A needs analysis is a tool that is aimed at looking if the needs of humans are met. From a business perspective, a needs analysis comes in place to test if the organization is meeting the needs of the customers or not. The tool identifies the loopholes and the weaknesses that might be present in an organization with the intention of helping to come up with strategies that would help to make sure that the company meets the needs of the customers. Summarily, a needs analysis helps an organization to understand its current situation thus motivating the organization to employ strategies that help it to meet the needs of the customers the way they ought to be met.
The company has a goal of providing quality services to its customers. Quality services to an organization like The People’s Credit Union mean increasing the satisfaction levels of the customers. The company deals with services, and that means that it has to work more on how the employees provide the services to the customers. The gaps that are in place are enormous. The first gap is evident in the case of what the customers need and what they get (Shareef, Dwivedi, Kumar, & Kumar, 2016) The customers have been complaining that the employees are rude and unhelpful and some of them do not have the slightest ideas of the needs of the customers. When a company has the intention of providing high quality services and the employees provide services that do not meet the needs of the customers, it means that there is a gap.
The second gap is associated with the employees’ capability to serve in line with the desired goals of the company. It is evident that the employees do not have all that they need to be effective at the workplace (Hann et al. 2017). The gap is evident because the employees who do not serve the customers well are not few but most of them. When an organization has an issue that affects many employees, it is evident that there is a gap that is not addressed the way it ought to be addressed. In the case that this was an issue with some employees, then it would not have affected a lot of employees as it has proven to (Prout, 2018). The current state is that the employees are not doing what the organization would want them to, and the desired state is that the employees would be effective and offer services that are satisfactory and attractive to the customers. Therefore, the gap is huge.
The situation with the employees at The People’s Credit Union shows that training is not the only answer to the gaps, but it is one of the answers. The reason for stating so is associated with the fact that the company is not only dealing with the complaints from the customers but it is also dealing with the issue of high turnover. The gaps have been caused by three different reasons (Hann et al. 2017). The first reason is training, and this can be seen in the way the company handles its new employees. A half-day orientation in a company is not enough for an employee to be familiar with an organization. A new employee should be given a more extended orientation period to make sure that the employee becomes conversant with the working environment.
The recruitment process also needs to be addressed if the gaps are to be closed. An organization that is aimed at making sure that the needs of the customers are met should not compromise on the type of employees to hire (Prevo, Mercken, Jansen, & Kremers, 2018). Despite the fact that the company has no effective training plan, it goes ahead to recruit and hire an employee who only possess high school diplomas. Therefore, for the company to take care of the gaps, it must make sure that the employees who work for the company have a better level of education and experience.
Promoting a good working environment will also be an answer to address the gaps that are evident in the company. The working hours for the employees on a full-time basis are in line with the required hours but the overtime hours are a lot. The work of the employees in the company engage their brains a lot, and that means if the employees work for excess hours, their stress levels may increase thus affecting their effectiveness (Vatanartiran & Karadeniz, 2015). When it gets to the point of the employees being rude to the customers, it means that the employees have had too much and they no longer care about what they do at the company (De Vries et al. 2016). The employees’ extra hours should be looked into to make sure that they are not overworked. One of the reasons why the turnover rate might be increasing might be because the employees are finding it challenging to effectively discharge their mandate at the organization (Masson, Jain, Ganesh, & George, 2016). When the working environment is suitable for the employees, their levels of satisfaction and effectiveness increase and that also affects the quality of the services that they offer to the customers at the company.
What steps would you take at each ‘level of analysis’ to determine whether a gap exists and how to best close it?
The best way to know if the is a gap at the organizational level is by looking at the performance of the company. The performance of the company is broad because it also encompasses the output of the employees (Demydov, Strykhalyuk, Shpur, Mohamed, & Klymash, 2015). The company has goals in place which are related to the quality standards of the services offered. When the goals are met, it is evident that there are no gaps. However, when the goals are not met, it is evident that there are gaps to be closed. The company has targets that the employees are supposed to meet. When the employees meet the targets, it means that there are no gaps, but when the employees fail to meet the targets, it means that there are gaps. The best steps to close the gaps, in this case, are to change the working model, change the strategy, and increase employee motivation to enhance their effectiveness.
