Chapter 7 Orientation and Training

Needs Assessment

A needs assessment (sometimes called a needs analysis) is the process of identifying gaps between desired and actual worker or organizational performance. During this process, HR practitioners also decide which gaps can be addressed by training and how to prioritize them. The needs assessment process is fairly straightforward and set out in Figure 7.2. HR practitioners first identify a concern, usually a gap between the desired performance and the actual performance. Concerns are often identified through routine monitoring of worker or organizational performance (e.g., increasing defect rate, loss of revenue, growing worker discord). At other times, concerns surface as a result of specific events, such as the allegations of racism in the opening vignette or a regulatory change.

Once a concern is identified, it is often useful to discuss it with those affected by or knowledgeable about it. Internal stakeholders can include workers, supervisors, and managers, and external stakeholders can include customers, clients, or regulators. This discussion can help to flesh out the nature of the performance gap as well as its potential organizational consequences. Discussing a concern with stakeholders can also be an important way to generate support within the organization for the eventual training intervention. At this point, an organization can sometimes conclude either that the concern is not worth addressing (e.g., the cost of training would exceed the value realized by improved performance) or that training would not be an appropriate intervention.

If an organization decides to proceed with the needs assessment, then it collects three different kinds of information to understand or flesh out the problem further. An organizational analysis examines an organization’s strategy, environment, resources, and context to determine whether or not training is needed to help the organization achieve its goals. Training should be aligned with and help to advance an organization’s business strategy and goals. Environmental factors (e.g., competitors, market or technological changes, economic factors, regulatory changes) can affect the need for and utility of training. Organizational resources (i.e., time, money, internal expertise, political will) shape an organization’s ability to design and deliver training. Finally, the organizational context, such as the attitudes and norms of workers and managers, can profoundly affect workers’ willingness to engage in training and apply it on the job.

A task analysis examines the job tasks and conditions under which they are performed to determine which knowledge, skills, or abilities are required to perform a job effectively. Ideally, an organization will have up-to-date job descriptions and specifications that can be used to consider the importance, frequency, and difficulty of each task that a worker must do. This analysis of tasks can identify and prioritize topics to address in training and can be supplemented through discussion with knowledgeable informants or other members. Table 7.1 provides a list of needs assessment techniques. Obtaining feedback on a task analysis can also be a way to generate support for the eventual training intervention.

A person analysis identifies who needs to be trained. It requires studying who performs tasks related to the performance issue and how well their actual performance matches the desired performance. This entails identifying desired performance, assessing the gap between it and actual performance, and identifying barriers that the worker encounters in trying to meet desired performance. Considering the barriers to performance can help HR practitioners to understand whether training is an appropriate response (e.g., when there is a knowledge or skill gap) or whether some other intervention might be more effective, such as redesigning the job or the reward structure, supplying needed tools or equipment, or discipline or dismissal.

The outcome of a needs assessment is information that lets an organization plan an effective training program. For example, such an assessment identifies which performance gaps exist and how they might be resolved through training. It identifies where in an organization training is required, what kind of training is needed, and who requires the training. Finally, it provides the information required for an HR practitioner to write training objectives and to develop techniques to assess whether the training was effective. Typically, training is the best solution when the following conditions are met.

• • The task is difficult and performed frequently.
• • Correct performance is critical to meeting organizational goals.
• • Performance expectations are clear, with an appropriate reward structure.
• • The employee does not know how to do the work.
• • Other solutions (e.g., coaching, discipline) are not effective and/or are not cost effective.7

Organizations can be reluctant to conduct a needs assessment given the cost, both in time and in money. Sometimes problems can be (or appear to be) so pressing that immediate action might be required. For example, organizational leaders might respond to bad publicity about a sexual harassment complaint by mandating organization-wide training, even though the problem might be resolved more effectively through the discipline process (see Chapter 9). If organizational leaders have already diagnosed the problem(s) and prescribed solution(s), then they might be reluctant to have their decisions questioned and possibly overturned. When circumstances prevent a full needs assessment, an expedited assessment focused on identifying training objectives can still be better than nothing.

