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Needs Assessment Cycle

Shavon Martin
CUR 528
September 8, 2014
Laura Armer

Needs Assessment Cycle

Identify a course, training, or program for the needs assessment:
Allstate regularly recognizes its agents and rewards those that do exceptionally well. They also
acknowledge that staff play an integral role in the agencys success yet rarely are allowed to
participate in promotions and consequently get little to no recognition. As a result, Allstate
Insurance Company introduced a new sales program in June of 2013 entitled Producing on
Purpose (POP) for licensed sales professionals to be recognized for the business they write on
behalf of their agencies. The program is designed to offer classroom training with pre-work, post
work, and production (sales) requirements. The ultimate goal of the program is to increases sales
(auto, property, personal umbrella), policy retention and customer satisfaction. Additionally,
there is an expectation that the Allstate Customer Experience Survey (ACES) results will
improve and retention should increase. Producers will be incented throughout the promotion
period with gift cards, agency awards and certificates, and state level recognition.
Identify the purpose, level of assessment, stakeholders, budget and available resources, and
time allotted for the assessment:
Now that the program has been implemented for more than a year, senior management would
like to measure the programs effectiveness. This needs assessment will use a convergent
approach and will take a detailed comparative look at the production three months before the
licensed sales professional attended the workshop and three months after the workshop. Royse,
Thyer and Padgett define the convergent approach as using multiple sources of information and
attempting to explore the need for the program by means of different assessment strategies and
different perspectives (2010). This assessment will focus solely on those licensed sales
professionals in the state of California, and it may ultimately review other states in the
organization in the future as this information can be helpful when looking for trends.
Some of the stakeholders include, but are not limited to senior leadership who initiated and
requested that this assessment be completed. It also includes the program designers as they will
need to determine if changes need to be made to the program moving forward. Agency owners
also have a vested interest in the success of this program and will need to know, without a
shadow of a doubt that this is necessary to have their staff participate. Lastly, the education
department is very much interested in the data that will be returned from the needs assessment so
we can continue to advertise and support the program in the future.
It is very important to keep stakeholders satisfied as each of them is an integral part of to the
programs success. When this is not done Royse, Thyer and Padgett believe a number of
negative implications can transpire: first, it takes time to conduct a needs assessment and the
stakeholders may forge ahead without the results if they dont see the needs assessments
progress. Second, keeping key stakeholders involved in the process will keep the needs
assessment a central focus, which is important when agencies are busy with other concerns.
Third, it is important to involve key stakeholders in interpreting the results and to obtain their
input into how the results are presented (2010, p. 61).
Aside from the salary of the individual(s) responsible for conducting the needs analysis, a large
budget is not necessary. A lot of the needed research will take place utilizing resources on the

Allstate intranet. The resources that will be required are the list 60 production reports, monthly
Allstate Customer Experience Surveys (ACES) results, representation from the controllers
department (to translate all the numbers), and satisfaction surveys from the participants.
The length of the entire assessment process should take approximately six months. It should
begin a month before the scheduled workshop and continue on through the three months post
workshop (which includes the sales production period). This will ultimately allow the team two
months to analyze the data, create a summary and present the findings to all the pertinent
stakeholders. Royse, Thyer and Padgett (2010) feel that it is important to write a report and
make a formal presentation to the executive key individuals and the larger community as well.

Identify the specific information you need to measure using the needs assessment:
There are several pieces of key information that is needed to measure the success and
effectiveness of the Producing on Purpose (POP) program. A critical component of the POP
program includes the instructor led, two-day workshop. The needs assessment will measure the
satisfaction levels of participants using a survey where the results can help determine if
instruction was valuable from their perspective. After participants have completed the workshop,
they will be expected to produce (sell) a certain number of auto and property items in a threemonth period. The exact number of minimum requirements will be determined using cash flows
and will vary based on the market they are in. Using the weekly list 60 production reports will
allow for a comparison to a period of three months prior to participants attending the workshop.
An increase in production equates to a more confident producer and will help measure and
communicate the success of the POP program. Finally, the Allstate Customer Experience
Surveys (ACES) results should also improve as producers are taught to put customers at the
center of everything they do and exceed their expectations regularly.
Determine whether information already exists or if information must be obtained from
resources:
It would be in the companys best interest to establish a team of individuals to conduct this needs
analysis for the POP program. Although most of the information needed to measure the
programs effectiveness already exists, this type of assessment should be completed annually.
Doing so will allow for changes to be made and time for instructors to update curriculum based
on participant feedback, regulatory changes, and direction from stakeholders. Monitoring
production numbers will help measure and communicate the program effectiveness.
Furthermore, the countrywide report for other states production results will be analyzed by the
assessment team as a form of secondary data. Although each of the states has different
challenges, we are collectively working toward one shared vision- providing a piece of mind and
protection for tomorrows uncertainties.
The only thing that would need to be created to conduct this needs assessment is the satisfaction
survey for participants. The survey will be administered using our corporate account as the
results are readily available and can be accessed by all involved parties. Royse, Thyer and

Padgett (2010) believe that surveys can be used for program development and are exceptionally
valuable tools to use for needs assessment. It will be only five questions and will allow space for
participant comments. When the Producing on Purpose program was created, a cross function
team was assembled and input was solicited from all pertinent individuals. It only makes sense
that now that the program has been operational for more than a year that the team does some
follow up with those individuals involved during the creation of the course. In conclusion, when
conducting a needs assessment it is always a good idea to involve those that are in that group.
Additionally, stakeholders or individuals who have a vested interest in the success of the
program have a voice that should be heard and an opinion that should be considered.

References
Royse, D., Thyer, B., & Padgett, D. (2010). Program Evaluation: An Introduction (5th ed.). :
Cengage Learning.