Chapter 3: Needs Assessment

Shop Vision Inc., a global retail store, plans to conduct needs assessment in the organization. As part of the process, Shop Vision asks employees to upload their suggestions and feedback on the company's internal portal. This method of needs assessment is referred to as _____.

Crowdsourcing

The practice of asking stakeholders to provide information for needs assessment is referred to as ____.

Crowdsourcing

The knowledge that is well documented, easily communicated, and easily transferred from person to person is referred to as _____.

Explicit Knowledge.

True or false: Consequences do not influence learning in training programs.

False Reason: This is false. Consequences affect learning in training programs. Incentive systems, such as providing gift cards redeemable for food, clothes, or movies or accumulating points that can be used toward paying for enrollment in future courses, may be useful for motivating some employees to attend and complete training courses.

True or false: If employees have the knowledge and skill to perform but input, output, consequences, or feedback is inadequate, training may be the best solution.

False Reason: This is false. If employees have the knowledge and skill to perform but input, output, consequences, or feedback is inadequate, training may not be the best solution. For example, if poor performance results from faulty equipment, training cannot solve this problem, but repairing the equipment will.

True or false: Training is the best solution to a performance problem if employees know what they are supposed to do (output) but do not understand how close their performance is to the standard.

False Reason: This is false. Training may not be the best solution to this type of problem if employees know what they are supposed to do (output) but do not understand how close their performance is to the standard. Employees need to be given specific, detailed feedback of effective and ineffective performance.

True or false: Upper-level managers are usually involved in identifying which employees need training, the tasks for which training is needed, or the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics needed to complete those tasks.

False Reason: This is false. Upper-level managers are not usually involved in identifying which employees need training, the tasks for which training is needed, or the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics needed to complete those tasks. This is the role of subject-matter experts.

______ refer to a type of subject-matter expert interview in which a face-to-face meeting with groups of subject-matter experts takes place where the questions asked relate to particular training requirements.

Focus groups

Before implementation of a new training or development practice, trainer should consider _____.

How they can increase the chances of its acceptance.

_____ professionals focus on job and task analysis, instructional systems design, on-the-job training, and individual performance improvement.

Human Resource Development

Task Analysis

Identifies the significant tasks and knowledge, skills, and behaviors that require to be emphasized in training for employees to complete their tasks.

Ability

Includes the physical and mental capacities to complete a task

Organizational Analysis

Involves assessing the appropriateness of training, taking into consideration the company's business strategy, its resources available for training, and encouragement by managers and peers for training activities.

Person Analysis

Involves determining whether inadequacies in performance results form a lack of knowledge, skill, or ability or from a motivational or work-design problem.

Informal learning refers to learning that _____.

Is central to the development of tacit knowledge.

Which of the following is a flaw of the instructional system design model?

It adds time and expense to creating a training program.

Identify a true statement about surveys as a needs assessment method.

It allows the participation of a greater number of employees in the needs assessment process.

________________ is trainees' desire to learn the content of training programs.

Motivation to learn

In the context of employee training and development, the process used to determine whether training is necessary is referred to as _____.

Needs Assessment.

The accepted standards of behavior for work-group members are referred to as _____.

Norms.

___________ facilitates determination of employees' readiness for training.

Person analysis

Output

Refers to a job's performance standards

Reasoning ability

Refers to a person's capacity to invent solutions to problems

Verbal comprehension

Refers to a person's capacity to understand and use written and spoken language

Characteristic of a person

Refers to employee knowledge, skill, ability, and attitudes

Quantitative ability

Refers to how fast and accurately a person can solve math problems

Other

Refers to the conditions under which tasks are performed

Feedback

Refers to the information that employees receive during the course of performance

Input

Refers to the instructions that tell employees what, how, and when to perform

Consequence

Refers to the type of incentives that employees receive for performing well

_________ is employees' belief that they can perform their job or learn the content of the training program successfully.