Designing Training Programs

Designing a training program generally begins with the development of one or more training objectives. The objectives shape the training content and methods likely to be the most appropriate. A training objective specifies what workers are expected to be able to do after the training is over. Training objectives are typically derived from the needs analysis and have three components.

• • Performance: What behaviour will the worker display after training?
• • Circumstances: Which tools will workers use, and under what time constraints and conditions will they be expected to display the behaviour?
• • Criterion: What is the acceptable level of performance?

Table 7.2 contains some examples of training objectives. They are broken down into three parts to illustrate each component.

The workers displaying the behaviour can be a category of workers (e.g., all front-line staff) or persons performing a specific job task (e.g., anyone operating a vehicle). It is often worthwhile considering how and when an organization will evaluate whether or not a worker is meeting the criterion. Sometimes testing is effective (e.g., keyboarding), whereas other times observation on the job is more practical (e.g., speed of controlling bleeding). If mastering the behaviour can take some practice, then it might make sense to delay evaluation to allow for practice. If there is concern that the worker might stop demonstrating the behaviour over time, then periodic testing or observation might be appropriate. Training booster sessions can also be used.

Once training objectives have been established, HR practitioners must identify the specific training content that workers must learn in order to meet the objectives. This is often expressed as an answer to the question “what is to be learned?” The needs assessment can offer useful guidance in identifying specific KSAs that must be taught. Other sources of information, such as job descriptions or specifications or equipment manuals, can identify a particular performance and level of skill required. These sources, in turn, help HR practitioners to determine the training content required.

Determining that content can help HR practitioners to grapple with the question of whether to develop training in-house or purchase training from external providers. Purchasing training can include acquiring access to existing classroom or online training (e.g., courses provided by a local college) or contracting with a provider to develop and/or deliver on-site training. Organizations might choose to outsource training to reduce the cost and time required to develop training as well as to access expertise and resources not available in-house. The advantages of in-house training include greater control of the content (e.g., using organizational terminology and values), a lower long-term cost (because the organization owns the training materials), and trainers who have a better understanding of the audience and the organizational context.

Once the training content has been identified, HR practitioners must select the method(s) by which they will deliver it. Table 7.3 summarizes common training delivery methods. Some methods can be delivered on- or off-site, whereas others might require access to specific equipment. It is common to use more than one training method to deliver material to maximize learning and retention.

The most important consideration in selecting a training method is its alignment with the training objective and content. For example, if an organization wants workers to apply specific manual skills to their jobs, then the method of delivery likely needs to include an opportunity for workers physically to practice and master those skills. In this case, hands-on training or a simulation might be more effective than watching a video of someone else perform the skill. That said, a video might be an effective way to impart basic information at the start of training on what workers will be able to do by the end of training. Other factors that can help us to decide which method of delivery is most appropriate or practical include the following.

• • Cost: The organizational resources (time and money) available and the expected return on investment (see below) place limits on the methods that can be selected.
• • Trainer preference: Trainers might have clear preferences for and/or limited repertoires of training techniques, which can shape the methods that they can use.
• • Trainee preference: Workers might also have clear preferences for how training is conducted. Workers’ skills and abilities can also shape which methods are viable.

Trainee characteristics might also be important to consider when selecting who should participate in training. Sometimes trainees might already possess some of the KSAs that the training seeks to impart. In these cases, it is possible to truncate (or enrich) the training. Other times adults might not have the foundational skills (e.g., literacy or numeracy) required to be successful in the training and can benefit from preparatory work first. Assessing trainee readiness is one way to enhance the success of training. Organizations can also provide slightly different training to different categories of workers. For example, in a large organization, workers might receive training different from that of supervisors.

An important consideration in selecting a training method is that workers tend to learn more quickly and retain training longer if they have an opportunity to use the training content as part of the training.8 This approach is called active practice and makes a certain amount of sense if we think back, for example, to our own experiences learning to drive a car. It is certainly possible to explain how to drive in a classroom lecture (a good way to start). But the opportunity to practice driving is essential to understanding how to apply that knowledge and for application of that knowledge to become habitual and automatic. Feature Box 7.3 outlines 10 ways that training can be organized to improve its effectiveness.

