Training Needs Assessment: 5 Tips to Assess Yourself

Is it possible to conduct your own training needs assessment? Can you look in the mirror and determine, on your own and objectively, just which skills and knowledge need a boost and which are strengths? 

Actually, self-assessment is something you should be doing all the time – especially if you are in a leadership position. Perhaps your company offers frequent and proven needs assessments to help to identify core strengths and weaknesses. You, then, are lucky. Even so, you may not be able to count on the frequent training, supportive feedback, performance coaching and targeted reinforcement required to make lasting behavior and performance change.

If you are serious about improving your performance, you need to discipline yourself to look in the mirror regularly and assess your strengths and weaknesses relative to your job requirements and your organizational culture. You, ultimately, are the owner of your performance. You are the one who needs to be able to learn and grow from your experience. Maximize your potential by taking charge of your own professional growth and career development.

Here are 5 tips on how to do this effectively:

1. Know yourself. 
Be objective about what you do well and what you don’t do well. Think through a typical work day and be realistic about what you enjoy doing (likely your strengths) and what you avoid doing (likely your weaknesses). Self-awareness is the first step to higher performance.

2. Write down the results of your self-evaluation.
Your record of your self-assessment will be the crux of your professional development plan. Organize and prioritize them so that the skills and knowledge most critical to your success are the ones you will tackle first.

3. Use all available resources to support your learning.
You may have listed the skills that need building on your own but you don’t need to build them on your own. Take advantage of all training, any willing mentor or coach, any online webinars, or any books or articles that focus on best practices in your field. When you are given feedback, take advantage of the perspective and try to incorporate the suggestions in a way that makes sense.

4. After each test of the new skill, reflect upon your performance.
Be as specific as you can in your review for the ways you can do better next time. But be sure to praise yourself for the attempt and for what did go right. Remember this is a learning experience and there is always a learning curve…often steep…that must be navigated. Give yourself some positive self-talk to increase your self-confidence.

5. Practice.
The more you rehearse the new skill, the more comfortable you will be in applying it in your real world. Video yourself to see your performance from an observer’s point of view.

Your willingness to learn, your discipline and your sincere efforts to improve will soon reap rewards in your feelings of job satisfaction and empowerment.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/training-needs-assessment/