Thursday, May 10, 2012
Background
Over the past 150 years, Nokia has evolved from a riverside paper mill in southwestern Finland to a global telecommunications leader connecting over 1.3 billion people. Nokia has made rubber boots and car tires, generated electricity, manufactured TVs and have sold well over a billion mobile phones.
Nokia is committed to diversity, which it fondly refers to as “the Nokia Way” – the core values and shared philosophy that make the company tick. Key philosophy at Nokia is to boost Creativity, empowerment, openness, collaboration, and consideration for people and the environment. Operating in over 130 countries, diversity is crucial to Nokia’s success.
Needs Assessment
This needs assessment will determine whether a training program is necessary at Nokia. The assessment will involve an organizational analysis, person analysis and a task analysis . After the analysis, I will establish the solution to the performance problem; identify objectives of the training, the content and the method. I will involve the managers, staff trainers and the employees of Nokia in this need assessment process. Noe (2010) advises that training will be more successful in helping Nokia achieve its strategic goals if management is involved in the needs assessment process.
I will seek to establish whether training will support the strategic direction Nokia is taking, the perception of management in regards to training and what training support exists in the organization. I will use Nickols (2005) questions as cited in Noe (2010) questions to ask in an organizational analysis. I will also ask trainers and external consultants with Nokia who will be enlisted in training to demonstrate their experiences in training such a diverse organization and the evidence that their training interventions worked. I will finally seek to know from the employees what their personal view of training is and how the organization manages training and application of the new skills that have been acquired.
As part of Nokia's needs assessment, I will seek to review the organization's strategic plan, understand the organization vision and mission, the performance management process, Standard operating manuals, job descriptions, staff performance reviews, marketing plans and consumer reviews. This will inform me on the direction the organization is taking and how consumers and general staff members are feeling about the strategic direction of the organization.
I will further use Observation to establish the level of skill and interaction in the organization. Due to the breadth of operations, I will send questionnaires to the various countries that Nokia operates in and use a random sample to gather data on the training needs. I may also use an online technology to collect information from the different zone that Nokia has a presence.
This approach will provide me with enough insights to develop an effective training program for Nokia.
References
Nokia. (2012). The Nokia story . Retrieved May 10, 2012, from Nokia: http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/company/about-us/story/the-nokia-story/
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David,
ReplyDeleteYou made a very good point that in order for the training to be successful in helping Nokia achieve their strategic goals, management will need to be involved in the needs assessment. Who else besides managers, staff trainers and employees should be involved in the different phases of the needs analysis. It's critical that you include the staff trainers as part of the analysis. Not only will they provide you information on what works and what doesn't; they will probably have to carry on the training once you leave. Their buy-in is critical.
Getting the employee's view will help determine if there is a gap between the actual training and the skills needed. Good selection of documentation to review to determine the organizations success in accomplishing their mission and goals. Using questionnaires followed by observations is a good strategy to verify your survey results. These results can than be compared to the documentation findings. What type of data collection strategies would you be using during the Person analysis phase? Which stakeholders would you collect data from during the Person analysis phase? Would there be any value in surveying customers and suppliers when doing the organizational and task analysis phases of the evaluation?
Mike
That is a nice observation I had overlooked about including trainers on the needs analysis. Indeed, it is important since they will need to carry on the training program after am gone. Without their support, the implementation of the learning program will not take place once am gone.
DeleteI will need to collect information regarding their perception on the company application of skills acquired from training programs. As role performers, they may also be better positioned to advise which skill areas will leave rage their productivity. Due the the global nature of the organization, it will be of little value to attempt to survey customers as different region have different customs and cultures.
David