Delivering Training

Once training objectives and methods have been determined, the next step is to develop a lesson plan. A lesson is a cohesive unit of instruction with specific training objectives. A lesson plan outlines the sequence of events that will take place during the lesson. Developing a lesson plan is an opportunity both to nail down all of the details of the training and to work through how each event in the training contributes to achieving the training objective and is related to the other events. Typically, a lesson plan will include

• • the training objective(s);
• • when and where the training will take place;
• • any materials, equipment, or supplies required; and
• • an outline of events with an approximate time allocation for each event.

Achieving a training objective often requires several events to occur. For example, it might be necessary to introduce some concepts (short lecture), consider how they might be relevant to the training objective (group discussion), show trainees how to apply the concepts (demonstration), and then allow the trainees to practice applying the concepts (role playing and feedback). When reviewing the lesson plan, it can be useful to apply Robert Gagne’s checklist of nine events of instruction that help learning to take place.

1. 1. Gain trainees’ attention by telling them why the training matters.
2. 2. Describe the objectives of the training so they can relate it to their jobs.
3. 3. Stimulate recall of prior knowledge to help trainees integrate training.
4. 4. Present the material to be learned.
5. 5. Provide trainees with guidance about how best to learn the material.
6. 6. Give trainees the opportunity to practice with the training content.
7. 7. Provide informative feedback to improve trainees’ performance.
8. 8. Assess trainees’ performance to see if training objectives have been met.
9. 9. Assist in transferring training to the workplace.9

The last two instructional events (assessing performance and training transfer) are discussed below.

Evaluating Training

Organizations spend a significant amount of money providing training. Not surprisingly, an organization might want to know the outcome of the training. Some organizations also might want to know whether the benefits of the training outweigh the costs of providing it. In this section, we discuss training evaluation—the process of assessing the outcome of training for workers and organizations.

There are different approaches to evaluating training. An organization can collect data to improve training or to assess the value or outcome of training. Evaluations can also be descriptive (i.e., have trainees learned the material?) or causal (i.e., did the training cause a change in behaviour?). Organizations can also collect data on trainees’ perceptions, changes in their KSAs, the rate at which training is applied on the job, or the effect of the training on organizational outcomes.

The decision-based evaluation model asserts that evaluators should select which aspects of training to measure and how to measure outcomes based on the purpose for which they will use the results.11 This requires training evaluators to know why they are conducting an evaluation. For example, if the purpose of training is to justify the expenditure on training in terms of organizational outcomes, then there is little sense in measuring trainees’ reactions. Conversely, measuring the application of training on the job might be of little interest if we’re focused on determining whether specific instructional methods result in an improvement in trainees’ KSAs. This knowledge helps evaluators to select what to measure and how to measure it. Decision-based evaluation also suggests that evaluators understand the barriers to evaluation (see Feature Box 7.5), which can pose practical constraints on what is possible.

A number of different variables can be measured when evaluating a training program.

• • Reactions: Trainees’ opinions on facilitation, training techniques, materials, course structure, assessment process, and utility of training can be measured to guide changes to future training sessions. Reactions are often measured with questionnaires.
• • Learning: What trainees learned in training can be measured using a pre-test and a post-test, with the difference in KSAs being attributed to the training.
• • Behaviour: Changes in an individual’s behaviour can be measured through self-reports, observing trainees on the job, or monitoring work behaviour (e.g., absenteeism or defect rates).
• • Results: These are measures of the impact of training on organizational performance. They can include tracking changes in cost, production, quality, and speed. As noted in Feature Box 7.5, given the many factors that can affect these indicators, it is important to be cautious about inferring causality (i.e., that training caused the changes). It might be necessary to adopt more complex data collection designs to control for other factors. It might also be worthwhile to measure changes over time to see whether the effect of training persists.

If an organization wants to calculate the return on investment (ROI) in training, then it needs to determine the monetary cost of the training as well as the value of its results. Training costs can include

• • direct costs, such as the trainer’s salary, equipment rentals, material costs, catering and travel costs;
• • indirect costs, such as a portion of the administrative costs of running a training function;
• • developmental costs associated with creating or purchasing the training content; and
• • trainee-related costs, such as the costs of wages that must be paid when staff are training.

