Case Study: Training Needs Assessment

Client

A medium-sized, casualty insurance company, part of a large Canadian insurance conglomerate, located in the Mid-west.

Need

The company had no formal training programs. All new hire training involved on-the-job training with whoever was available to train. To help increase the productivity and quality of its claims adjusters, the client wanted to implement a training initiative beginning with the design and development of three courses. As the courses had not been identified, TrainSmart was hired to conduct a training needs assessment before developing the courses.

Project

The data collection phase of the training needs assessment involved:

• Focus group of claims adjusters
• Follow-up interviews with additional adjusters
• Literature review of critical claims adjuster training courses

Based on this input, the claims supervisors and CEO met with TrainSmart to determine the three courses should be: Stress Management, Time Management and Customer Service.

Based on the company’s practice of hiring claims adjusters one at a time, TrainSmart develop the on-going training in the form of self-study guides augmented by a designated training coach. TrainSmart then adapted the self-study guides to an instructor-led format to accommodate the training of current claims adjusters.