My Training and Development class this week required that I review a company on-line and describe a plan for performing a needs assessment. I chose to look at Southwest Airlines at http://www.iflyswa.com/. Below is my plan.
Background:
Southwest Airlines has been in business for 40 years and provides 3,300 flights a day, serving 72 cities in 37 states, and has a current workforce of 40,000+. Southwest Airlines has been recognized as being one of the safest airlines, a top company for diversity, and customer satisfaction to name a few. Gary Kelly, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO states “our people are our single greatest strength and most enduring long-term competitive advantage” (Southwest.com, 2011).
Southwest Airlines acquired AirTran Airways in 2011 and one of the goals for 2012, according to CEO Kelly is to continue to integrate AirTran Airways into Southwest with excellence (Gary's Greeting, 2012).
Based on the above, I would approach my needs assessment as follows:
Stakeholders Who Need to Buy-Into the Needs Assessment
1. Management
2. Employees
3. Trainers
Based on the fact that there has been a recent merger, there is the potential to increase training initiatives. All of the above individuals need to be on board with these training initiatives in order for them to be successfully implemented. “To be motivated to learn in training programs, employees must be aware of their skill strengths and weaknesses and of the link between the training program and the improvement of their weaknesses” (Noe, 2010, p. 120).
Questions to ask during the organizational, person, and task analysis phases:
Management:
1. Is training important to achieving business objectives?
2. How does training align with the business strategy?
3. Are you willing to invest in training in both time and money?
4. Are all levels of the organization committed to training?
Trainers:
1. What is your anticipated budget needs
2. What resources, other than money will you need?
3. Are you able to provide the training or should outsourcing be considered?
Management
1. Who needs training?
2. What are the goals and objectives of the training?
3. How will you measure transfer of training?
4. How often should training occur?
5. Would you consider purchasing a training program?
Trainers:
1. What are the skills required for the job?
2. What skills are currently possessed?
3. How will the training align with the goals and objectives of the business unit?
Management:
1. How will you facilitate transfer of training?
2. How often should training occur?
3. Would you consider purchasing a training program?
4. Are there alternative interventions other than training?
Trainers:
1. What do the learners already know?
2. What do the learners need to know?
3. What resources are available?
4. What is the appropriate training method?
5. How should training be evaluated?
1. Safety records
2. Pilot logs
3. Customer call records
4. Training records/methods for: flight attendants, pilots, air traffic controllers,
customer service representatives
5. Surveys – booking online, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction
1. Observation of employees
2. Questionnaires
3. Interviews
4. Documentation
References:
Southwest.com. (2011). Retrieved January 12, 2012, from http://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/index.html
Gary's Greeting. (2012, January). Retrieved January 12, 2012, from Southwest.com:
http://www.southwest.com/assets/pdfs/about-southwest/garys-greeting.pdf
Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee Training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I struggled with in developing my needs analysis was where, or if, to include customers in the process. I noticed that you included customers in the organizational analysis. Can you elaborate on how you would involve them in the organizational analysis. Noe (2010) wrote, “Organizational analysis involves identifying whether training supports the company’s strategic direction; whether managers, peers, and employees support training activity; and what training resources are available” (p. 110).
As I say – I struggled with this. On one hand, there is no question that customers are stakeholders. And I can easily imagine that interviewing customers would be a great way to identify potential gaps between the current and the ideal situation. But in every example I could think of, customers were more about the ‘needs’ than the ‘analysis’. From this perspective, to the extent that the needs analysis identifies needs, it is important to include customers (as well as partners and competitors). But given the model we are working with - or models I have worked with in the past - I didn’t see where to fit these stakeholders into the process.
In the end I decided that the task analysis made the most sense. Southwest has a goal to “continue to improve our customer experience and win more customers” (Kellly, 2012). If I were a decision-maker at Southwest doing a needs analysis on training pilots to do barrel rolls, I would want data that showed that doing barrel rolls were effective improving customer experience.
While task analysis, which “results in a description of work activities, including tasks performed by the employee and the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to complete the tasks” (Noe, 2010, p. 123), may seem like an especially odd time to reach out to customers, my reasoning was that is was also when you were reaching out to subject-matter experts.
Organizational analysis seems to answer the questions, “Should we do it?” and “Can we do it?” Person analysis is focused on the employee – “Can they learn?” Task analysis seemed to be the only place where the organization might look outward.
I’m not convinced that my answer is the correct, or best answer. I just wanted to invite you to describe how you decided that customers should be – and could be – involved in the organizational analysis.
