Need Assessment For Retail Industry Employees: Methods And Benefits

Importance of Need Assessment for Retail Industry Employees

In the recent times, a need assessment is crucial for every business organization.  Using the need assessment approach will help the company in addressing any needs or gaps in the prevailing condition of the company (Katzenbach & Smith, 2015). Being a retail industry, the recognition of employee needs assessment has proven to be an asset for the company. It helps the organization to run effectively and efficiently in the end. The different ways through which the individual’s performance deficiencies can be disclosed are as follows:

• Giving more emphasis on the need of the potential workers- The assessment is highly beneficial for the employees as it helps in meeting the needs of the employees through personalized and specific training (Elnaga & Imran, 2013). It helps in analyzing the job performance of the employees.
• The existing performance paucities and incapability can be revealed after examining the overall organizational performance (Rothwell et al., 2015). This helps the company to evaluate and identify the competence, knowledge and skills required for the potential candidate.
• Occupational need assessment approach is beneficial as this assessment reviews the employee’s capabilities, understanding and abilities required for the impacted assessment groups (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The evaluation further ascertains any existing occupational gap or discrepancies in the business.
• Need assessment exposes the incapability in employee’s performance by doing a personality test. It enables the company to ascertain the number of employees have problem working in retail organisations.
• The prevailing performance deficiencies can also be exposed by examining and appraising an employee’s cognitive capacity and stability.

Retail Industries can be very demanding and hectic so it is important to ascertain that the individuals are able to cope with such hectic pressure and nature of work in the retail industry.

Customer service is a vital element in day-to-day business operation because it is the true reflection of the organization relation with its customers in meeting their wants or needs.  Customer service training is implemented for employees to ascertain their expectation from the business personnel and further know the customer overall need (Phillips & Phillips, 2016). Through a positive and reliable customer service training of the employees, the company can maximize its proficiency and efficiency.

• The prior step is the identification of customer needs. Before executing the effective customer service training of employees, it is crucial to know the customer’s expectation. This could be done by giving feedbacks or ratings on the official website of the company, handing each customer a comment card (Elnaga& Imran, 2013).
• The next major step for implementing the plan is the evaluation of skills and talents of the employees. This is done by scrutinizing and observing the way an employee interacts to their customers, the quality of service offered and the employee’s reaction to the customer needs (Sperling, 2017). The employees are further required to show their skill set through regular demonstration.
• The next phase is to select the appropriate training method. There is various training method to train the employees working in a retail Industry. Some of them are presentation, role-play, and case study, on-the job training and modeling.
• The final and ultimate step is evaluation. The organization should reassess on a steady basis the employee’s relation with the customer services (Lawson, 2015). Employee need assessment should be undertaken at least thrice a year and proper feedback should be given after their assessment.

I feel the type of training required for the employees is based on the majority of people who are being trained. Modeling or Hands on is the most favorable for larger number of training employees. Otherwise, for groups a simple presentation would be adequate (Atkinson & Storey, 2016). The method that I selected for the training of employees is presentation because the selected method is not only simple but also more effective and practical. The employee presentation method could be further used as a manual and guide for training the consumer service aspects. Presentation enables not only enables the employees to hear the information but also see the information and thus follow along visually (Elnaga & Imran, 2013). Moreover, when the number of trainees is majority than modeling is also very beneficial for training as it enables the employees to handle any situation properly. Modeling enables the employee to have actual experience as they deal with the real customers (Ford, 2014). In retail companies, the new employees should always be given on the job training so that the employees are fully aware of the company operations. The training methods that I selected above are highly recommended for the retail industries.  It enables the employee to prepare for any given circumstances occurring in future.

Different Methods for Employee Training for Retail Industry

Training classes are highly beneficial and essential for a new hire (Gupta & Shaw, 2014).However; few of the employees may lack motivation for attending the training classes. The methods to motivate an employee having no interest in training classes are:

The company could offer incentives to those workers that have successfully and effectively finalize the training programme and classes. The employers should be provided with incentives like early leave, paid time off and compensations to attend the training class and get motivated (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). An additional day for vacation or stipend offers and pay raise can prove to be great motivation for the employees to perform well. The employees should be offered quizzes and subsequent tests to ascertain that the employees are paying attention in the training classes. It enables the employees to gain the confidence besides required skills and abilities for the job. Certificates should also be provided to the employees attending the meeting.

The employees should be conveyed the importance of training classes in order to increase the employees motivation. The employees should be communicated about the benefits of successful and effective training that would boost their career (Marching ton et al., 2016). It is vital for the employees to know that the training is provided to them so that their productivity increase which would further improve their standard of living. Initial training should be made mandatory to motivate the employees. If the employee is unable to commit to do the job efficiently and effectively then they can be asked to resign. This will further encourage the workers in a positive way. It also reinforces the company’s view about the expectance and attendance of their employees.

The following survey has been made to gather feedback from the employees attending the training Programme. The main purpose of this survey is to obtain information and data about the training provided to the employees was proved beneficial or not (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). This survey also focus on the difficulties and challenges by the employee on a daily basis.

1. What is your marital status?

Single

Married

Widowed

1. What is your position in the retail company?

Senior employee

Junior employee

Executive Manager

Manager

1. How would you rate the overall training class or Programme?

Excellent

Good

Fair

Poor

1. Rate the aspects of your trainer: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor

Did the trainer have complete grasp of the content?

Did the trainer take active participation?

Did the trainer provide assistance when required?

Did the trainer was well prepared for the class?

1. Please rate the training class following aspects: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor

Did the training Programme meet your expectations?

Was the quality of information provided appropriate?

Was the training length appropriate?

Did the training Programme began on time?

1. Kindly mark again the preferred section with the following remarks: Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Neutral

Materials provided during the training were useful and pertinent?

The trainer was well knowledgeable and competent?

Did the trainer accomplish the goal of the training?

The training was easy to follow?

1. On the basis of your experience, you would further like to attend the training programmer with us?

Very likely

Somewhat likely

Not likely

1. Additional Comments (If any):

A training survey is favorable for both the employer and the employees. It is valuable to the workers as it enables them to recall the information or ideas learned and discussed during the training session. Moreover, surveys are advantageous for the trainer or employers as it shows the employees views about the topics learned and discussed (Sperling, 2017). Surveys enables the training Programme to be further revised if required. It enables time for reflection and proved to be a great tool in measuring the efficiency of the provided training classes.

References:

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Atkinson, J., & Storey, D. J. (Eds.). (2016). Employment, the small firm and the labour market. Routledge.

Elnaga, A., & Imran, A. (2013). The effect of training on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), 137-147.

Ford, J. K. (2014). Improving training effectiveness in work organizations. Psychology Press.

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

Gupta, N., & Shaw, J. D. (2014). Employee compensation: The neglected area of HRM research. Human Resource Management Review, 24(1), 1-4.

Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2015). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.

Lawson, K. (2015). New employee orientation training. Association for Talent Development.

Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Phillips, J. J., & Phillips, P. P. (2016). Handbook of training evaluation and measurement methods. Routledge.

Rothwell, W. J., Jackson, R. D., Ressler, C. L., Jones, M. C., & Brower, M. (2015). Career Planning and Succession Management: Developing Your Organization’s Talent—for Today and Tomorrow: Developing Your Organization’s Talent—for Today and Tomorrow. ABC-CLIO.

Sperling, J. (2017). For-profit higher education: Developing a world class workforce. Routledge.