The Importance of Needs Assessments for Organizational Improvement

Discuss about the Selecting Rows and Columns for Training Support.

The process of identification of the required needs for the advancement of the organization is the main objective of the needs assessments (Soriano, 2012). Goetsch and Davis (2014) also stated that organizations also determine priorities, allocate resources and plan for organizational improvements in this assessment. Fleisher and Bensoussan, (2015) argued that the most common form of assessment need is the training in which aims for enhancing the competency of the employees but is not always a suitable methods as not all employees have same incompetency. Thus, it is better to make the people learn how to utilize their strengths for obtaining the organizational objectives and due to the same reason the needs for leadership development is identified in the previous assignment.

The organization that is taken into consideration is Woolworths Supermarkets, which is one of the retail industries in the Australian markets. The organization operates in 995 locations and has 111,000 employees to carry out daily operation of the company (Woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2018). Woolworths have to provided services to millions of customers on a daily basis and in order to enhance the organizational efficiency, employees have to utilize minimum resources for accomplishing more works and that also within a limited time. Moreover, older employees are less competent in handling the automated machines which lessens their leadership skills in terms of acquiring knowledge. Thus, the people of the concerned organization need the training developing their leadership skills.

Smith and Oczkowski (2015) stated that an organization need to a needs assessment in order to acquire in0depth knowledge about the needs of the employees, to generate knowledge on the unconsidered a issues and needs and ensuring the actions taken for fulfilling the needs. Some organization considers provision of training to all their employees and some of them conduct survey.

Woolworths considers functional analysis and the individual analysis in order to find the needs that is required for the betterment of the company. Woolworths also looks at individual analysis for identifying the gaps that can be filled. Gambin and Hogarth (2016) highlighted that poor performance has been identified in the workers as some of them are not compatible in using the modern equipments to perform the desired job, many of the employee are not comfortable in sharing their concern even if they have a strong point regarding the organizational development. Thus employees of the organization need to provide emerging leader development programs.

Performance Gaps in Woolworths Supermarkets

The performance gap that is identified by organizations is to identify the actual knowledge and skills required along with how employees are performing. Then the organizational goals and the knowledge required accomplishing those goals along with formulated target for each individual is assessed (Ali and Yaman, 2013). These two aspects when compared, gap is identified.

In order to attain competitive advantage, Woolworths included automation technology in their business operation and they need knowledgeable employees to perform the functionalities. Inclusion of IoT like smart devices, devices with sensors, RFID and automated robots for goods transfers from warehouse to the shelves. Soriano (2012) stated that in such cases, especially the older people faces problem to utilize these devices due to lack of knowledge. The younger generation also does not have the knowledge to utilize the equipment to the fullest and also have communication issue to lead others for making them aware of the latest technology and their uses.

The communication gap present in the employees resulted in poor sense of responsibility and accountability. Smith and Oczkowski (2015) stated that unclear responsibility leads to misaligned goals and vague responsibility among the employees. These employees are not even concerned about the performance of other team-members and hence they have poor understanding to plan the resources for 100% productivity of the team, which represented flawed corporate strategy.

The chosen methods for overcoming the performance gap are individual assessment. Smith and Oczkowski (2015) stated that managing authorities should assess the behavior and attitudes of the employee to find out the evolving leaders among all the employees. This evaluation comprised of the judging knowledge base of the employees, the procedure for accomplishing the assigned work responsibilities, effectiveness of the outcome of the work, helping nature of that employees, effective communication skills and the initiatives taken by the person to enhance the team performance (Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2015). Thus, on applying the individual assessment and involve them in personal meetings would increase the chance of sharing proper concern and they also identify the drawbacks in them and discuss their plan to improve those downsides.

Rafiq (2015) highlight that in order to analyse the problem present in the organization, organizational analysis is conducted that comprised of analysis of strategic directions, supports from managers and training resources. Hogan et al. (2013) stated that this analysis allow the managers of the company to identify whether or not it is necessary to devote their time and money for the development of the competency of the employee to the performance of their organization. The need is then assess in a particular direction like whether to focus on personal analysis or task analysis. Lastly, the training procedure is planned to finally implement through evaluation, formulation of learning environment and transfer of training (Gunasekaran & Ngai, 2012).

Emerging Leader Development Programs for Improved Employee Performance

In case of Woolworths, through the organizational analysis it is found that employees have to utilize minimum resources for accomplishing more works and that also within a limited time. The prime reason is that since the employees have to attend customers every after small interval of time, thus these employees must have to know the proper utilization of the technical equipments especially in the counter area and billing areas. Moreover, for managing the team’s efficiency, it is required for the employee to communicate with other members properly. Thus, it can be stated that Woolworths; money and time should be devoted for the development of leadership among the employees. The personal or individual analysis is adopted for the leadership development program and the employees should have to obtain the knowledge in the equipments for performing their daily operations. Thus the need of the leadership development training should include the provision of knowledge for utilizing the machineries and automated equipments, enhancing the communication skills to make other team members learn about the technology used and take some responsibility on the behalf of the team.    

