An assessment of the skill and knowledge gaps in your business with help you to identify vital training needs.  The assessment can be made  through questionnaires, interviews, observation or any type of available research.

To assess your business needs consider:

• Where do you want your business to go?
• What potential business areas can benefit from training?
• What does the business want to achieve from investing in training?
• How much time, equipment, money and other resources do you want or need to allocate to training?
• What do you expect will be the level of staff involvement in training?

Ask key leaders or managers in your organisation what goals and objectives they must accomplish this year, and how training could assist them. For example, if you need to reduce production costs, targeted training can improve production processes by decreasing re-work or rejection of defective products.

See our business case helper.

Get feedback from your employees by asking:

• What areas of the business could be improved, eg. processes, customer relations or technology?
• In which areas can individual supervisors could improve performance?
• What are the skills that are vital to the output of the business and who has them?

Research your industry

If you can, find out what other organisations are doing with training and then benchmark your training plan against their experiences.

Find benchmark statistics, such as the cost of production for a similar product. These statistics can form targets for your business as a result of training.

Formal records of any previous training that your business has conducted including induction programs can help in the review of training needs and ensure that future training is relevant.

Where to get more information and assistance

Contact the training authority in your state or territory - they will be able to suggest a training provider or specialist consultant who can carry out a training analysis.

Training organisations can offer advice on courses that are relevant to your business and will inform you of the costs involved. Industry training advisory bodies can also provide training advice that is relevant to your industry.