HRM 326 Week 2 Training Needs Assessment Example

What Do New Warehouse Supervisors Actually Lack? An Organizational, Task and Person Analysis Using Interviews, Shift Data and a Skills Self-Assessment at Crossroads Fulfillment

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

HRM/326: Employee Development

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Crossroads Fulfillment and all data are composites written for a model paper; assessment methods and research findings come from the sources listed and are stated generally.

Crossroads Fulfillment, the composite Indianapolis logistics company, decided in Week 1 to develop its own supervisors from experienced hourly leads. Before designing the program, the HR development manager wanted evidence about what new supervisors actually struggle with and what candidate leads already know. Managers had suggested topics ranging from leadership styles to Excel. A list of topics is not a needs assessment; the program should teach the skills whose absence causes the company's problems, and nothing else. This paper conducts the assessment.

Organizational Analysis

Organizational analysis asks whether the program fits the company's goals and whether the organization will support it (Noe, 2020), the first of three levels in the classic needs assessment model (Goldstein & Ford, 2002). Crossroads' goals are to staff a new building, reduce supervisor turnover and improve safety and productivity. The chief operating officer has committed to promote from the program and to release participants from production for training time. Budget is approved. Site managers support the program but worry about covering shifts while leads attend sessions, a constraint the design must address.

Task Analysis: Interviews

The development manager interviewed eight of the company's most effective supervisors, chosen by productivity, safety and team retention, and asked them to describe a typical shift, their hardest moments and what they wished they had known when they started. Common themes included planning labor when volume changes at the last minute, addressing attendance problems with former coworkers, documenting discipline properly and running a daily start-up meeting.

Task Analysis: Observation

The manager also shadowed supervisors on six shifts, recording tasks and time spent. Labor planning and reassigning workers took roughly 35 percent of supervisors' observed time, a quarter went to coaching and problem solving with associates, a fifth on reviewing metrics and reporting and the rest on safety checks and communication with other shifts.

The Task List

Interviews and observation produced a list of 24 tasks grouped into labor planning, people management, safety and compliance and communication. Each task was rated by the top supervisors for importance and frequency, so that training would focus on what matters most often.

Person Analysis: Who Are the Candidates?

Forty-two leads and senior associates applied for the program. HR reviewed their performance records, attendance and safety histories and asked each to complete a self-assessment on the 24 tasks. Their managers rated them on the same tasks. Self-ratings averaged noticeably higher than managers' ratings on people management tasks, a common pattern that confirms the need to combine sources.

Where the Gaps Are

Candidates were strong on operational knowledge: they knew processes, systems and safety rules. The largest gaps, rated low by both candidates and managers, were in labor planning with the forecasting tool, giving corrective feedback to former peers, documenting attendance and discipline consistently with policy and leading a structured start-up meeting.

Problems That Are Not Training Needs

Some problems raised by current supervisors were not skill gaps. Supervisors complained that attendance policy was applied differently in different buildings, which reflects inconsistent policy, not individual skill. Others noted that the labor forecasting tool gave unreliable numbers on Mondays because of a data feed problem. Training cannot fix these; HR referred the policy issue to operations leadership and the data issue to the systems team.

Prioritizing

Combining importance, frequency and the size of the gap gives four priorities: labor planning, corrective feedback and coaching, consistent documentation and running effective start-up meetings. Lower priorities, such as advanced spreadsheet skills, can be addressed later through optional resources.

Learning Objectives

Each priority becomes a measurable objective. Given a volume forecast and roster, the participant will build a shift labor plan that meets productivity targets within 5 percent. In a role play with a former peer who has missed shifts, the participant will deliver corrective feedback that follows the company's model and policy. Given three attendance scenarios, the participant will document each correctly under policy. The participant will lead a ten-minute start-up meeting covering safety, volume and goals, rated satisfactory by an observer.

Using the Objectives

The objectives guide design, since each must be taught with practice, and evaluation, since each defines what success looks like. Salas et al. (2012) emphasized that clear objectives and practice aligned to them are central to effective training.

Validating the Findings

Before finalizing the priorities, the development manager shared the findings with the eight top supervisors and four site managers in a two-hour session. They confirmed the four priority gaps and added one point: new supervisors often struggled to say no to requests from customer service for last-minute changes. That insight was added to the labor planning objective as a negotiation component. Reviewing findings with experienced practitioners checks the analysis and builds the support the program will need from the floor.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

A program that missed the real gaps would cost about $100,000 in its first year and still leave new supervisors struggling, repeating the turnover the company wants to end. The assessment itself cost about 120 hours of staff time, a small price compared with designing the wrong program. Needs assessment is often skipped because it delays launch; at Crossroads, it changed the program's content substantially, cutting two proposed modules and adding one.

Who Participates

Sixteen candidates were selected through a panel using the assessment results, performance records and an interview, with attention to including candidates from all four buildings and all shifts. The selection process will be reviewed for fairness each year.

Data for Later Evaluation

The baseline data gathered here, managers' ratings, shift metrics and turnover, will be compared with results after the program to evaluate its effect.

Conclusion

A needs assessment at three levels showed that Crossroads has strong organizational support, defined the supervisor's critical tasks through interviews and observation and found that candidates' largest gaps lie in labor planning, feedback, documentation and start-up meetings. Separating policy and data problems from skill gaps kept the program focused, and measurable objectives now guide its design and evaluation.

References

Goldstein, I. L., & Ford, J. K. (2002). Training in organizations: Needs assessment, development, and evaluation (4th ed.). Wadsworth.

Noe, R. A. (2020). Employee training and development (8th ed.). McGraw Hill Education.

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Kraiger, K., & Smith-Jentsch, K. A. (2012). The science of training and development in organizations: What matters in practice. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(2), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436661