- Patrick
References:
Kellly, G. (2010). Gary’s greeting: Happy new year! [PDF]. Retrieved from http://www.southwest.com/assets/pdfs/about-southwest/garys-greeting.pdf
Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Hi Patrick:
ReplyDeleteYou make excellent points, and to be honest I too still am not sure if customers/passengers belong in that category. I really struggled with the timeframe of this assignment and even question if I categorized my questions appropriately, let alone even asked the appropriate questions. So, to answer your question, in many respects I think getting the customer/passengers buy-in is essential in that they could be subjected to training during the flight and they would need to be open to this. I also think they should be included in helping to determine what training needs exist. So that is why I put the need for their buy-in. However, in retrospect I think I need to do more research and possibly revise this posting. In fact, after I posted my blog I sent Professor Burke an email with my concerns and the need to possibly revise.
I always appreciate your feedback and perspective. Further thoughts.....is their buy-in necessary and should they be part of the needs assessment? My first inclination is yes, but maybe that fits somewhere else in the ADDIE process.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI struggled with the timeframe for this assignment and would love to revise mine (significantly!) as well. But honestly, I don’t know when I would have time to do the sort of rewrite I would want to. It’s not as if the time constraints that made the timeframe a challenge have gone away. On the plus side, while I may not have performed as well as I would have liked, I’ve definitely learned – and perhaps more effectively than if I had done something I was happier with.
On the subject of where to include outside stakeholders, including customers, partners and competitors, it is very clear that they have a clear role in discovering and defining needs. I found Iqbal and Khan’s (2011) report to be incredibly helpful for pulling together and providing a concise schema for training needs analysis. Iqbal and Khan (2011) described needs analysis as having two phases:
“The first, diagnostic phase identifies inconsistencies among performance standard, current performance and current competence, and then ranks these inconsistencies by prioritizing them in order of severity. The final, curative phase finds out the causes of the prioritized inconsistencies, then decides on using training, non-training, or both types of interventions for their solution” (p. 440).
I think we both agree that stakeholders from outside the organization can have a valuable role to play in the first, diagnostic, phase as least as regards “performance standard, current performance and current competence”. But does the organization need their buy-in? Do they have a role in prioritizing the needs?
The best answer I have come up with is “maybe”. I think at that point it depends on the specific need, and the specific organization. Consider the case where the organization’s goals are closely aligned with customer needs: Wouldn’t explicit buy-in from customers be redundant?
When it comes to the curative phase, again I think the answer is “maybe”. While buy-in from customers and partners would be valuable as regards the results of the performance intervention, how much do they need to buy into the methods? Do customers really care if the training takes the form of simulations, classroom, online or blended, as long as the results are achieved? On the other hand, if we are talking about the nuclear energy industry, I could imagine that customers would care about certain aspects of the training process, including how it is accredited.
It may be that we don’t have a solid answer to this question because there is no solid answer.
- Patrick
Reference:
Iqbal, M. Z. & Khan, R. A. (2011). The growing concept and uses of training needs assessment: A review with proposed model. Journal of European Industrial Training, 35(5), 439-466.
Hi Patrick:
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping shed some light on this process. I am still not sure if the customers do or do not fall into this category, but for this project and based on the materials we are using, I am going to say they do not and remove them. Maybe it is just their input rather than buy-in that is needed. Or maybe the buy-in would need to come a later phase when the training methods/delivery are decided upon.
Thanks again for all your valuable input.
Lisa
Lisa and Patrick,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good discussion regarding the role of the customers and the suppliers in the needs analysis for training. Patrick, thank you for sharing the Iqbal and Khan information. The customers/passengers and suppliers are definitely stakeholders that need to be involved in the needs analysis. Do you need their buy-in as to the training that results, I doubt it. The effectiveness of the training will be judged by the customers in the satisfaction surveys or complaints filed after the training is completed and new skills are implemented.
Dr. Burke
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI liked that you started with a brief background statement of Southwest Airlines. You made an important point regarding the need for training as a result of their merger with another airline. Wouldn't the customers/passengers and suppliers also be considered stakeholders in training provided by Southwest? I liked your question of the managers regarding whether they felt training was aligned with the companies business strategy. Would this have been a good question to ask the employees?
With regard to the person analysis phase, wouldn't you want to ask the employees and suppliers some of the same questions you asked the managers and trainers? I'd be interested in the management's answer to the question regarding alternatives to training. What do you think of asking the employees the same Task questions as the trainers? The past customer and employee satisfaction records are a good starting point for your needs analysis for training.
I would have liked to have had more information on who you'd send out questionnaires to and who would be involved in the interviews.
Dr. Burke