Assessment to Inform Training Goals with Staff

Like most organizations, human services organizations need effective and well-considered training systems. Just as behavioral science has established that thorough assessments are a necessary gold standard for the development of effective behavioral interventions at the individual level, training as an intervention at the organizational level also requires thorough assessments. Organizational behavior management has developed a number of tools and frameworks to guide the training assessment process. These include strategies for assessing (a) whether training is the appropriate solution to address organizational concerns (i.e., performance diagnostics), (b) whether the necessary supportive factors are in place to maintain any training interventions that are implemented (i.e., performance management), and (c) the training outcomes that will facilitate the development of training interventions themselves (i.e., behavior-based instructional design). The implementation of these strategies can guide human service organizations in asking the right questions so that the right answers for organizational concerns can be found, including whether training is appropriate at all and what to do to ensure that training interventions are successful in the short and long terms.