessment questions are developed from in depth interviews and are customized for the organization, industry, business culture, and actual work experiences of the learners and managers. In many organizations a learning needs assessment begins and ends with a questionnaire or survey.
RightHands Resources offers a more rigorous approach to understanding and interpreting learning gaps and guiding training efforts to drive future performance.
Interpreting the Assessment Results
The RightHands Resources Applied Assessment Platform™ does not rely on generic textbook questions and automated interpretation of assessment results. The assessment format and information gathering methods are customized to reflect the organization’s work practices, goals, and culture.
The value of the RightHands Resources process is not only in the comprehension and rigor, but also in the objectivity and customization.
Developing a Training Plan
A learning needs assessment should help organizations develop appropriate training plans that will align with business objectives and performance expectations. The Applied Assessment Platform™ helps organizations integrate assessment conclusions into plans for learning and development. This strategic approach ensures training dollars are a strategic investment into the right learning solutions.
An Assessment Platform That Evolves With Training Objectives
The Applied Assessment Platform™ is designed to:
- Uncover organizational needs at the deepest and most fundamental level
- Determine not only performance and learning gaps but also causative factors and barriers to growth
- Strategically weigh the cost of a proposed learning solution after results have been interpreted
- Provide recommendations for training opportunities that can be measured (training evaluation levels 1-5) for efficacy and linked to performance
The assessment package includes:
- A customized assessment platform
- Assessment interpretation and consultation
- Stakeholder and participant correspondence
- In depth person-to-person interviews
- Focus group validation
- An electronic format on a secure server
- Live assessment hosting and ongoing review and evaluation
- Expert statistical analysis
- Expert metrics and measurements review
Should You Conduct Your Own Needs Assessment
Some organizations will choose to conduct their own needs assessment. RightHands Resources can work with you to design your assessment tool. However, an internally administered needs assessment carries certain risks—there is value to working with an external resource partner.
It is extremely difficult for organizations to administer and interpret organizational needs assessments objectively—the assessors are usually too close to the process. Solution implementation tends to override assessment interpretation and the value of the assessment process gets lost in the shuffle. Also, administering a comprehensive, rigorous needs assessment is a resource intensive process—the most valuable resource being time.
Learning Needs Assessment: Top Ten Goals
A Good Baseline Learning Needs Assessment Should:
- Provide a baseline assessment and evaluation of the current learning environment and the current learner status
- Identify the skill and knowledge gaps that can impede performance and
organizational growth - Determine the prioritization, sequencing and implementation of learning solutions
- Determine the cost and value of learning solutions and provide the basis for strategic training investments
- Separate training "needs" from training "wants"
- Determine who actually needs the training
- Separate training issues from performance or process issues
- Determine the roles of training, management, and/or human resources in providing resources or solutions
- Set the standard for instructional design and training or business metrics
- Provide a statistical and rigorous methodology for capitalizing on the
organization’s most valuable resource—people!
