Needs Assessment Templates to Guide Your Learning Solutions
You can operate on hearsay when it comes to understanding the training needs of your organization – but hard data is always better. That’s where training needs analysis comes into play.
By standardizing the way you understand the skills gaps in your organization and the training needed to fill them, you can prioritize learning solutions that have the most potential to impact the employee experience and the bottom line of the business.
What is a training needs analysis?
A training needs analysis (or training needs assessment) is the process of identifying the skills or knowledge your employees, and your organization at large, need to succeed. Training needs analysis is usually undertaken by learning and development teams in partnership with management and partners throughout the business.
The result is typically skills assessments and training needs analyses for individual employees which can then be rolled up into an overall skills gap analysis for the organization.
Conducting a training needs assessment is a critically important process for L&D departments. It helps to inform learning strategies and training initiative prioritization so the team can focus their resources on learning solutions that are of the most importance and benefit to the organization.
Why use a template for training needs assessment?
There’s a lot of organization, data gathering, and analysis that goes into training needs analysis. Whether you’re conducting analysis on the training needs of an individual or the whole organization (or both) a template can help to keep you on track.
The type of template you use depends entirely on your organization and how you prefer to work. So we’ve gathered five different types of needs assessment templates including PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, and complete toolkits.
5 training needs analysis templates to download now
1. Free training needs assessment template from Cognota
Here at Cognota, we’ve developed a training needs analysis PDF that includes links to download further documents that you can customize to your needs. It Includes a stakeholder survey template, employee survey template, and guidance on using the data gathered to conduct a skills gap analysis to inform your learning strategy. With this training needs analysis template, you’ll be able to:
- Align with stakeholders to identify and diagnose performance issues
- Understand the goals and challenges stakeholders are facing
- Gain insight into the employee perspective and their training needs
- Discover critical skills and knowledge gaps
- Conduct a gap analysis to identify appropriate training solutions
Cognota also provides a centralized training intake portal to receive all requests in one place, prioritize them, and collects data to provide training intake insights for data-driven decision making. Try it out for free or speak with sales to learn more.
2. Individual needs analysis outline from SHRM
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has created a template form for your employees to define their existing skills and their competency levels in each one. This type of needs assessment is very useful for the design phase of training development, so you can ensure the learning objectives of your course are aligned with the existing skill level of the learner.
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3. Excel training needs assessment from skillshub
If you prefer to work in spreadsheets, this template from skillshub enables you to evaluate the skills levels of individual employees while combining the data in one place for an overall needs assessment.
The template is already formatted to help you identify which skills you should focus on in your learning and development strategy. It’s particularly useful for conducting a training needs assessment for individual teams or functions in the business.
4. Training needs assessment toolkit from Training Folks
This needs analysis comes as a complete toolkit, so you get a checklist, tools for data gathering, and guidance on the six phases of training needs assessment. The idea is that the toolkit walks you through each phase of needs analysis from competency assessments to strategic org-wide analysis. It might be overkill for simple needs assessments, but it’s a great tool for those who are just getting started and are looking for a predefined process to follow.
5. Training needs analysis PDF from 360Learning
While you won’t find a template here for individual needs assessments, fillable word documents, or customizable spreadsheets, this handy one-page PDF from 360Learning provides insight and guidance into how you can conduct an effective and useful needs analysis.
The checklist-style process guides you through building organizational support for your needs assessment, right through to measuring the business impact of your learning solutions after the fact.
Needs analysis software for training teams
Without the right technology in place, even the most organized L&D team quickly find themselves shuffling through emails and multiple spreadsheets to conduct and maintain a thorough training needs assessment.
With Cognota, you can manage your entire training intake process in one place, including the creation of training request forms that allow you to conduct a training needs analysis from the first point of contact with your business partners. See for yourself with a 14 day free trial or contact sales for a personalized demo.
