Planning for a Needs Assessment

Nokia is a Finnish company that was established in 1865 as a wood pulp mill in South Eastern Finland.  It’s “about us” history mentions that they’ve been active in many manufacturing pursuits, current to their day, from creating tires, to generating and distributing electricity and making  televisions.

They mention that they are sixth in the telecommunications device market, world wide, with the ability to connect “1.3 billion people.”  In their own words:  “At the last count, the Nokia Group employed approximately 139,000 people around the world." (not bad for a company that started life as a small riverside paper mill in Finland.)

"In 2010, the devices and services business alone employed approximately 60,000 people from around 115 different nationalities. And approximately 41% of them were women.
Such diversity is crucial to our success so far – and to our continued success in the future. We’re operating in more markets than ever before, and employees from diverse backgrounds can give us invaluable insights into our customer bases. Just as important, a mix of cultures, genders, age groups, beliefs, interests and opinions in the workplace helps foster debate, discussion, ideas and innovation. Not to mention making Nokia a more enjoyable, stimulating and rewarding place to spend your working day.”

Additionally, their business philosophy: “to establish a structure in which the rights and responsibilities are appropriately distributed among the Board members, management and shareholders; to ensure that the interests of both our management and shareholders are aligned to make management accountable for financial stewardship by continuously reviewing business results and strategic choices; to safeguard business integrity and responsible business practices; and to promote transparency for our shareholders and other stakeholders,” shows that participation and ethical regard for the company are paramount.

I am curious about how they encourage their diverse managers and shareholders to embrace this philosophy.

What stakeholders would you want to make sure to get buy-in from?  - Nokia employees over 130,000 people world-wide.  For the moment, ignoring development, manufacturing and distribution and focusing on creating a sustainable global corporate culture, I would want to make sure that I would get buy-in from those in charge of hiring employees how they select individuals who are not only technically competent but are able to work with employees from so many different backgrounds.  Specifically, the training I would seek to accomplish would be through the Corporate University Model (Noe, 2010, page 43) that would include trainees from not only the company but those in their surrounding areas.  Community involvement would solidify a potential employee base and the Corporate University Model would train employees in what was necessary in their own language/cultural style while maintaining a format (on-line, face-to-face, etc.) that would serve as a common training language.

What questions would you ask (and to whom would you address them) during the organizational, person, and task analysis phases? - First, by asking these questions that the Noe text suggested: Organizational Analysis “Is training important to achieve our business objectives? How does training support our business strategy? And, what are the threats to our talent base?”  I would further try to gain their support by asking them  Noe’s Task Analysis question:  Does the company have people with the knowledge, skills, and abilities or competencies needed to compete in the marketplace?”  (Noe, R. A., “Employee Training and Development”, 2010, page 105)  Under the circumstances I feel that “Person” Needs Assessment question is quite pertinent “What do employees need to accomplish our business objectives,”  (Noe, 2010, page 105)

What documents or records might you ask to see?  -  I would want to see information regarding current training – how it’s written, translated, and administered to those of the 130,000 employees who are chosen?  I’d want to see documents showing how the company recruited from the various countries and how Nokia marked their products around the world, as well.  Finally, I would want to investigate how the Nokia philosophy was inculcated into it’s employees – what would give them buy-in to invest their lives in a foreign enterprise.

What techniques would you employ (see Table 3.2 on page 108 of the Noe text), and why? – It would be tempting to use most of the Needs Analysis techniques listed in Table 3.2.  However, anticipating that I would be contacting upper-level managers throughout the company I would choose a strategy that would be simple, easy to use with people from different backgrounds and cultures,   I think I would reject questionnaires – I don’t know how each question would translate between cultures or what mistakes I might make, people I might offend by asking questions a certain way (something that would really apply to the whole situation).  Focus groups might work well in one culture and be a disaster in another culture, if it was the norm for everyone to be in agreement on all points or lose face.  The interview technique would be the best as the interviewer would be able to pick up signs from the interviewee of confusion or distress regarding the questioning.  Yes, it would be time-consuming and finding the right SME’s/translators might be a nightmare (especially, as Noe suggests, SMEs might be unreliable if they feel threatened,) but the advantages Noe mentioned, the ability to uncover details of training, and the ability to modify the questions and explore “rabbit trails,” would be very beneficial.

I would enjoy this task!

References:

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

www.nokia.com

Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2011). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press

Laureate Universities Media Presentation: “The Truth About Training”, 2010