Conducting a Needs Assessment at Brown and Brown Insurance

Stakeholder Buy-In

According to Noe (2020), stakeholders are anyone who may have an interest in training and who can contribute to its success or failure.  At Brown and Brown, the culture is one that is focused on being lean and decentralized (Brown and Brown, n.d.). Most training will be specific to the needs of an individual branch and will therefore not involve higher-level corporate leaders. In a branch office, it would be typical for the following individuals to be considered stakeholders for a training needs assessment: profit center leader, department leader, trainer, subject matter experts, and employees who will receive the training. The profit center leader will be an important stakeholder in the needs assessment process because they understand how the role of training can help their organization to achieve business goals (Noe, 2020). Department managers provide details on budgeting for a training initiative, who should receive training, and which jobs training can have the biggest impact on increasing customer satisfaction (Noe, 2020). Subject matter experts are important stakeholders because they provide valuable information on the knowledge, skills, and equipment needed to perform a task optimally (Noe, 2020). Employees, as stakeholders, need to feel that training is relevant to their work and that their efforts will be supported by management (Noe, 2020).

Organizational Questions for a Needs Analysis (Noe, 2020) (Mager & Pipe, 1997)

Profit Center Leader

·         What is the business objective you are trying to accomplish?

·         How will training help you achieve that business objective?

·         What individuals have an interest in seeing training be successful?

Department Leader

·         How will training help your department to achieve business objectives?

·         How much money are you willing to spend on training?

·         What other solutions would you suggest to help support business objectives?

·         Are there any obstacles that might make training ineffective?

·         Do you have the appropriate resources to support training efforts during training?

·         Do you have appropriate resources to support employees who need to transfer their new skills to their work?

Employees

·         Does your manager and company support you attending training?

·         Do you view training as an opportunity or waste of time?

Person Questions for a Needs Analysis

Profit Center Leader (Noe, 2020) (Mager & Pipe, 1997)

·         Do employees in a specific department require training?

·         What do employees need to do to effectively accomplish your organization’s goal?

·         What does current performance look like and how should desired performance look?

·         What would happen if you did not provide training or find another solution to the performance issue?

Department Leader (Noe, 2020) (Mager & Pipe, 1997)

·         Who should be trained?

·         Will any rewards be presented to employees to encourage them to complete training or transfer their skills to their job?

·         What obstacles might be present that would prevent an employee from transferring skill from the training to their jobs?

·         Will performance be monitored after training?

·         Will feedback be provided to employees for their performance after training?

·         Is the desired behavior/performance punishing?

Employees

·         What concerns do you have about training?

·         Do you feel training can help you develop skills that will be more successful in your job?

·         Does your manager provide you with the tools and environment that you need to be successful in learning?

·         What obstacles do you think may prevent you from implementing the skill and knowledge and skill you acquire from the training?

Task Questions for a Needs Analysis (Noe, 2020)

Profit Center Leader

·         Does your organization have anyone who currently has the skills and knowledge that will help your organization achieve your business goals?

Department Manager

·         Is there anyone in your department who currently has the skills and knowledge that will help your organization achieve your business goals?

·         What tasks are critical to the attainment of the business goal?

Subject Matter Expert/Exemplary Performer

·         What tasks are critical to achieving desired performance?

·         In what order do you perform these tasks??

·         Why do you perform the tasks in this order?

·         What resources do you need to effectively accomplish these tasks?

·         What tasks do average performers struggle with the most?

Trainer

·         What is the difference between the way an average performer and a subject matter expert performs the task?

·         How are tasks defined (importance, frequency, and level of difficulty)?

Employees

·         How do you perform the task?

Documents/Records To Review as Part of the Needs Analysis

When completing a needs analysis, it may be helpful to obtain any records that confirm the current performance. These might include any reports that substantiate current results (e.g. sales reports). It also may be helpful to see any procedure manuals that advise on how employees complete the process in question.

Techniques that Would be Employed During the Needs Analysis (Noe, 2020)

In completing a needs analysis at Brown and Brown I would use the following techniques:

·         Observation – This technique will be helpful when working on the task analysis. Although interviews can be helpful during this phase of the needs analysis, additional details can be observed that a subject matter expert may take for granted and may not verbalize as part of an interview. This technique may also provide some additional insights into differences between exemplary performer work process and average performer work process.

·         Surveys – This technique can be used with employees to gauge interest in learning or uncover any concerns or obstacles that employees view in completing the training program.

·         Interviews – This technique will work well in gathering information from the profit center leader and department manager in general. This will also be helpful during the task analysis portion of the needs analysis when engaging with employees (average performers) and subject matter experts (exemplary performers).

·         Documentation and historic data – This technique will provide confirmation of existing performance and also the current tools used to provide details of processes currently in place.

 

Resources

Brown and Brown Insurance Website: https://www.bbinsurance.com/

Mager, R.F., & Pipe, P. (1997).  Analyzing performance problems or you really oughta wanna (3^rd ed.). Atlanta, GA: CEP Press.

Noe, R. A. (2020). Employee training and development (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.