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Rating: 
Summary: Valuable Resource for Employers
Review: Employers in all fields are challenged to find, develop, and retain top talent. Their people are their most valuable strategic resource, though many executives don't realize the importance of having highly competent people on their team. Too often employers allow themselves to be satisfied with less that adequate capacity. As we have warned in our book, "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People," this decade will see the most severe shortage of skilled workers in history. A major strategic advantage in this highly competitive environment will be the opportunity for training and education. Workers, dedicated to managing their own careers, will be increasingly hungry for training to build their skills so they can stay marketable. Sharp employers will invest huge amounts of resources to enhance the capacity of current employees to avoid the need to spend heavily to recruit qualified people from the outside. No longer can employers just throw training at employees, like spaghetti, watching to see how much sticks. Now the focus must be on understanding exactly what is needed-to meet the needs of the individual employees as well as the current and future needs of the employer. This book is filled with powerful information that will enable wise employers to accurately assess training needs to those needs can be met in whatever ways are appropriate. Note: this book is very focused. Do not expect to wander into topics like how to convince the boss to pay for more training or how to use computer-based training to teach skills. The power of this book is the tight focus on assessing training needs and your organization's effectiveness in meeting those needs. Using the methodologies presented in easy-to-understand practical fashion, the reader will be able to avoid the course-of-the-week training mentality. No more stress training just because it's Tuesday. No more customer service training because it's a nice thing to do. Focus now on true needs that, once met well, will influence the organization's bottom line. Using this book will enable you to evaluate the effectiveness of your training function, assess various tools to determine the prioritized needs of your constituencies, and how to apply the information gathered to design a training program that will make a real difference for the organization. Resources are tight, so the better you are able to assess before you act, the more efficient you will be. The text is supported by graphics showing forms to use, checklists to follow, and a book design that makes even this thick a book comfortable to use. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM with the forms and a step-by-step approach to this vital information gathering and assessment-before-implementation process. While this book will be most useful for corporate training and human resource professionals, it will also be helpful for senior executives striving to understand the power of effective training. Owners of mid-sized and many smaller companies that don't have training directors will find this book to be a tool they can use to build and maintain a strong work team. Work methodically with this tool; take your time in reading and application. There's a lot here. Roger Herman, Certified Management Consultant specializing in
workforce issues.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book On The Subject
Review: For many trainers or HR professionals out there, it can be difficult to discover what the organization's true training needs are. This book is designed to tell you exactly how to get the information you need to make the best decisions when determining what coursework to offer your employees. The book lays out, systematically, how determine how well your training department is meeting the needs of the organization and how to improve that. My only complaints are that he gives you a copy of all the forms he shows in the book, but they are all mashed together in one long pdf format, which makes it harder to work with individual documents. In addition, the writing style can be slightly dry and confusing from time to time. That said, I would still recommend the book for all training professionals looking to do need analysis.
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