Effectiveness of Training Need Assessment (TNA) Practices in Private Sector Banks of Bangladesh

Training Need Assessment (TNA) is a process to identify the gap between current performance and the departmental objectives. It's a diagnostic tool that helps reducing the gap between employee skills and the skills required by the job. Effective training need assessment forms the basis or benchmark for determining the effectiveness of the training programs. This study aims at identifying the effectiveness of TNA practices of the private sector banks of Bangladesh. As the respondents are highly qualified and work directly in the 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 10 leading private sector banks of Bangladesh. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Results show that the reasons for declining the performance of the bankers are directly concerned with the lack of positive attitude toward job, lack of motivation and dissatisfaction about the job. Results also show that only few need 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. This study also identified unavailability of training programs, location of training venue, lack of managerial support, capacity of the trainees, budget of the training, and the length of training programs are the most important hindrances for improving the effectiveness of the training programs of the banks. It is suggested that the effectiveness of TNA and training programs can be increased by improving training environment, managing organization, service quality, time management, leadership, and increase budgets of the training programs of the private sector banks in Bangladesh