At the point where this post goes live, is hitting your in box, I am sat in Birmingham, with 499 other people listening to the wise (hopefully) words of Nigel Botterill and Steven Bartlett.

Every day is a school day for me and I thrive on having an open mind, learning from others and then applying the relevant bits to my business.

When growing your business and managing your staff, learning from those around you is essential.

There are very few situations which are so rare that no other business owner has faced it before you.

So, ensuring that you surround yourself with the right people, listen, question, understand and continue to learn is an essential part of leading your business.

As we approach the end of the year, many of our clients are taking time to look at the training needs of their staff in the next 12 months.

This may be to get stuff booked and into the diary, or it may be to plan for budget requirements.

Carrying out a proper training needs analysis for every single employee regardless of their role is a really important process.

It enables you to think about the business in terms of goals, objectives and plans and then to figure out whether your current team have the skills, knowledge and understanding to get you to where you need to be.

Where they don’t, there is a training need.

It is usually cheaper to train your existing staff who have potential, with the right attitude and who get your business than it is to get rid of them and recruit others.

It ensures continuity, loyalty and engagement.

It creates a culture of progression, stability and achievement.

There is a false belief that you need to carry out annual appraisals in order to have a training needs analysis for staff.

A lot of companies have ditched the traditional appraisal, and while many have replaced them with some other form of evaluation, the two bits which must be kept are the goal setting AND the Training Needs Analysis.

So here’s the plan:

1. Put a date in the diary to let your team know what you are going to be doing.
2. Discuss it with any line managers you have so they understand what their role is in this process – they have to manage their staff
3. Carry out the TNA on yourself – ask for help if you need to do so
4. Carry out the TNA on your direct reports
5. Get line managers to carry out the TNA process with their staff
6. Don’t forget to document it
7. Make it happen

If you need any further help, just reach out to the team here and we can discuss options for supporting you through this process.