Proposing a comprehensive training needs approach for the communication skills training of security guards

Abstract

Good communication skills are necessary for security guards as they are the front liners of an organisation. In ensuring that the training of these security guards fits within the overall human capital development of the organisation, a robust training needs analysis is proposed. The Training Needs Analysis (TNA), which focuses on three lines of analysis, namely, Organisation, Task and Person (OTP), is recommended in this case. To this end, both qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted for data collection. The qualitative data were collected through interviews and document study while the quantitative data were gathered through survey questionnaires distributed to the academic staff, non-academic staff, students of a public university, and visitors. The qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using SPSS version 20 involving descriptive statistics. Results of the analyses were used to propose a framework for the training of the communication skills in English for the security guards. The study is significant since it considers an alternative approach to analysing the communication training needs of the security guards.