What is the relationship between organizational needs analysis and strategic planning? How can tying HRD programs to an organization’s strategic plan make it easier to justify requests for resources to develop and deliver HRD programs?
An organizational needs analysis is a very useful tool for identifying potential threats or gains that could affect your business plan and strategic objectives over the next two to five years. As a result, an ONA pinpoints your strategic plan's achievement goals as well as current and future staff development needs. The ONA process should lead to real improvements in productivity and performance for both individual employees and the entire organization. For a business to continue to operate and expand, the correct workers are crucial. You may help to guarantee that the right people are in the right roles and that any additional development or systemic change required can be accomplished by recognizing where your risks, opportunities, and skills gaps exist. Additionally, any training expenditure can be distributed to the appropriate places thanks to this.
Utilizing needs analysis enables firms to take a proactive approach to prospective problems before they materialize into actual ones. One of the key advantages of needs analysis is its ability to identify staff knowledge and skill shortages before they start to seriously impact the organization. Aids in early training preparation. It's difficult to plan the training schedules for an entire company. However, rather than making assumptions about the kinds of training that should be provided, training requirements analysis aids an organization in making defensible judgments based on real and accurate information. And to assist human resources planning activities since they are used to predict how changes in management strategy will affect future human resources needs (Werner, 2022).
You must first comprehend what the ideal process entails in order to identify the differences between it and current practices. The greatest method to make sure your needs assessment is measurable, actionable, and results-oriented is to have clear objectives. Take some time to think about your desired results before you begin gathering and analyzing data for your needs assessment. To plan timelines and comprehend the anticipated outcome, establish targets and gather information on areas of opportunity. Your team members have significant insight on prospective process changes because they are probably more familiar with the process than you are. To determine your team's major gaps, solicit comments from your project team or have a general brainstorming session. Strategic planning (SP) is one of the more popular management approaches in contemporary organizations, and it is consistently ranked among the five most popular managerial approaches worldwide (George, 2019). Analysis of the organization's mandate, mission, and values, analysis of the organization's internal and external environment, identification of strategic issues based on these analyses, and formulation of strategies, goals, and plans to address the issues are all components of SP, which is typically operationalized as a method for formulating strategies.
Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? (Luke 14:31, New King James Version)
George, B., Walker, R.M. and Monster, J. (2019), Does Strategic Planning Improve
Organizational Performance? A Meta-Analysis. Public Admin Rev.
Werner, J. M. (2022). Human resource development: Talent development. South-Western.
