Learning Needs Analysis Paper
Executive Summary
Healthy Lifestyle Hospital (HLH) is a healthcare provider under the National Healthcare Group. Since its beginnings in the early1980s it has grown rapidly to establish itself as acute-care hospital. HLH houses over 3000 professional staffs and is a comprehensive hospital with more than 800 beds, 22 clinics, 3 dental and 6 paramedical departments on top of the many specialist outpatient clinics and specialized service centres. The organization prides itself on its focus on patients as well as its people and this can be seen in its vision, mission and core values. To accomplish this, it is committed to the mission of providing personalized, specialized, accessible and cost-effective care of the highest quality within an environment of intensive research and excellent medical education.
This paper will examine the HRD function and it’s role in the organization. Specifically, this paper will examine the Learning Needs Analysis (LNA) model adopted by the organization, how the Total Company Learning Plan (TCLP) is implemented and how training is evaluated. Finally, this paper will propose recommendations for improvements.
HRD DEPARTMENT ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
The role of the HRD department is essentially to Identify, Develop, Deliver and Evaluate training and development needs and …show more content…
ensuring that these needs remain aligned to the business of the organization. Figure 1 shows the structure of the HRD department. Figure 1
The head of the dept reports to the HR director. There are altogether 3 trainers in the department, 2 under the Human Capital Section providing general leadership program and 1under the customer service section providing trainings for Customer Service programs. The administration section is responsible for training administration, including paperworks for various internal and government grants/subsidies and training coordination. The facility management section ensures that the training facilities and logistics are maintained at tip-top condition and made available whenever required.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK Figure 2
It is the HRD department’s responsibility to determine the supply and demand of training programme for every financial year. This is conducted in the form of a LNA. HLH’s LNA framework (figure 2) comprises of: Organizational analysis, Task analysis and Person analysis. The annual LNA exercise is driven by the HRD department and coincides with the budgeting period, thereby facilitating the allocation of resources for training programmes.
Other than looking immediate training requirements, the LNA exercise also plans for long term learning needs such as analyzing the trends in medical technology and providing competency based training to the targeted professional for it.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS (OA)
A strategic planning session is held annually to set the organizational strategic direction for the coming financial year. Consisting of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief of Medical Board (CMB), Directors and Deputy Directors, they help to review the strategic factors for the organization, based on the organization’s mission and vision. The session will determine the appropriate training strategies, allocation of organizational resources and provide top management support for the training plans.
In this process, the organization examines the following:
1) Allocation of organization resources to be devoted to the training progammes - guidelines from the government or changes to the funding policy that may have an effect on the type of training and resources available for training
2) Alignment with the strategic needs of the organization – The organization’s mission is to provide personalized and specialized healthcare. For example, in anticipating Singapore’s greying population, the organization will need to allocate more resources for geriatric care.
3) Engaging managers and employees support - The organization also conducts focus group interview with department supervisors and administer questionnaires to no less than 2000 employees to solicit their input. The outcome of this is the Department Learning Plan and Department Learning Map respectively.
4) Interferences to the training from work environment – Most HLH staffs do not have personal workstation to access e-learning content. In 2005, a learning hub, consisting of more than 20 shared computer terminals, was established to allow the staffs to access the e-learning content during their free time.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - TASK ANALYSIS (TA)
In identifying the important Knowledge, Skills, Attitude & Other Attributes (KSAOs) that need to be emphasized in training, the behavioural competency model is used (figure 3).
The competency job band matrix has 5 bands or competency categories and 5 core competencies or competency elements. The 5 bands in respective order are Learner/Follower, Doer/Specialist, Technical Expert/Professional, Guru/Leader and Navigator/Boundary Shaper. The core competencies are Put Customer First, Get Things Done, Be a Team Play, Develop Self and Others and Apply Knowledge. These Competencies are described in behavioural terms so that incumbents know exactly what is
required.