The best way to analyze the tasks is by looking if every task is performed the way an organization expects it to be performed. Before the employees can perform any task, there are standards that are tagged to the tasks (Acharya et al. 2017). The standards are aimed at making sure that the task meets the needs and expectation of both the customer and the organization. Therefore, if the task is not performed in line with the organization’s expectation, it is evident that they are gaps. Two steps can be taken to breach the gap. The steps are replacing the people responsible for performing the task or training the people entrusted with the responsibility on the best approach to use while performing the task.
Person Analysis
In person analysis, the best way to note if there are gaps is by looking at the performance of the person, and the suitability of a person who is holding a specific position. A good performer can be seen through the results of his or her work (Brown, 2016). When an employee meets all organizational targets, it is evident that there are no visible gaps. The qualification of an employee who is holding a specific position dictates if the employee is worth to perform in the capacity of that position or not. When the employee is under qualified, it is evident that there is a gap. The best steps to take in closing the gaps are to train the employee or substitute him or her with an employee who can be effective in the position.
What, if any, obstacles might your team encounter to conducting a thorough needs analysis?
A thorough analysis needs data that is actual and well defined. For example, the company is expected to present the exact standards of quality that it expects the employees to meet in their performance (Bocanegra-Valle, 2016). The lack of accurate and defined benchmarks is a barrier to conducting an accurate analysis. Therefore, if the company fails to provide the quality benchmarks that are defined and transparent, it will be a challenge for the team to conduct an analysis because there will be no standards to be compared to the performance of the employees.
The second barrier would be associated with the availability of data from the company on the performance of the employees (Bel & Warner, 2016). Considering that this is an analysis that is looking into every aspect, there is a need for the company to provide the data of every employee. The availability of the data will help to know the best employees and the employees who do not perform in line with the organization’s expectations. In any analysis, the data of the parties and components involved must be available for the findings to be accurate and helpful.
References
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Bocanegra-Valle, A. (2016). Needs analysis for curriculum design. In The Routledge Handbook of English for academic purposes (pp. 584-600). Routledge.
Brown, J. D. (2016). Introducing needs analysis and English for specific purposes. Routledge.
Demydov, I. V., Strykhalyuk, B. M., Shpur, O. M., Mohamed, M. E. H., & Klymash, Y. V. (2015). The structural-functional synthesis of cloud service delivery platform after service availability and performance criteria. ??????? ??????? ??????????, (1), 144 159.
De Vries, A. H., van Genugten, H. G., Hendrikx, A. J., Koldewijn, E. L., Schout, B. M., Tjiam, I. M., … & Wagner, C. (2016). The Simbla TURBT simulator in urological residency training: from needs analysis to validation. Journal of Endourology, 30(5), 580-587.
Hann, M., Schafheutle, E. I., Bradley, F., Elvey, R., Wagner, A., Halsall, D., … & Jacobs, S. (2017). Organisational and extraorganisational determinants of volume of service delivery by English community pharmacies: a cross-sectional survey and secondary data analysis. BMJ Open, 7(10), e017843.
Masson, S., Jain, R., Ganesh, N. M., & George, S. A. (2016). Operational efficiency and service delivery performance: A comparative analysis of Indian telecom service providers. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 23(4), 893-915.
Prevo, L., Mercken, L., Jansen, M., & Kremers, S. (2018). With whom are you dealing? Using social network analysis as a tool to strengthen service delivery structures for low socioeconomic status populations. Journal of Public Health Research.
Prout, S. (2018). The entangled relationship between Indigenous spatiality and government service delivery. Canberra, ACT: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, College of Arts & Social Sciences, The Australian National University.
Shareef, M. A., Dwivedi, Y. K., Kumar, V., & Kumar, U. (2016). Reformation of public service to meet citizens’ needs as customers: Evaluating SMS as an alternative service delivery channel. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 255-270.
Vatanartiran, S., & Karadeniz, S. (2015). A Needs Analysis for Technology Integration Plan: Challenges and Needs of Teachers. Contemporary Educational Technology, 6(3), 206 220.
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