Finally, a basic, thorough approach for determining what staff/employees need in terms of training, AND communicated in a way that any manager, HR professional or executive can understand. Doing a training needs assessment can be relatively simple (our choice) or quite complex. If you want to upgrade the skills of your employees AND benefit from the investment in training, this is a MUST read. Short, to the point, and in plain language, it's the starting point to ensure return on investment (time and money) for training. The Point: Whether you are a manager, a trainer or a human resources professional, you want to make sure that the training you set up for employees helps your organization and the people in it succeed. You want a return on investment, and you want training to be seen as relevant and valuable by the people that attend. The main tool for ensuring that these goals are met is the training needs assessment, or analysis. Training needs analysis or assessment ensures that training addresses real and important business or productivity needs. It links training to real world results and goals. We've developed this helpcard to assist managers, trainers and human resource professional in carrying out training needs assessments, and we've put it into plain English.