Figure 3
There are two dichotomies of competency in the organization. Firstly, the Generic competencies that is applicable to all staff from doctors to allied health and ancillary services. Secondly the Functional competencies that apply only to individuals who require skills that are unique to their profession e.g. nursing. After identifying the KSAOs, the performance criteria is derived and integrated into the organization’s performance appraisal where incumbents will be assessed on their ability to exhibit the desired behaviour.
For the task analysis, staff, supervisors, heads of department and even customers are involved in this process. Collecting data from these various sources not only helps to make valid the information obtained but is also an opportunity to involve the voice of the customer and ensure that organizational goals are cascaded down to the departments.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - PERSON ANALYSIS (PA)
HLH conducts person analysis by using performance appraisal of its employees to identify functional and generic competency gaps. The performance appraisal integrates the behavioural competency model to reinforce as well as to enable its people to form links between their competency and performance indicators.
Secondly to assess employee’s readiness for training, three components are considered. The employee’s academic readiness, work attitude and experience. A balance of these three indicators will help supervisors determine which employees to send for training.
Once the individual learning plan has been mutually agreed between supervisors and staff, staff will be required to register or indicate their training requests.
TCLP IMPLEMENTATION
The outputs from Organizational analysis, Task analysis and Person analysis are then consolidated by HRD to produce the Total Company Learning Plan (TCLP). More importantly, the information from TCLP is entered into LearningSpace to create the training spaces for staff to apply.
LearningSpace is an online portal where training programmes are uploaded and for staff to register. This not only reduces costs for the organization but also encourage employees to participate and cooperate in the LNA process by making as simple as hassle free for them. This also serves as a central database for all training records. As all training records are available in the database, it allows HRD to use this information to submit and claim for government grant.
As mentioned above, there are two types of training programmes available in LearningSpace: namely generic and functional training programmes. Generic training programme includes programmes customer service, leadership or computer skillsand it is applicable to all employees. For functional training programmes, departments will be responsible for providing training information (e.g. Evidence Based Nursing Workshop).
Althought training programmes are available in LearningSpace, this does not ensures the learning contract drawn up between staff and their supervisors are fully followed through. In order to ensure this, HLH’s HRD department constantly publish training information in various channels. For example, training information is available via bulletine board, newsletters, emails and periodic staff commication sessions. Furthermore, employees in HLH are expected to take ownership of their own individual learning plan.
Senior management support is also one of the key success factors for HLH’s TCLP implementation. They are firmly committed to learning and the communication of organizational goals. This can be seen in their efforts and time contributed to identify the strategic learning needs for the organization during the OA stage. In another example of such support, senior management is requird to give an opening speech on the importance of training at the start of all internal training sessions.
TRAINING EVALUATION PROCESS
In order to determine how LNA has been successful in identifying the correct learning needs and ensuring employees meet their learning objectives, this paper will use the Kirkpatrick model to study the organization’s training evaluation process.
Level 1 of the Kirkpatrick model looks at the reactions of participants after the training sessions. In HLH, all training programmes are mandated to have a training feedback form to be completed and trainers must have a minimum 4/5 rating score. This feedback from participants demonstrates the use kirkpatrick’s level 1 of learning evaluation.
In most training sessions, tests are administered to ensure learning has occurred. For example nurses undergoing an Evidence Based Nursing workshop will be required to submit a learning journal documenting gained knowledge and skill. Such requirements are examples of level 2 of the Kirkpatrick model that measures the resulting improvement in knowledge or competence
Behavioural audits are conducted to ensure what is learnt is transferred to the work place and is consistently exhibited. Audits are used for this purpose and the results of are then given to the CEO and HOD for review and action. For example, as customer service and patient safety are regarded as a key factor in the success of the organization, behavioural audits are conducted on a regular basis via mystery shopper exercise. This monitoring of behavioural changes is evidence that level 3 of the Kirkpatrick model is present.
Level 4 of the Kirkpatrick model focuses on actual business results due to training intervention. It is difficult to calculate the exact financial benefits for the entire LNA process. HLH training programmes that have a direct impact on patient safety are selected for such evaluation. For example, patient safety index are monitored before and after training intervention.