Self-efficacy

refers to managers' and peers' willingness to provide feedback and reinforcement.

Social support

_____ include people in an organization who have an interest in training and development and their support is vital for deciding its success (or failure).

Stakeholders

_____ include employees, academics, managers, technical experts, trainers, and even customers or suppliers who are knowledgeable with regard to training issues, including tasks to be performed

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

The CEO, the top manager in a company, is responsible for _____.

Teaching programs or providing resources online.

Intellectual Capital

The codified knowledge that exists in a company.

Human Resource Management

The policies, practices, and systems that influence employees' behavior, attitudes, and performance.

Social Capital

The value of relationships among employees within a company.

Customer Capital

The value of relationships with persons or other organizations outside a company for accomplishing the goals of the company.

_____ is a company-wide effort to constantly enhance the ways people, machines, and systems accomplish work.

Total Quality Management.

True or False: Needs Assessment at an organization provides information regarding the outcomes that should be collected to evaluate training effectiveness.

True Reason: This is true. Needs assessment provides important input into the training design process. Needs assessment provides information to companies regarding the outcomes that should be collected to evaluate training effectiveness.

Inovit Solutions, a software company, develops software programs for different client requirements. The programmers need to constantly update their skills by learning new computer languages to keep pace with new technologies and client requirements. Which of the following would be helpful for Inovit Solutions in designing training for its employees?

Using a skill management process to monitor its workforce skills

Many companies are using information about other companies' training practices. This process is known as _______.

benchmarking

A disadvantage of the needs assessment technique is that it ________.

consumes a lot of time during interviews

Internal Analysis

identifying the company's strengths and weaknesses based on examining the available quantity of financial, physical, and human capital.

Skill

indicates proficiency in performing a task

Offshoring

the process of moving jobs from the United States to other locations in the world.

Companies that compete in the gig economy rely on _____.

the services offered by nontraditional employees to meet service and product demands.

A way to ensure that stakeholders are involved in needs assessment is ______.

through creating formal advisory groups that meet on a regular basis to discuss learning issues

Cross Training

training employees in a range of skills to fill different roles.

Business Partner

uses business and industry knowledge to create training that improves performance.

Knowledge

Comprises facts or procedures

An advantage of the needs assessment technique is that it _____.

provides data related to performance and practices in historical data reviews

Human Capital

refers to knowledge (know what), advanced skills (know how), systems understanding and creativity (know why), and motivation to deliver high-quality products and services (care why).

Resistance to Change

refers to managers' and employees' unwillingness to change.

Improvement of skill weaknesses or knowledge deficiencies through training can be accomplished by _____.

sharing with employees feedback on their performance

Involving a sample of job incumbents in the needs assessment process is important because they _____.

tend to have the most knowledge about the job

Vision

the picture of the future that a company wants to achieve.

Identify a true statement about readability.

A readability assessment usually involves evaluation of sentence length and word difficulty level.

Which of the following questions are asked in an organizational analysis?

- How might the training material influence employees' relationship with customer? - What is required from managers and peers for training to succeed?

Which of the following components of an organization interact in the process of change in the organization?

- Informal organization - Task - Employees - Formal organizational arrangements

Identify the specific human resource management practices that are used to support work teams.

- Involvement of employees in the performance improvement process. - Emphasizing and rewarding ongoing training.

What are the outcomes of needs assessment at an organization?

- It helps select the appropriate training method. - It results in information related to who needs training and what trainees need to learn.

Identify the key features of a learning organization.

- Knowledge creation, distribution, sharing and implementation are practiced. - Innovation, risk-taking, and exploration by employees are encouraged.

Identify the change-related problems that need to be addressed before implementation of any new training practice.

- Loss of Control - Power Imbalance - Resistance to Change - Task redefinition

Which of the following are the roles of the CEO of a company?

- Participating actively in government of learning. - Establishing a clear direction for learning.

Which of the following are the core values of Total Quality Management?

