Performance & metrics · Updated October 2026
Training needs analysis (TNA) is the structured exercise of finding out which skill gaps in the workforce are real, who has them and whether training is the right fix. Its output is a prioritised training calendar and budget for your learning and development team, not a wish list from each department. The standard approach works at three levels: organisation, task and person.
| Level | Question it answers | Typical evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Organisation | Where does the business need new capability? | Business plan, new products or locations, audit findings, regulatory change |
| Task (job) | What must someone do well in this role? | Job descriptions, the competency framework, process maps, top-performer interviews |
| Person | Who falls short of that standard, and by how much? | Appraisal scores, skills matrix, assessments, manager input, error and rework data |
This three-part framing comes from the training-evaluation literature (Goldstein and Ford are the usual citation), and it is useful mainly because it forces you to check the first two levels before blaming individuals.
Pull the person-level data first because it is already in your systems: the last appraisal cycle, development asks from each individual development plan, and a short manager survey listing the top three gaps per team. Then test each gap with one question: if this person were given the skill tomorrow, would performance change? If the real cause is unclear targets, broken tools or poor incentives, training will not help, and you should hand that finding to the relevant owner.
Group what survives into themes (for example, Excel and data skills across finance, first-time manager skills across 40 supervisors), rank by business impact and headcount affected, and convert the top items into a calendar. Cost each line with training cost per employee so the budget request is concrete.
Run it annually before budgets close, with a light refresh at mid-year.
A skills gap analysis is one input to it. A TNA goes further by asking whether the gap is worth closing, whether training can close it, and in what order.
Plan for a few weeks of part-time effort in a company of a few hundred people. Most of the time goes to chasing manager input, not analysis.
Ask them what the person should be able to do afterwards and how you would see it. If they cannot say, the need is probably a process or role-clarity problem.
Yes. Skills fields, appraisal history and course completion in an HRMS save the manual data pull that otherwise eats the first fortnight.
Once the list is ranked, check whether the plan pays for itself with the training ROI calculator.