RECOMMENDATION
This section will now look at some of the key challenges faced by HLH and proposes some recommendations to overcome these challenges. Firstly in using the behavioural competency framework, HLH found it difficult to get buy in from employees who are not as savvy with the concept competencies. This is particularly prevalent among the junior or entry-level staff (e.g. nursing aides). This paper propose that a simpler communication toolkit be developed by HRD and mechanism put in place to ensure that all supervisors are conversant in using this toolkit.
Secondly, while senior management is doing a good job in giving opening speech in all training sessions, this paper propose that commitment from senior management could be further enhanced by having senior management conducting training sessions themselves. When such commitments are showed, it would provide additional impetus for staff to attend all trainings.
Thirdly, the paper had shown that key stakeholders review the LNA process on an annual basis. The downside of having an annual review is that HLH is relatively less responsive to unexpected external and internal business environment changes. For example, the SARS outbreak resulted in changes to how training could be delivered. This paper proposes that a training review committee comprising of various stakeholders be set up to do a quarterly review of TCLP.
Finally, although HLH has a learning hub for staff to access learning materials as elaborated above, this hub is open only during the day (9am to 5pm). Large majority of HLH staff are working on shift and this would create inconvenience for staff to access the learning materials during their shift hours. This paper proposes that the learning hub be operational 24/7 to accommodate to staff different working hours.
CONCLUSION
This paper had examined the HRD function and it’s role in the organization. The LNA model and the various components of this model was elaborated and discussed. This examination reveals a systematic and structured approach adopted by HLH in their LNA process.
Secondly, this paper investigated the implementation of HLH’s TCLP and how training is evaluated. The various measures as explained above does ensure that effective implementation are in place. By applying the Kirkpatrick 4 levels of Learning Evaluation, this paper also shows that HLH’s training evaluation process is comprehensive and it cover all the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model.
Our recommendations in the papers also suggest that more can be done to improve the LNA process. However, there is one limitation that is noteworthy to highlight. This paper could not benchmark best practices within the same industry due to the inavailability of information from other healthcare providers. Notwithstanding, this paper could be also further enhanced if benchmarking of best practices could be done with other organizations outside the healthcare industry.
Healthy Lifestyle Hospital (HLH) is a healthcare provider under the National Healthcare Group. Since its beginnings in the early1980s it has grown rapidly to establish itself as acute-care hospital. HLH houses over 3000 professional staffs and is a comprehensive hospital with more than 800 beds, 22 clinics, 3 dental and 6 paramedical departments on top of the many specialist outpatient clinics and specialized service centres. The organization prides itself on its focus on patients as well as its people and this can be seen in its vision, mission and core values. To accomplish this, it is committed to the mission of providing personalized, specialized, accessible and cost-effective care of the highest quality within an environment of intensive research and excellent medical education.
This paper will examine the HRD function and it’s role in the organization. Specifically, this paper will examine the Learning Needs Analysis (LNA) model adopted by the organization, how the Total Company Learning Plan (TCLP) is implemented and how training is evaluated. Finally, this paper will propose recommendations for improvements.
HRD DEPARTMENT ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
The role of the HRD department is essentially to Identify, Develop, Deliver and Evaluate training and development needs and …show more content…
ensuring that these needs remain aligned to the business of the organization. Figure 1 shows the structure of the HRD department. Figure 1
The head of the dept reports to the HR director. There are altogether 3 trainers in the department, 2 under the Human Capital Section providing general leadership program and 1under the customer service section providing trainings for Customer Service programs. The administration section is responsible for training administration, including paperworks for various internal and government grants/subsidies and training coordination. The facility management section ensures that the training facilities and logistics are maintained at tip-top condition and made available whenever required.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK Figure 2
It is the HRD department’s responsibility to determine the supply and demand of training programme for every financial year. This is conducted in the form of a LNA. HLH’s LNA framework (figure 2) comprises of: Organizational analysis, Task analysis and Person analysis. The annual LNA exercise is driven by the HRD department and coincides with the budgeting period, thereby facilitating the allocation of resources for training programmes.
