A shiny, impressive training initiative with high completion rates can look like success on paper, right up until you check whether it changed behaviour or moved anything that mattered to the business.
The key to development that positively impacts your organisation and people? Thoroughly understanding what they need before you build anything. That’s where a learning needs analysis – or LNA, as they’re sometimes called – comes in.
An LNA is a crucial piece of the puzzle in any successful L&D strategy. They give you a structured way to identify learning gaps across your organisation, whether you’re solving a specific performance problem or working towards bigger business goals.
So, how do you conduct a learning needs analysis? Here’s everything you need to know, along with a practical framework to get you started.
What is a learning needs analysis?
A learning needs analysis is an assessment that determines what teams or people need to learn. Whether that’s skills, knowledge, attitudes, or behaviours, it draws on data – both qualitative and quantitative – to work out where the gaps are, so you can put together a plan to address them. In short, it maps where your people are against where you want them to be.
Rather than working from perceived confidence, an LNA gives you clear, observed evidence and insight into where improvements are needed. This helps you develop a more resilient, upskilled workforce, while making smarter decisions about where learning investment goes.
👉 Related reading: How long does it take to build eLearning?
Why an LNA matters
It ensures your learning is goals-focused
Ambitious business goals are all well and good, but without the right development in place to support them, they risk staying exactly that: ambitions. An LNA brings clarity to what’s standing between your people and those goals, so learning effort goes where it’s needed most.
Helps you identify where to invest learning spend
L&D budgets have been stretched in recent years. Data from Fosway shows that 61% of L&D teams saw budgets stay flat or decrease in 2025, yet expectations haven’t followed suit. If you’re dealing with pared-back or stagnant budgets, an LNA helps you put your money where it matters: initiatives that connect to business goals and demonstrate ROI, helping you make the case for future spend.
It contributes to a happier workforce
When people feel their development is considered and purposeful to their role – not merely a box-ticking exercise – it shows. An LNA helps you understand what employees really need and respond to it, improving performance while making people feel more valued.
How to conduct a learning needs analysis: step-by-step
An LNA is an incredibly valuable tool for an L&D team, but it can be difficult to know where to start. Here’s a comprehensive learning needs analysis framework you can follow and adapt to fit your organisation.
1. Start with your target
Every learning needs analysis should start with a clear reason for doing it. As OL’s Matthew Kesby, Instructional Design Manager, and Kevin Gale, Heading of Learning Experience, put it in their Learning Technologies 2026 seminar: “You can’t hit the target if you can’t define it”. And that’s exactly where an LNA begins, by defining your target and working backwards from there.
This is usually centred on either a problem or a goal:
- Problem-led: something’s going wrong – possibly repeatedly – and you need to understand why before you can fix it.
- Goal-led: you have an ambitious target or launch, at a company, team, or individual level, and need to work out what’s required to get there.
2. Get key stakeholders on board
Depending on your situation, this step and the previous one may be interchangeable; stakeholders might come to you with a problem that shapes your goal, or you may consult them after you’ve defined your target to work through the plan together. Either way, aligning early gives you clarity on why you’re doing the assessment and what you’re trying to achieve.
Matthew and Kevin shared this useful checklist at Learning Technologies to help stakeholders get aligned before moving forward:
- What performance problem are we solving?
- What specifically, is this learning for?
- What happens if we don’t solve the problem?
- Where does judgement breakdown?
- What needs to change following this strategy?
3. Map what you need to succeed
After you have your target and stakeholder input, it’s time to think about the specific capabilities you need to get there. Ask yourself: what skills, knowledge, or attitudes does your workforce need to hit the target and perform at their best? Getting specific here is what helps you put together a clear action plan later down the line.
Learning needs analyses typically operate at three levels:
- Organisation-wide
- Team or department level
- Individual level
All three can play into each other. Say you’ve set a commercial goal. At an organisational level, you’d look at what’s needed to hit it. At a team level, you’d narrow that down to what the sales team specifically needs to deliver against it. At an individual level, you’d identify exactly what each rep needs to perform at their best.
4. Find out where you are now
This is where the data gathering comes into play. How you collect it will vary depending on your goals and context, as a tailored approach will always serve you better than a blanket one.
We recommend drawing on a combination of sources for more comprehensive results and to reduce the risk of bias, particularly social desirability bias, where people report what they think is expected of them, rather than their honest assessment.
Common methodologies include:
- Surveys and questionnaires
- Interviews
- Performance reviews
- Focus groups
- Manager feedback
- Informal conversations
- Skills self-assessments and ratings
- Observations
- 360-degree feedback
- Customer or client feedback
- Sales or performance data
- Competency frameworks
- Learning management system (LMS) data
5. Identify the gaps and areas to improve
With your data gathered, this is where the picture starts to come together. Compare where your people are now against the vision you mapped in step three.
