Methods To Identify And Meet Learning Needs: Evaluating Organizational Factors

Background of the Company

The learning and development activities have been designed in order to identify the main key & abilities that allow the employees of the organisation to deliver the expected results for the organisation they serve (SIOP, 2017).  The programmes and services are designed to assist the leaders to develop their skills and enhance the effectiveness of the leaders. The learning and development connect the training & development activities for the strategy of the business. Thus it is always important to design and develop learning activities for the overall growth of the organisation. The learning and development of the organisational needs can be met through a range of relevant methods like training based on the classroom and on the job training. The methods enhance the development of the skills and abilities and make an assessment of the return on the investments made on the development (Borrás, 2014).

GM Consultant is a successful firm that offers comprehensive & innovative solutions by supplying its products based on the needs of the customers. The organisation has specialists who are working for it from the different disciplines like and contributes their rich knowledge for company for producing materials to supply to the building industry.. The independent organisation has more competitive advantages in the United Kingdom markets (gmc, 2017).  The organisation offers a guaranty to its customers for the local services & has developed responsiveness.  The company got registered in the UK as a private limited company. 

Two examples of learning interventions for the company

1. There is need of identifying the skills and ability of the employees of the organisation and to execute them in the business strategy of the organisation.
2. The company had initiated numbers of the training programmes over the years. But the training programmes had not been aligned with the strategy of the organisation. The organisation has not measured the effect or value of its learning & development programmes.

There is an important need of the learning and development of human. It helps the organisation to build & maintain the internal abilities so that it can significantly implement its strategies.  The learning and development identify the skills and capabilities of the employee and the medium he or she requires for getting and teaching & acquiring them (Schilling, 2012). The learning and development activities also make an assessment of the leaders and design development programmes. This helps in conducting internal and external coaching (Tamki, 2017). The design of the learning and development activities utilises the metrics in order to assess each of the programmes imparted to the employees of the organisation. The GM consultants requires to use High Performance Working Model for the improvement of the skills and development of the employees of the organisation. This will help the organisation.

The methods of establishing the learning and development are different from other alternatives for the following reasons.

Brings improvement in the performance of the bottom-line

The development programme helps the organisation to impart learning scope to develop the required skills to excel in their respective fields. This helps to improve the performance of the bottom line (CIPD, 2013).

Reduce the costs of the recruitments

The learning and development help the organisation to reduce the costs of recruiting new employees. The activities strengthen the ability and skills of the organisation.  This helps to lead them to develop leadership quality and to work for the organisation successfully (CIPD, 2010).

Retention of the employees is increased

The learning and development is an important component of the retention of the employees of an organisation.  The development helps the employees to have development & growth in the career of the employees.

Learning needs
Methods	Key features	Advantages	Disadvantages	Evaluation of the suitability for the target group.
Observation	the need of it is identified when the desired outcomes of the organisation are not met.	To identify the need of the L&D for specific area and for specific people	Observation sometimes focuses on one aspect.	This is appropriate for a group or department of the organisation
Performance data	Helps to analyse the record of the performance of the employee	Comparison of the data identifies the weaknesses and area of development required	Performance cannot be based on data. There are some factors like motivation, culture affect the performance of the people	This  is very important for the organisation where the outcomes are judged with respect to quantity
Interview	Indentifies personal needs	Individual needs and skills are fulfilled	Individual needs affect the group activities	It requires for the top level management
Skills matrices	Identifies the ability of the employee	Proposes  for specific training and learning for individual worker	Focusing on skill matrices the organisation cannot prepare the people to work every time.	It is important for modern organisation.

Designing learning interventions
Possible Learning Interventions	What methods and techniques are used for these learning interventions?	Suitability for the target audience	Evaluation
Coaching	Instruction is given to a small group, demonstration and discussions are made. The feedback is taken at the end	This is applicable for a small group. In the big organisation it is difficult to train a large number of people	Coaching is not very effective for a large group. The coach must be an experienced man to impart training.
Class room based	Power point presentation, question & answer, role plays etc	It is applicable for the people of a specific group of a department of an organisation. Learning of mass cannot be done through.	This is helpful for a group of employees and it offers theoretical learning for the development of the skills
E-learning	Online learning	It is very helpful as it offers exhaustive information to learn and develop the skills	E-learning can be imparted at any time to the employees. This is beneficial for the educated employees with high skills (CIPD, 2013) .
Action learning	Learning on situation to solve the problem	Teaches to learn skills as per the need	It is also important for individual and group as well

Evaluation of methods /techniques to meet learning needs
Learning methods/techniques	Key features	Advantages	Disadvantages	Evaluation of the suitability
Coaching	It focuses on the specific area of development	Specific development is done.	It does not focus all needs of the employee	It is suitable for one requirement but not for all
Shadowing	Learning is imparted to the employees in the different jobs	The employees become versatile	Many skills cannot be learnt by one individuals	Skill development in one specific area will bring expertise to the employee
Community of practice	To find the information related to the individual learning	Helps for personalized development	Cannot contribute in the collective work	It is good for individual development but not for collective work

There are different ways to identify the need for the learning and development in a range of contexts. The most important thing is that the absence of the formal identification of the skills and objectives of the employees to work as per the strategy of the organisation indicates that there is need of the L& D activities (Harrison, 2012). The desired outcomes of each training programme should be reflected in the performance of the employees. If this not met it is assumed that there is a gap and there is a need for the L & D. 

Evaluation model	What is the model most useful for?	How suitable for proposed learning interventions?
Kirkpatrick	It is helpful for making analysis objectively the effectiveness and impact of the training that is imparted. This has four levels. They are reaction, learning, behaviour and results (mindtools.team, n.d.) .	This model is very effective as in the case study organisation does not measure the effects of training on the employees. This will help the management to measure the effects of the L & D.
RAM	This focuses on registering the learning needs and imparts training based on this.	The assessment of the need of the training after recording will help the case study organisation to develop the skills of the employees (Bellemare, 2013) .
CIRO	It deals with context, input, reaction and outcomes. This believes in getting the requirements and designing the training as per the requirements (Schmalenbach, 2015).	This is very important for GM Consultants as the top level management needs to identify the needs of the training and development.

There are different contexts in which the need of the L & D is felt. The need for the L & D is also felt when the training programme organised by the management does not match the requirements   and sometimes the senior leaders of the organisation contract coaches individually without making regulations, measurement of the outcomes and the business needs. The learning intervention helps to bring changes in the process of the organisation and makes people efficient to work in the respective fields. There is need of L & D for the organisation. This is applicable to GM Consultations, UK.

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CIPD, 2010. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Guide. In: Real World Coaching Evaluation. London: CIPD.

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Harrison, R., 2012. Learning & Development. Development & Learning in Organisations: An International Journal, 5(1).

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Schmalenbach, M., 2015. There are different contexts in which the need of the L & D is felt. The need for the L & D is also felt when the training programme organised by the management does not match the requirements and sometimes the senior leaders of the organisation contrac. [Online] Available at: https://www.cedma-europe.org/newsletter%20articles/TrainingZONE/Training%20Evaluation%20(Jan%2005).pdf[Accessed 14 03 2017].

SIOP, 2017. Learning and Development. [Online] Available at: https://www.siop.org/business/learning.aspx[Accessed 14 03 2017].

Tamki, P., 2017. Kirkpatrick and Beyond: a review of training evaluation – Institute for …. [Online] Available at: www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/392.pdf[Accessed 14 03 2017].