Other than looking immediate training requirements, the LNA exercise also plans for long term learning needs such as analyzing the trends in medical technology and providing competency based training to the targeted professional for it.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS (OA)
A strategic planning session is held annually to set the organizational strategic direction for the coming financial year. Consisting of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief of Medical Board (CMB), Directors and Deputy Directors, they help to review the strategic factors for the organization, based on the organization’s mission and vision. The session will determine the appropriate training strategies, allocation of organizational resources and provide top management support for the training plans.
In this process, the organization examines the following:
1) Allocation of organization resources to be devoted to the training progammes - guidelines from the government or changes to the funding policy that may have an effect on the type of training and resources available for training
2) Alignment with the strategic needs of the organization – The organization’s mission is to provide personalized and specialized healthcare. For example, in anticipating Singapore’s greying population, the organization will need to allocate more resources for geriatric care.
3) Engaging managers and employees support - The organization also conducts focus group interview with department supervisors and administer questionnaires to no less than 2000 employees to solicit their input. The outcome of this is the Department Learning Plan and Department Learning Map respectively.
4) Interferences to the training from work environment – Most HLH staffs do not have personal workstation to access e-learning content. In 2005, a learning hub, consisting of more than 20 shared computer terminals, was established to allow the staffs to access the e-learning content during their free time.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - TASK ANALYSIS (TA)
In identifying the important Knowledge, Skills, Attitude & Other Attributes (KSAOs) that need to be emphasized in training, the behavioural competency model is used (figure 3).
The competency job band matrix has 5 bands or competency categories and 5 core competencies or competency elements. The 5 bands in respective order are Learner/Follower, Doer/Specialist, Technical Expert/Professional, Guru/Leader and Navigator/Boundary Shaper. The core competencies are Put Customer First, Get Things Done, Be a Team Play, Develop Self and Others and Apply Knowledge. These Competencies are described in behavioural terms so that incumbents know exactly what is
required.
Figure 3
There are two dichotomies of competency in the organization. Firstly, the Generic competencies that is applicable to all staff from doctors to allied health and ancillary services. Secondly the Functional competencies that apply only to individuals who require skills that are unique to their profession e.g. nursing. After identifying the KSAOs, the performance criteria is derived and integrated into the organization’s performance appraisal where incumbents will be assessed on their ability to exhibit the desired behaviour.
For the task analysis, staff, supervisors, heads of department and even customers are involved in this process. Collecting data from these various sources not only helps to make valid the information obtained but is also an opportunity to involve the voice of the customer and ensure that organizational goals are cascaded down to the departments.
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS PROCESS - PERSON ANALYSIS (PA)
HLH conducts person analysis by using performance appraisal of its employees to identify functional and generic competency gaps. The performance appraisal integrates the behavioural competency model to reinforce as well as to enable its people to form links between their competency and performance indicators.
Secondly to assess employee’s readiness for training, three components are considered. The employee’s academic readiness, work attitude and experience. A balance of these three indicators will help supervisors determine which employees to send for training.
Once the individual learning plan has been mutually agreed between supervisors and staff, staff will be required to register or indicate their training requests.
TCLP IMPLEMENTATION
The outputs from Organizational analysis, Task analysis and Person analysis are then consolidated by HRD to produce the Total Company Learning Plan (TCLP). More importantly, the information from TCLP is entered into LearningSpace to create the training spaces for staff to apply.
LearningSpace is an online portal where training programmes are uploaded and for staff to register. This not only reduces costs for the organization but also encourage employees to participate and cooperate in the LNA process by making as simple as hassle free for them. This also serves as a central database for all training records. As all training records are available in the database, it allows HRD to use this information to submit and claim for government grant.
As mentioned above, there are two types of training programmes available in LearningSpace: namely generic and functional training programmes. Generic training programme includes programmes customer service, leadership or computer skillsand it is applicable to all employees. For functional training programmes, departments will be responsible for providing training information (e.g. Evidence Based Nursing Workshop).
Althought training programmes are available in LearningSpace, this does not ensures the learning contract drawn up between staff and their supervisors are fully followed through. In order to ensure this, HLH’s HRD department constantly publish training information in various channels. For example, training information is available via bulletine board, newsletters, emails and periodic staff commication sessions. Furthermore, employees in HLH are expected to take ownership of their own individual learning plan.