Look for patterns across your data sources. Where are consistent weaknesses showing up? Which gaps are widespread across the organisation, and which are specific to certain teams or individuals? Prioritise by impact; not every gap carries the same weight, and the ones that are business-critical or closer to your goal should sit at the top of your list.
This stage is worth approaching with some nuance. A gap in performance isn’t always an indication of a learning problem. Sometimes it points to unclear processes or the wrong tools, so viewing it holistically helps you support people in the right way.
6. Decide and launch your learning initiatives
Now the gaps are clearly mapped, the next step is deciding how to address them. There are plenty of learning solutions available, but the right approach will depend on what you’re trying to achieve and who you’re designing for.
Some options to consider:
- eLearning modules and courses
- Microlearning
- Instructor-led training
- Coaching and mentoring
- On-the-job learning and shadowing
- Workshops and facilitated sessions
- Peer learning and communities of practice
- Blended learning programmes
For deeper or more complex topics, a blended approach tends to work well, pairing a structured course with microlearning bursts for retrieval practice, for example. For lighter-touch needs, a targeted coaching conversation or a short eLearning module might be enough.
Before you launch, define what success looks like, too. If you’re tackling till errors in a retail environment, success might be a measurable reduction in transaction mistakes within 30 days. In an office setting, it might be improved customer satisfaction scores following a communication skills programme. Getting specific here makes evaluation (the next step) much easier.
7. Assess against goals
Once your initiatives are live, circle back to the target you defined in step one. Are the gaps closing? Are people performing differently on the job? This is where you measure whether your LNA has delivered what it set out to.
Use the success criteria you defined in step three as your benchmark, drawing on relevant data sources to see what’s changed. If something isn’t working, this is your opportunity to course correct before investing further.
👉 Read next: Designing microlearning: 6 principles to make it stick
Learning needs analysis example
Here’s how an LNA might play out in a typical L&D scenario, from identifying the problem through to evaluation.
- Start with your target and stakeholder involvement: Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores have dropped 12% in a quarter. Leadership wants to understand why. This is problem-led; something’s gone wrong and the cause isn’t yet clear.
- Map the capabilities needed: The skills, knowledge, behaviours, and attitudes needed to perform well in the role are defined: de-escalation, confident communication under pressure, and strong product fluency.
- Assess current capability: A skills self-assessment, call recording review, and conversations with team leads reveal newer agents (under six months’ tenure) are most affected. They’re confident on product basics, but underprepared for tense calls and more complex queries.
- Decide the learning initiatives: Rather than a generic course, the plan is targeted: a scenario-based de-escalation module for newer agents, shadowing sessions with senior team members, a quick-reference product guide to reduce time spent searching mid-call, and regular manager-led coaching focused on handling complex conversations.
- Define success: The goal is for CSAT scores to recover to their previous baseline within two quarters, alongside a measurable drop in escalations to team leads.
- Assess against your target: Two quarters on, CSAT scores have recovered and escalations are down, indicating the intervention has addressed the identified need.
Learning needs analysis FAQs
What’s the difference between a learning needs analysis and a training needs analysis?
The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. Training is a specific, structured activity, such as a course or workshop. Learning is broader than that; training sits within it, but so does coaching, mentoring, on-the-job experience, and self-directed study, like reading and podcasts.
A training needs analysis asks what training someone needs to close a specific gap. A learning needs analysis takes the wider view, looking at the goal behind the gap and the full range of ways someone might get there.
Are self-reported skills reliable?
It depends. Self-filled surveys can be susceptible to social desirability bias. The best approach is combining multiple data sources to build a more accurate picture.
How often should I conduct a learning needs analysis?
There’s no set timeframe, but an LNA shouldn’t only happen when something goes wrong. Building them into your L&D strategy as a regular checkpoint – rather than a reactive measure – means you’re always working from current data rather than assumptions.
What are the best tools for conducting a learning needs analysis?
For the analysis itself, useful tools include survey platforms, LMS reporting and analytics, KPI dashboards, and skills matrix templates. When it comes to delivering your learning initiatives, consider what you need to build and source content, whether that’s an authoring tool, bespoke eLearning, off-the-shelf content, or outsourced training.
Taking the next step
Your LNA tells you what’s needed, and Omniplex Learning is here to help you deliver it. From authoring platforms and bespoke content to expert consultancy and tools training, we have everything you need to turn your findings into learning that works. Get in touch to speak to one of our experts.