Calculating the financial benefits of training can be trickier. It can be hard to quantify reductions in costs or increases in revenues directly caused by the training. And sometimes the value of a benefit is in dispute, so someone has to decide what number to use. This can reduce the validity of the estimate of benefits. Assuming that an organization has satisfactory estimates of training costs and benefits, it can calculate the ROI using this formula:

If the ROI is greater than 1, then there was a net benefit from the training. That is because, for every dollar spent, the organization yielded some amount greater than one dollar in return. If the ROI is less than 1, then there was no net benefit from the training. Some benefit might have been provided, but it was outweighed by the costs. In calculating an ROI, it is important to remember that there can also be non-monetary benefits to training, such as improved morale or greater staff retention, which are difficult to quantify and that ROI is only one metric for evaluating the effectiveness of training.

Training Transfer

Training transfer is the application of KSAs acquired during training on the job over time. It is important to pay attention to training transfer because not every trainee will necessarily apply the training when they return to their normal duties. There are numerous barriers to training transfer, including lack of opportunity to use new skills and limited support for doing so. Training transfer can be maximized by ensuring that workers have immediate and frequent opportunities to apply their training and support from their supervisors to do so. If workers are reluctant to apply their training, then an organization might develop a performance-management plan (see Chapter 9) that identifies expected behaviours or outcomes and periodically assesses them.

Training transfer can also diminish over time. This can reflect workers who forget training or fall back into old routines. It can also be a function of organizational factors (e.g., workload or lack of support) pressuring workers to adopt different behaviour (e.g., taking shortcuts). Where a relapse reflects workers who forget what they learned, booster training or the addition of performance aids can address the problem. If there are structural pressures that cause workers not to use their training, then identifying and remedying them are likely to be more effective in ensuring training transfer than is attempting to alter the workers’ behaviour and requiring retraining.

Orientation

A common form of training that most workers experience is orientation. It familiarizes new workers with their duties, organizational expectations and processes, and co-workers. The organizational purpose of an orientation is to minimize the time that it takes for a worker to begin making a contribution, to inculcate organization-specific knowledge and values, to comply with regulatory requirements (e.g., telling workers about workplace hazards and controls), and to ensure that the organizational investment made to hire the employee is not lost because of attrition.13

Orientations can take different forms. They can be formal and standardized. They often include

• • an introduction to co-workers;
• • an outline of expectations regarding attendance, comportment, and dress;
• • an explanation of job duties, standards, and how the worker will be evaluated;
• • a discussion of compensation, benefits, and other HR-related matters;
• • a health-and-safety orientation; and
• • an overview of the organization, its purposes, and its key activities.

Orientations can also be protracted. For example, they can involve a series of events over the first few days, weeks, and months of employment, timed to provide new workers with information as it becomes important and needed. Orientations can also be very informal, with a supervisor or co-worker making introductions, showing a new employee the ropes, and answering questions.

When an organization does not provide new workers with an orientation, they will still learn about their jobs and the organization. The risk here is that what workers might learn can be undesirable from the perspective of the organization. There is no way, of course, for an organization to prevent workers from learning whatever they wish. After all, they have both agency and an interest in getting the lay of the land (e.g., How long is a coffee break? Whom should I never be alone with in a room? Is anyone actually checking when I come and go?). But providing an orientation is an important way for an organization to shape how new employees see their work and their roles.

Recently, some organizations have developed onboarding processes. Onboarding is a systematic effort to socialize employees so that they integrate more fully into and identify with the organization to reduce attrition. Onboarding can include pre-arrival information to help new workers understand their work and workplace and to answer basic questions. This can include brief introductions to co-workers, tours of the workplace, or a pre-arrival mentoring program. Upon an employee’s arrival, onboarding can include a personalized welcome, with a workspace ready for the employee, a planned orientation, and someone designated to address questions.14 The research on onboarding suggests that the most significant increases in organizational commitment and job satisfaction are associated with onboarding activities that allow new workers to develop formal and informal relationships within the organization.15 Sometimes, though, what organizations call onboarding is simply a trendy renaming of traditional orientation activities.

