The department of Social Services represents a large portion of your county’s budget and total number of employees. The job of eligibility technician is responsible for all client contact, policy interpretation, and financial decisions related to several forms of public aid (e.g., food stamps, aid to families with dependent children). Eligibility technicians must read a large number of memos and announcements of new and revised policies and procedures.
Eligibility technicians were complaining they had difficulty reading and responding to this correspondence. The county decided to send the employees to a speed reading program costing $250 per person. The county has 200 eligibility technicians. Preliminary evaluation of the speed reading program was that trainees liked it. Two months after the training was conducted, the technicians told their managers that they were not using the speed reading course in their jobs, but were using it in leisure reading at home. When their managers asked why they weren’t using it on the job, the typical response was, “I never read those memos and policy announcements anyway.”
Questions
a. Evaluate the needs assessment process used to determine that speed reading was necessary. What was good about it? Where was it faulty?
b. How would you have conducted the needs assessment?