The availability of skilled and efficient bankers is a major challenge for the banking sector of Bangladesh. Banks prefer more training than gaining bookish knowledge to ensure that the employees are motivated and have developed relevant skills in them to do their jobs with confidence. An effective training positively enhances employee morality; customer satisfaction; boosts employee motivation, job efficiency, technical knowledge and employee retention and increases productivity. The services sector has 58 million people, out of approximately 156 million people, working in the different sectors of Bangladesh. As such, the services sector employs 39.85 per cent of the total workforce of the country (World Bank Survey, 2017). Recent research has claimed that training is an important factor that could facilitate banks' expansion, develop its potentials and enhance its profitability. The educated and well-trained employees are pre-requisites for an organisation's competitive advantage. The balanced scorecard that was developed by Kaplan and Norton (1996) identified measurements of an organisation's performance based on four balanced perspectives such as (i) financial, (ii) customers, (iii) internal business processes, and (iv)learning and growth.
The main objective of this study was to measure the effectiveness of training needs assessment practices in private commercial banks (PCBs) of Bangladesh. The PCBs of Bangladesh are playing a significant role in financial sector and are considered as the barometer of all economic growth in the Bangladesh. The personnel of private banks are expected to have special aptitude, skills and knowledge, which can be built through effective training. The output of manpower in the banking sector of Bangladesh needs be strengthened by appropriate training both through on-the-job and off-the-job sessions. Some banks still practice informal training needs assessment procedures. It is imperative to engage most of the training staff in needs assessment and evaluation procedure as a successful training can only be planned based on an inclusive assessment of job obligations and trainee compatibility.
To generate desired outcome, employees are usually trained through a cyclical process. Training needs assessment (TNA) happens to be the preliminary steps that break down the areas where training is essential. TNA is the first and foremost step for the formulation of training and development programmes. Training assessment is concerned with the accomplishment of a desired level of aptitude and the success of requisite knowledge and skills. Hence, training effectiveness points out circumstantial or related factors impacting learning, retention and transfer. Among all of the best practices, need assessment is probably the most important part of the process.
TNA identifies the gap between current performance and the departmental objectives. It's a diagnostic tool that helps to reduce the gap between employee skills and the skills required by the job. Effective training needs assessment forms the basis or benchmark for determining the effectiveness of the training programmes.
A research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of TNA. The respondents for the study were highly-qualified and worked directly in the human resources (HR) and training departments of the banks. A sample size of 100 was deemed appropriate for this study. The respondent managers were chosen by using convenience sampling method. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect the pertinent information from the HR and Training Managers of leading private sector banks of Bangladesh. The data were analysed by using descriptive statistics. Results showed that the reasons for the declining performance of bankers are directly related with the lack of positive attitude about the jobs in the banking sector, lack of motivation and dissatisfaction involved with these. Results also showed that only a few needs assessment techniques, such as, management audit, interview customers and employees, written tests, assessment centre, survey, and individual development plans are used by the banks to assess the training needs in Bangladesh.
Techniques like task or job assessment, informal feedback, job description, performance or appraisal assessment, technical panel or training committee, expert opinion or agency, group problem assessment, open-ended questionnaire, menu survey or prospectus are hardly used by the private sector banks of the country to assess TNA of the organisations. This indicates that there are significant gaps between the expectations and the actual needs.
This study also identified unavailability of training programmes, location of training venue, lack of managerial support, capacity of the trainees, budget of the training, and the length of training programmes as the most important hindrances against improving the effectiveness of training programmes of banks. It is suggested that the effectiveness of TNA and training programmes can be increased by improving training environment, managing organisation, ensuring service quality and better time management, nurturing leadership, and increasing budgets of the training programmes of the private sector banks in Bangladesh.
The training programmes must start on the basis of the TNA that should cover organisation, task and the people aspects of the organisation.
Answers to declining staff performance; frequency of training needs review, policy or process for identifying future training and professional needs; methods of assessing future needs of training and professional needs and techniques of identifying training needs were sought. Additionally, effect of the identified training and professional needs; low confidence level of the managers about the existing process of training need assessment, effectiveness of the TNA process; factors that prevent to achieve training or professional development needs, and the issues that would be beneficial for wider professional development in the banks were searched.
Shahin Akther is a Faculty member of Mercantile Bank Training Institute, Dhaka. Prof. Nazrul Islam, PhD is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Canadian University, Dhaka.
