What Is Skills Audit

Question One (must have Intro body and Conclusion) www.london.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/staff/staff_development/tna.pdf In order for training and development to be an effective tool, human resource needs to understand what is required for individuals, departments or the organisation as a whole. The goal of any organisation is to be as cost effective as possible and to maximize their return on investment, the same principal applies to the training and development process, Acorns goal is to be as cost effective as possible with training and development whilst maximizing their return on investment, however it would be detrimental if Acorn spent hundreds of thousands on a training program that did not align with the organisational and departmental goal. The only constant in business is change and human resource needs to be kept abreast of change to in order to stay ahead of their competition. The training needs analysis helps organisation such as Acorn achieve this as it forms the basis and is vital for any successful training program. By simply training without direction, key training areas may not be covered and employees will be left unfocused and confused as non-essential and irrelevant information formed the basis of the training program. Training needs analysis will allow an organisation to channel resources into departments that has been identified with skills shortages, thereby improving morale and overall productivity. The training needs analysis also creates opportunities within the organisation to award bursaries in areas where skills are lacking, with the intention of promoting from within rather than recruiting externally. This process is not merely an HR function, all managers are inherently people managers. Therefore, it is imperative that managers have an understanding of this process as they are responsible training and development as well as successful implementation. Effective TNA involves constant planning, data collecting, analysis communication with various stakeholders and coordination across the business to ensure that the training and development is in line with the organisations goals and that economies of scale can be met, the more employees trained, the less it costs and greater the return on investment. Ideally, managers should also receive training in the process of TNA itself, to clarify what they are trying to achieve and what their approach should be. An essentially component of the training needs analysis is the skills audit, this is used to measure and record the skills of individuals, departments or the organisation as a whole. …show more content…
The purpose of a skills audit is to identify the skills and knowledge required by an organisation to meet its short term and long term goals and objectives. Skills audit can also be done to understand which areas and organisation needs improvement as well as restructuring and deployment. The audit explores individual’s skills beyond the surface of qualifications and examines specific job outcomes based on key performance areas. The job specifications or new responsibilities will be used as a benchmark when performing the skills audit. Once the audit is complete, the results are known as the skills gap analysis. By identifying this skills gap through the training needs analysis, HR now has a complete picture of the skills shortage within the organisation, as well as individuals who may not have the required skills to be promoted. Driven by concerns over their organizational competitive position in the market place, the role of management development and training has progressively been recognized as a critical element of an organization’s strategy, in boosting efficiency and productivity (Analoui and Khoury, 2010; Analoui, 2007; Boxall and Gilbert,2007;Gray, 2005).( Managerial training and development in telecommunication organizations in Palestine ) Investing in employees has now become an integral differentiator amongst businesses competing in the same business segments, the quality of human resources is the fundamental key to obtaining organisational success. …show more content…
In this case Acorn’s most prised assets would be its employees. It has been clearly highlighted by the client that an evidence based approach to their human resource strategy was imperative to illustration an excellent return on investment from the training and development program. The strategy and methodology undertaken by Acorn bares an inordinate similarity to the approach adopted by Royal Mail (Bourne, A. and Hadden, D. (2010)), however it must be noted that the principals surrounding the training needs analysis framework must be adapted to fit the needs of the organisation as no two companies are the