ORGANIZATIONAL TRAINING NEEDS EVALUATION: THE CASE OF A LATIN-AMERICAN AIRPORT MANAGEMENT COMPANY

Abstract

This paper aims to report a case of organizational training needs evaluation held in a large public organization. For that, its integrate theoretical and methodological aspects emphasized in the literature of Administration and Psychology in an approach capable of meeting the need, frequently suggested, of links between the training programs and organizational strategy. Methods and qualitative research techniques were employed. First, documentary analysis were conducted to understand the strategy of the organization studied and to define questions to the achievement of 2 focus groups. These groups, in a second time, were held with the participation of 14 high-ranking officials of the company, which had to indicate the changes and challenges to the company, the organizational competences necessary to confront these changes and challenges and, finally, the organizational units that need to be involved in training programs. The categories of content emerged from the replies of the participants of focus groups, suggests that the organizational training needs derived from an extensive series of internal (e.g. organizational support, communication etc.) and external (e.g. public policies, companies providing service etc.) changes and challenges. Those training needs were not associated with any particular job, but to many organizational actors located inside and out the company. The results indicated that: (a) it might exist training needs that are not linked to specifics jobs, but to actors of a same macro-process that pass by the organizational structure; (b) these macro-process can overcome the organization’s limits, indicating that training needs can happen in stakeholders as well; and (c) the treatment of the organizational development needs implies in delivering training programs for many employees (internal and external), so that, skilled and better integrated, are able to continuously meet the organizational changes and challenges. With low production of systematic studies over organizational analysis in training needs evaluation, this paper can be of great value to the continuity of academic and professional progress of the areas interested in the theme of Training, Development and Education (TD&E).