Most organizations conduct some form of long-range or strategic planning. The format of vision, mission, analysis, and objectives setting are fairly common. One very important analysis often overlooked is a serious evaluation of the organization’s stakeholders. If it is done, some important groups are usually missed.
A comprehensive stakeholders chart includes the following: public, shareholders, board of directors, chairperson, president, executive management staff, exempt staff, and non-exempt employees.
A professional survey and assessment of what each of these stakeholder groups believes, or how they perceive your organization, should be an essential step in the planning process. In today’s instant communications society, you need to know as much as possible about your organization’s stakeholders. Although employee opinion surveys help assess the internal organization, it is the external stakeholders, with differing interests and expectations, you need to evaluate. The effort is a good investment in your future.
Another good investment is an on-going training needs assessment. A training needs assessment enables you to:
- Evaluate the current skills of your employees.
- Specify what skills are necessary for the jobs and current technology.
- Project what skills are needed for future/changing jobs and technologies.
- Determine where the training "gaps" exist—what the employees know and are capable of doing, versus what they should know and be capable of doing (in present or future situations).
- Identify key contributors who may be future supervisors and managers, and prepare them.
- Decide which training programs will eliminate gaps.
Plan a training implementation schedule. Once management decides which employees need training, along with the areas in which they need training, it is necessary to select the best and most effective type of training method. The decision to select one type of training over another will be determined by the following factors:
- What is the size of your training budget?
- How many employees need to be trained?
- Do you want to train them internally using company instructors? By a private consultant? At a mass training seminar?
- Would it be more cost-effective to conduct the training at your facility or off-site? Do you have the facilities to train them internally?
- What material will be presented? Will they need access to equipment for a hands-on learning experience?
Taking these factors into consideration, there are a wide variety of choices available for training. As mentioned earlier, this is a continuous process. You are developing the people who will take your organization into a more certain future. IBI
