Staff Planning

What skills do your staff need?

• It is essential that any training plan should be linked into the business's long- term objectives. The training needs of your organisation and staff should be thoroughly assessed to determine what skills would be required to achieve your strategic goals.
• Questions that should be raised include: Do staff need to be more flexible in order to cover a greater range of jobs? Do they need to know about new technology, computer systems or software? Has the member of staff just started? Does everyone in the business need to learn a specific task?
• It is important to remember to assess the training needs of yourself and the management team as well as other staff. You may have strong skills in your particular field, but consider whether you and your managers need to improve your general management skills, eg finance, IT, marketing, project management and people management and development.
• Information will be required from a variety of sources in order to determine the development needs of managers and staff. Sources might include the business plan, analysing the business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis), employee records (development plans, training records, posts held, qualifications), appraisals, discussions between managers and staff and analysis of the external environment.
• Job descriptions and personal specifications will enable you to identify what skills employees require to carry out their jobs. You can also use these when recruiting to assess what skills a candidate already has and the skills they would need to develop in order to do the job well.
• You may require the expertise of an external training consultant to assist you in assessing your business's training needs. Your local Business Link can provide experienced business advisers who will discuss the possibilities for your business.
• Potential employees may be influenced by businesses that can demonstrate they take training and development seriously, such as businesses who have been awarded the Investors in People Standard.