The training needs of the emerging leader development programs comprised of the self-assessment which allows the organization to identify the current issues in themselves that can be improved for better performance, leading a functional project that can develop the sense of responsibility and accountability. Identifying team membership and role, establishing productive relationships, meeting team objectives, resolving conflicts, understanding customer needs, providing personalized service, acting professionally, managing projects and boost creative thinking are also some training themes that should be taught to the potential leaders of the organization. The training for the leadership development also comprised of group coaching for overcoming the issue of communication with the team members. Gambin and Hogarth (2016) stated that all the attendees should are allowed to share their concern regarding the difficulties they are facing or some suggestion for the improvement of the team performance. During this training period, employees are also providing with other challenging job roles and responsibilities and make them aware of the locating, gathering, and organizing relevant information in order to assess whether or not they can complete the work. Thus, the mentoring and coaching relationships allow the organization to find the high-potential leaders for other departments. Employees are also provided with professional or industry association involvement programs and this result in deeper knowledge and connections regarding the main operational functionalities (Walter et al., 2013).  Especially the younger generation potential employee are also offered training in action learning, where they can learn to find solutions for high-level, complex, real-world business issue.

Training Themes and Coaching Relationships

Moreover, in leaning about communication skills leaders should be provide with the training to keep patience while listening to the problem statements of their team members. This training is also beneficial for the employees. The organization should also develop the training material in all the language for their diversified team member if any.  The trainees should also listed down all the queries and then learn to prioritize the listed challenges and then plan for overcoming the issues raised and identified by the members of the team.

On provision of poor delivery of the leadership training program, the previous problem might have been existed even after the training program. Poor identification of the organizational problem also raises the issue of investing time and monetary resources on incorrect training needs.

Another issue that can rise from improper planning of needs assessment is that the employee will gain half knowledge of the training session. These employees if assisted other people of the same organization in their daily job roles and responsibility will guide them with wrong knowledge. Thus, not only the employees get the wrong details of the training materials but they also affect the knowledge base of other employees.

Employees need to follow the instructions they have got in the training session. They need some time t adopt the changes they have to make in their responsibility and working procedure. Moreover, if assisting other people of their team, they need additional time which furthermore reflects in lesser productivity.

Thus, when the issue of improper planning and leadership development training process will be witnessed through the poor performance of the potential employees, who can become the leaders, organization will have to invest additional time and financial resources for initiating the needs assessment again from the first phase.

It is a fact that organization never admits that the fault occurred is due to their poor planning of the needs assessments or evaluation. As a result, they try to report the failure through the incompetency of the employees. Moreover, when employees, who went for the training, have to attend training program, they start to find problems in them and become de-motivated. This process will resulted in poor motivation among them and their intention for growth gets diminished which furthermore affect their skills of problem solving and decision making

Conclusion

The organization that is considered in this report is Woolworths Supermarkets, where people have to utilize minimum resources for accomplishing more works within limited time. It is also found that in the concerned organization the main reasons for undertaking the needs assessment is to generate knowledge on the unconsidered a issues and needs and ensuring the actions taken for fulfilling the needs. Woolworths also looks at individual analysis for identifying the gaps that can be filled. The organization incorporate IoT like smart devices, devices with sensors, RFID and automated robots for goods transfers from warehouse to the shelves. The problem that is raised in the workplace is that older people faces problem to utilize these devices due to lack of knowledge, younger generations also have communication issue and also have poor sense of responsibility and accountability. Thus, the training that is identified for overcoming these problems is leadership development training program. The emerging leader development programs comprised of the self-assessment, group coaching and they are also provided with other challenging job roles and responsibilities along with professional or industry association involvement programs. Apart from that communication training should also be offered with their leadership programs that allow them to learn about keeping patience while listening, listing down all the queries, prioritizing the listed challenges and planning for overcoming the issues raised.

Reference List

Ali, O. G., & Yaman, K. (2013). Selecting rows and columns for training support vector regression models with large retail datasets. European Journal of Operational Research, 226(3), 471-480.

Fleisher, C. S., & Bensoussan, B. E. (2015). Business and competitive analysis: effective application of new and classic methods. FT Press.

Gambin, L., & Hogarth, T. (2016). Factors affecting completion of apprenticeship training in England. Journal of Education and Work, 29(4), 470-493.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Gunasekaran, A., & Ngai, E. W. (2012). The future of operations management: an outlook and analysis. International Journal of Production Economics, 135(2), 687-701.

Hogan, R., Chamorro?Premuzic, T., & Kaiser, R. B. (2013). Employability and career success: Bridging the gap between theory and reality. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 6(1), 3-16.

Rafiq, M. (2015). Training evaluation in an organization using Kirkpatrick model: a case study of PIA. Journal of Entrepreneurship & Organization Management.

Smith, A., & Oczkowski, E. (2015). Modelling the reasons for the use of vocational training in Australian enterprises. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 53(3), 370-385.

Soriano, F. I. (2012). Conducting needs assessments: A multidisciplinary approach (Vol. 68). Sage.

Walter, S. G., Parboteeah, K. P., & Walter, A. (2013). University departments and self?employment intentions of business students: a cross?level analysis. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(2), 175-200.

Woolworthsgroup.com.au. (2018). About Us – Woolworths Group. [online] Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].