What is Organisational Needs Analysis?

An organisational needs analysis is a highly effective method used for highlighting any risks or opportunities that may impact your business plan and strategic goals over the next 2-5 years. As a result, an ONA identifies existing and future staff development needs and how these link to achieving your strategic plan. The ONA process should result in tangible performance and productivity boosts for employees and the wider organisation.

Having the right employees for the job is essential to business continuity and growth. By identifying where your risks, opportunities and skills gaps exist, you can help to ensure the right people are in the correct roles and any additional development or systemic change required can be implemented. This also ensures that any training budget can be allocated to the right areas.

What Does an Organisational Needs Analysis Involve?

The analysis itself covers several key areas. These include but are not limited to:

• Assessing  the current business situation, including all internal and external processes

• Identifying exactly where you want to be as a business, with a realistic goal and target date set

• Analysing and assessing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be

• Identifying the challenges, obstacles and barriers in your way

• Developing a detailed plan for how the gap can be bridged, with an outline and understanding of any training or procedural changes that may be needed

By completing these steps and formulating a bespoke plan, an actionable blueprint can be drawn up to help businesses take the next step towards where they want to be.

Benefits of a Needs Analysis

There are multiple benefits associated with carrying out a needs analysis for your business. Some of the key ones include:

Understanding Where You Are

This is important as business situations are not always clear. The perception can often be skewed, depending on which KPIs are used and when needs analysis was last conducted. Gaining a clear understanding of where you are is the first step towards improved business functions.

Goal Alignment

Business goals should always be at the forefront of your thinking whilst analysing needs. By putting a coherent plan together you can ensure that all future training and procedures align with business aims and goals.

Insight Into Operations

Analysing a business allows you to gain a more in-depth understanding of the operational needs of the company. Departmental, team and individual needs can all be better understood.

Focuses on Timing

Timing is key with organisational development needs analysis, as part of the findings will focus on when changes should be implemented, not just what they are. This helps avoid costly mistakes and ensures maximum efficiency throughout the process.

Wider Insight

Needs analysis is a great way to gain insight into not only training and development needs but also any other issues that may be affecting the company. These performance-related issues can then be addressed through both training and non-training methods.

How Keystone Conducts Needs Analysis

Keystone Training carries out this kind of analysis with a methodical and structured approach. Each step of the process is aligned with business goals and tailored to work for individual organisations.

Context is key. The initial stage revolves around the assessment of mid and long-term goals. This gives us an understanding of where you are and where you want to be. This understanding then feeds into how we conduct our analysis.

The next phase is research, the more in-depth the better. Our team will use several techniques to build up an accurate understanding of your current situation. Interviews, observations, surveys and focus groups are just some of the tools we use to build the picture.

Once the context has been set and the research has been carried out the analysis can begin. All information and data is reviewed by our team before being compiled into a detailed report that includes specific actions and steps that can be taken.

For more information on how Keystone conducts organisational development needs analysis and what you can expect from your report, head to our dedicated page. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any other of our training courses please don’t hesitate to get in touch.