Training Needs Assessment: Find the Right Fix Before Assigning a Course

A request comes back incomplete. A handoff goes to the wrong person. A manager suggests refresher training. Before adding another course to the calendar, find out what prevented the work from going well.

A training needs assessment helps you decide whether a knowledge or skill gap contributes to the problem. CDC's needs-assessment guidance recommends investigating the gap before selecting a solution and considering changes to processes, technology or the work environment. Its guidance was developed for public-health training; the practical conversation below is an OdyHR editorial adaptation for everyday operations.

This guide offers general process advice. Required training, qualifications and authorization to perform specific work need separate review by the responsible subject owner.

Describe one piece of work that needs to improve

Choose a task narrow enough to examine. “The team needs better communication” leaves too much open. “The receiving team cannot tell which customer requests need a same-day response” gives you something concrete to investigate.

Write a short starting note with three parts:

• Expected result: What should the person produce or decide?
• Observed result: What happened in the work you reviewed?
• Open question: What do you still need to understand?

Keep explanations separate from observations. A returned request shows that something was missing. It does not establish whether the employee misunderstood the instruction, used an outdated form or lacked the information needed to finish it.

Use recent, relevant work that the reviewer is authorized to see. Avoid building a broad employee dossier to answer a narrow operational question.

Walk through the task with the person doing it

Ask the employee to explain their starting point, the instructions they use and the decisions they make. Where appropriate, use a fictional or sanitized example so the discussion can focus on the process.

Try these prompts:

• Where would you find the current instructions?
• Which step requires a judgment call?
• What information must arrive from someone else?
• What happens when that information is missing?
• Can you complete the intended action with the access and tools you have?

Listen for differences between the written process and the way work actually arrives. Record unanswered questions without turning them into assumptions about effort or attitude. If the manager's own instructions are inconsistent, resolve those before asking the employee to memorize them.

A fictional example the missing delivery date

Imagine a purchasing coordinator whose requests repeatedly come back without a delivery date. The manager's first idea is to repeat the purchasing orientation.

During a walkthrough, the coordinator correctly explains where the date belongs and how to submit the form. The difficulty appears earlier: the requesting team sends “as soon as possible,” while the form requires a calendar date. Nobody has agreed who chooses it.

The manager records three decisions. The requesting team will supply the needed date. The process owner will add an instruction for requests with no date. The coordinator will practice returning an incomplete request using that instruction.

Only the last action is a learning activity. The first two resolve responsibility and process design. Assigning the original orientation again would leave those questions unanswered.

Now change the example. Suppose the date is available and the instructions are clear, but the coordinator cannot locate the field in the new form. A short demonstration followed by a practice request may be appropriate. The different cause leads to a different response.

These scenarios are fictional illustrations, not customer results or proof that a particular intervention will succeed.

Record the response as a small test

Use a short decision record: the observed gap, the evidence reviewed, the proposed action, its owner and the next check. If several causes are involved, give each its own action. An access fix should remain visible even while someone completes a walkthrough.

For learning, describe the intended work in concrete terms. “Prepare a complete sample request using the current procedure” is easier to check than “understand purchasing.” Have the responsible subject owner approve the activity and what will count as a satisfactory demonstration.

Choose the follow-up around an actual opportunity to use the process. Review what happened, ask what remains difficult and adjust the response. Finishing an activity is useful information, but the original work problem still needs a check.

Add confirmed learning to the training matrix

Once the team has agreed that learning is part of the response, put the assignment into the employee training matrix. Use its existing Excel download to record the topic, owner, due date and completion evidence alongside your approved process.

Keep the diagnostic note available to the people responsible for follow-up. That gives the next conversation a useful starting point: what you observed, what you changed and what you still need to verify.