- Quality is developed into a product or service so that errors are prevented from occurring. - Methods and processes are developed to match the requirements of internal and external customers.

Which of the following questions are in an organizational analysis?

-For which jobs training can enhance products or customer service? -How much of their budgets do they plan to allocate to training?

Identify the ways in which competency models are useful for training and development. (Check all that apply.) -They provide a system for ongoing coaching and feedback to help employees develop for current and future roles. -They help determine what skills were needed at earlier career points. -They provide a varied set of criteria used for identifying appropriate development training and learning activities specific to each individual. -They identify behaviors responsible for effective job performance.

-They provide a system for ongoing coaching and feedback to help employees develop for current and future roles. -They identify behaviors responsible for effective job performance.

Which of the following situations could occur if needs assessment is not properly conducted?

-Training may be wrongly used as a solution to a performance issue. -Training programs may have inaccurate content, objectives, or methods.

Arrange the initial steps involved in the creation of a corporate university in the correct order of occurrence.

1. A governing body is created with the responsibility of developing a vision for the university. 2. The vision statement is linked to the business strategy. 3. The company determines how to fund the university. 4. The company decides the degree the degree to which all training will be centralized. 5. The requirements of university customers are identified.

steps involved in a task analysis in the order in which they are followed.

1. Choose the job or jobs to be analyzed 2. Create a preliminary list of tasks performed on the job. 3. Validate or confirm the preliminary list of tasks. 4. Identify the knowledge, skills, or tasks that are difficult to learn or prone to errors.

ADDIE Model

Analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

A(n) _____ _____ recognizes the competencies required for each job.

Competency Model

____________ refer to skills that are important for employees to perform on the job and learn the content of training programs successfully.

Basic skills

Why should training be a top priority if the critical job issue, critical process issue, and critical business issue are related?

Because it will have a greater impact on business results and outcomes

_____ refers to the adoption of a novel concept or behavior by a company.

Change

Which of the following is a step in the change process in an organization?

Communicate and market for buy-in.

____________ are sets of skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal characteristics that empower employees to perform their jobs successfully.

Competencies

Which of the following is an issue caused when companies embrace social networking?

It may result in employees wasting time or offending or harassing their co-workers.

Which of the following is an issue when companies embrace social networking?

It may result in employees wasting time or offending or harassing their co-workers.

_____ involve employee with different skills who collaborate to assemble a product or provide a service.

Work teams

External Growth Strategy

a business strategy emphasizing acquiring vendors and suppliers or buying businesses that will allow the company to expand into new markets.

Internal Growth Strategy

a business strategy focusing on new market and product development, innovation and join ventures.

Concentration Strategy

a business strategy that focuses on increasing market share, reducing costs, or creating a market niche for products and services.

Instruction System Design (ISD)

a process for designing and developing training programs.

Six Sigma Process

a process of measuring, analyzing, improving, and then controlling process once they have been brought within Six Sigma quality tolerances or standards.

Professional Specialist

designs develops, delivers, and evaluates learning and performance solutions.

Many companies are using benchmarking in the needs assessment process to help ____________.

determine the appropriate type, level, and frequency of training

Learning Strategist

determines how workplace learning can be best used to help meet the company's business strategy.

Knowledge Workers I

employees who own the means of producing a product or service.

External Analysis

examining the company's operating environment to identify opportunities and threats.

A(n) _____ involves evaluating the cause for the difference between employees' current and expected performance.

gap analysis

Employees who are presently working in an organization are referred to as ________.

job incumbents

Informal Learning

learning that is learner initiated, involves action and doing, is motivated by an intent to develop, and does not occur in a formal learning setting.

Compared with competency models, job analysis is _____.

more work- and task-focused

Tacit Knowledge

personal knowledge that is based on individual experience and that is difficult to explain to others.

Project Manager

plans, obtains and monitors the delivery of learning and performance solutions to support the business.

Values

principles and virtues that symbolize the company's beliefs.