Need Help Crafting a Questionnaire for Competency-Based Training Analysis in Sales?

Hello friends!

I'm an MBA student working on my summer project about "Competency-Based Training Need Analysis" in a reputed sales-oriented company in Bangalore. Could any of you help me with coming up with the questionnaire? Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sunita

Sunita,

I can almost certainly help you with this - either directly or by putting you in touch with some resources. However, I have to ask some questions:

- What is the training needs analysis for? (e.g. Is it for Sales? If so, what type: direct/consultancy-based, etc.)
- How many people are involved?
- Will competency analysis be done online or via paper?
- Do all the potential trainees have the same job role? If not, how many job roles are involved?
- Who is asking for the TNA, and why?

Let's keep in touch. I would love to be of assistance.

Donald H Taylor

Hello Donald,

That was very kind and generous of you to take the time to reply to my post. As far as your queries related to my project are concerned, here are a few details:

1) I'm doing my project in a direct sales-oriented company.

2) They basically sell through door-to-door knocking in addition to Corporate Sales...and are Asia's biggest direct sales-oriented company.

3) They have three main products viz. Water Purifiers, Vacuum Cleaners, and Security Systems (like smoke detectors, CTC door cameras, etc.).

4) I'm working on Team Leaders, Sr. Team Leaders, and HCRCs (Head of customer response center)...responsibilities of each level go on increasing respectively.

5) I'm done with the Job Description and have already gone through the Competency Dictionary and Cluster making.

6) I need your help in questionnaire designing and how to assess the training requirement.

7) Mostly I would like to interview them personally, so it would be on paper as well as I'll prepare the soft copy.

8) My guide in the company is asking for the report as he wants to figure out where they are lacking in their training modules.

Hope that answers all your queries.......Friend, it would be great if you could help me as soon as possible because I'm in real-time constraint.

Waiting for your kind reply!

Thanks, Sunita.

Hello Donald!!

Friend, I'm still waiting for the reply from your side. I'm in real need, so please help me out as soon as possible because I'm really running out of time.

Waiting for the reply...!!!

Thanks,
Sunita.

Dear Sunita,

Thank you for the detail you gave in your previous reply, and my apologies for the delay in replying - I appreciate that you are under a time constraint.

You seem very well advanced with your analysis already. In particular, if you already have a competency dictionary, then here are the next steps I think you should take:

1) Ensure that the competency dictionary is graded (you may have already done this). There might be as few as three levels called, say: following, delivering, and leading (the names are quite important - see later). Each grade should be well described at each level - say with about 50 to 150 words.

2) Ensure that the job descriptions that you have created not only list the competencies required, but the level at which competency is required.

3) When you conduct your interviews, rather than having a questionnaire, sit down and go through the list of competencies together, and establish what competencies they have, and to what level. Do not tell them what skills are required for their job, or to what level. This gets rid of the need for designing a questionnaire, but you will have to be smart in your questioning. Asking "Are you a good salesman?" will only get one answer. However, asking people (for example) to describe what they do during a sales call will enable you to learn something of their competencies - e.g. how they establish customer needs, can they close the sale, how organized they are in their daily routine, and so on.

4) When the interviews are complete, you can compile the results to show the desired level of skill (the competencies and grades required for the job) against the actual level (those that people actually have). You can then use this analysis to show where the greatest need for training is both in terms of the largest gaps in competence and the most numbers of people needing training.

5) Finally, you can work with your guide to see where his or her current catalog of training meets these key areas of training requirement.

Sunita, I hope that this makes sense and is useful. If I can be of further assistance, please do let me know.

Best regards,

Donald H Taylor

My blog: www.donaldhtaylor.co.uk

I am a final year MBA student. I am doing a project on training needs analysis in a public sector manufacturing company. However, I am not sure how to proceed. Should I conduct the analysis on all employees working in the entire plant or only on a specific department? What information do I need to collect before designing the questionnaire?

Please reply.

Hi Sunita,

Donald has explained the things very well. I have worked on a similar project in my organization. But I haven't designed the questionnaire for finding competency gaps. What I did is I charted down the job descriptions or KRAs for each position and then bifurcated them into two competencies: technical and non-technical.

For example, for sales guys, the technical competencies are their sales skills, product knowledge, and competitor knowledge. In soft skills, you can include interpersonal skills, customer handling skills, and convincing skills.

For each level, you need to sit with the HOD and define the required proficiency to do that particular task for that specific position. Then, you need to assess the actual proficiency of the person performing that job through discussions with both the HOD and the employee.

For instance, a salesperson working as a sales manager needs to be at an 8 level on a 10-point scale. This level of sales proficiency is necessary for efficient job performance. However, if the HOD feedback indicates that the person is only at a 6 level, and the individual also acknowledges lacking the required proficiency, there is a gap of 2 levels between what is required and what is possessed to perform the job.

This is how you can analyze a gap, and once identified, you need to work on bridging the gap through training (on-the-job or external).

I hope this provides some idea on how you can progress with this project.

If you need any more details, please feel free to talk to me. I can even forward you the competency mapping sheet I have prepared along with the action plan. Please provide me your email id so that I can forward you the same.

Regards,
Surendra Varma suren_mlw@yahoo.co.in

Hi folks!

I am an MBA student and I am working on my project with L&T (Construction) in Chennai. My project topic is "Effectiveness of competency-based training." I am in need of help to frame a questionnaire. Please bail me out.

With regards,

Balaze

9840842124

Balazae@yahoo.co.in