Senior management support is also one of the key success factors for HLH’s TCLP implementation. They are firmly committed to learning and the communication of organizational goals. This can be seen in their efforts and time contributed to identify the strategic learning needs for the organization during the OA stage. In another example of such support, senior management is requird to give an opening speech on the importance of training at the start of all internal training sessions.
TRAINING EVALUATION PROCESS
In order to determine how LNA has been successful in identifying the correct learning needs and ensuring employees meet their learning objectives, this paper will use the Kirkpatrick model to study the organization’s training evaluation process.
Level 1 of the Kirkpatrick model looks at the reactions of participants after the training sessions. In HLH, all training programmes are mandated to have a training feedback form to be completed and trainers must have a minimum 4/5 rating score. This feedback from participants demonstrates the use kirkpatrick’s level 1 of learning evaluation.
In most training sessions, tests are administered to ensure learning has occurred. For example nurses undergoing an Evidence Based Nursing workshop will be required to submit a learning journal documenting gained knowledge and skill. Such requirements are examples of level 2 of the Kirkpatrick model that measures the resulting improvement in knowledge or competence
Behavioural audits are conducted to ensure what is learnt is transferred to the work place and is consistently exhibited. Audits are used for this purpose and the results of are then given to the CEO and HOD for review and action. For example, as customer service and patient safety are regarded as a key factor in the success of the organization, behavioural audits are conducted on a regular basis via mystery shopper exercise. This monitoring of behavioural changes is evidence that level 3 of the Kirkpatrick model is present.
Level 4 of the Kirkpatrick model focuses on actual business results due to training intervention. It is difficult to calculate the exact financial benefits for the entire LNA process. HLH training programmes that have a direct impact on patient safety are selected for such evaluation. For example, patient safety index are monitored before and after training intervention.
RECOMMENDATION
This section will now look at some of the key challenges faced by HLH and proposes some recommendations to overcome these challenges. Firstly in using the behavioural competency framework, HLH found it difficult to get buy in from employees who are not as savvy with the concept competencies. This is particularly prevalent among the junior or entry-level staff (e.g. nursing aides). This paper propose that a simpler communication toolkit be developed by HRD and mechanism put in place to ensure that all supervisors are conversant in using this toolkit.
Secondly, while senior management is doing a good job in giving opening speech in all training sessions, this paper propose that commitment from senior management could be further enhanced by having senior management conducting training sessions themselves. When such commitments are showed, it would provide additional impetus for staff to attend all trainings.
Thirdly, the paper had shown that key stakeholders review the LNA process on an annual basis. The downside of having an annual review is that HLH is relatively less responsive to unexpected external and internal business environment changes. For example, the SARS outbreak resulted in changes to how training could be delivered. This paper proposes that a training review committee comprising of various stakeholders be set up to do a quarterly review of TCLP.
Finally, although HLH has a learning hub for staff to access learning materials as elaborated above, this hub is open only during the day (9am to 5pm). Large majority of HLH staff are working on shift and this would create inconvenience for staff to access the learning materials during their shift hours. This paper proposes that the learning hub be operational 24/7 to accommodate to staff different working hours.
CONCLUSION
This paper had examined the HRD function and it’s role in the organization. The LNA model and the various components of this model was elaborated and discussed. This examination reveals a systematic and structured approach adopted by HLH in their LNA process.
Secondly, this paper investigated the implementation of HLH’s TCLP and how training is evaluated. The various measures as explained above does ensure that effective implementation are in place. By applying the Kirkpatrick 4 levels of Learning Evaluation, this paper also shows that HLH’s training evaluation process is comprehensive and it cover all the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model.
Our recommendations in the papers also suggest that more can be done to improve the LNA process. However, there is one limitation that is noteworthy to highlight. This paper could not benchmark best practices within the same industry due to the inavailability of information from other healthcare providers. Notwithstanding, this paper could be also further enhanced if benchmarking of best practices could be done with other organizations outside the healthcare industry.