Career Development

Some organizations use systematic training to develop the skills of existing workers in order to shape their development in a specific way. This approach to employee development can be part of an organization’s HR strategy (see Chapter 4) and be designed to meet expected labour demand through internal recruiting and succession planning (see Chapter 5). Career development efforts can be formal or informal arrangements. For example, in a smaller organization, a manager might identify a high-performing worker for additional training and mentoring to ready that worker for an expected vacancy. A larger organization might have clearly developed hierarchies of jobs that workers can expect to progress through as their KSAs become broader and/or deeper. This progression of jobs can create a career path within an organization. A career path can include lateral moves within an organization designed to broaden a worker’s experience by exposing that worker to different organizational areas or functions as well as to assist them in developing a network of relationships throughout the organization. It can also include vertical moves upward as a worker earns promotions.

As noted in Chapter 1, there has been an increase in precarious employment in Canada over time. In thinking about the impact of growing employment precarity on organizations’ willingness to invest in career development, it is useful to remember that not every worker experiences increasing precarity. Rather, growing precarity often masks the development of a dual labour market, in which some workers continue to have well-paying, secure work with benefits. The wages and working conditions of those workers with “good jobs” might be subsidized by workers with “bad jobs” (i.e., low wages, no benefits, high insecurity). Organizations can still see value in providing career development for workers in the primary labour market, on whom organizations might rely for leadership and stability. Organizations, however, might be less inclined to invest in workers in the secondary labour market because they do not expect to recoup the costs of training workers whom they expect to be in the organization for a short time.

Conclusion

The purpose of training is to improve organizational performance. Training does this by enabling workers to behave differently. This includes developing their KSAs and assisting them to change their behaviours. Training is most effective when some sort of knowledge or skills gap is an important factor in whatever is degrading organizational performance. If other factors are (also) at work, then training might not be the best or sole way to address the performance issue. Solving complex problems can require an organization to re-examine how work is designed (Chapter 3), how staff are hired (Chapters 5 and 6), and how performance is managed (Chapter 9).

Think again of the opening vignette and the racism identified in the Calgary Fire Department, which has provided staff with inclusivity and active bystander training, in which firefighters are taught to take action in the face of behaviour that jeopardizes the health and safety of their colleagues. This approach frames racism as a result of ignorance (rather than malice), usually among workers, and assumes that the issue can be remedied via education. A group of active and retired firefighters publicly called for the department to offer a more comprehensive response that includes

• • public acknowledgement of the existence and severity of the toxic workplace culture;
• • a public inquiry into job-related suicides;
• • recognition of PTSD caused by workplace abuse;
• • an independent investigation of workplace abuses;
• • a revised process of promotion;
• • representative hiring and promotion committees;
• • anti-racism training delivered by experts with lived experiences;
• • a zero-tolerance standard for racism, bullying, harassment, assault, or toxic behaviour in the workplace; and
• • official recognition of BIPOC and female trailblazers.

This list of actions reflects the belief that training can be a part of an organizational response to a problem but, on its own, might be insufficient. The reaction from the Calgary Fire Department to the group’s recommendations reflects that organizations often make trade-offs when considering how to respond. “In fairness, some of those are things we’re already doing,” Fire Chief Steve Dongworth said. “But we will take a close look at those nine recommendations. Where they’re practical and aligned with our approach, we’ll move those forward.”16

Although it is not clear what the Calgary Fire Department considers when it assesses whether a recommendation is practical and aligned with its approach, it is possible to make some guesses. The costs of adopting recommendations are likely a factor. There can be direct costs associated with providing independent investigations or recognizing trailblazing firefighters. But likely there are also indirect costs. They can include reputational costs if investigations of racism and work-related suicide reveal further racism that, in turn, can cause increased turnover among existing staff and difficulty recruiting new staff. Altering processes of hiring and promoting can also require ceding power to traditionally marginalized groups, which can be organizationally complicated and fraught.

The point of this analysis is that training, though often presented as a technical process (see Figures 7.1 and 7.2), is also a deeply political one. Someone (usually the employer) selects who gets what training. When the training is done, that person can compel the trainees to exhibit the desired behaviours and, if desired, attach rewards or penalties to those behaviours. And, as demonstrated by the opening vignette, training can be used to defuse demands for deeper structural change by framing outcomes as the products of workers.