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Tailoring training programs for sustainability management based on the training needs assessment

BACKGROUND: Human resource development in sustainability is a prerequisite of enhancing the success of any organization. Education for sustainable development has been recognized as a key process to support employees’ skills development to positively reoriented their behavior to the sustainable development values and principles. In the article context, based on a synthetic literature review for charting the sustainability taxonomy, there has been created a first general inventory of topics needed to be considered for designing a training program in the field. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present paper is to identify the general Qualification Matrix defining the training program for sustainability management (based on a training needs assessment study). Furthermore, the research will demonstrate how the training program could be tailor for the case of “management position” research variable. METHODS: First method applied in the study include a synthetic literature review for charting the sustainability taxonomy (creation of comprehensive inventory of topics needed to be considered for designing a training program for sustainability management). Second, based on the sustainability taxonomy, a questionnaire was designed and used in a survey for the training needs assessment. The research sample consisted of 207 respondents, potential trainees that are employees of different companies (from Austria, France, Romania and Slovenia), with a balanced structure of management position and distribution of age. Predictive Analytics Software (PASW, developed by IBM, formerly known as SPSS) for statistical processing has been used for statistical data analyses. RESULTS: The study results have indicated that the most appropriate training methods to be used in the sustainability management training program consists in a combination of: “Theoretical knowledge + examples of good practices + exercises + individual projects”. The process of tailoring the sustainability management training program has been demonstrated for the case of “management position” research variable (with three sub-categories of respondents: top managers, middle and low managers and professionals with no management position) and was based on the defined Qualification Matrix (consists of 5 training units and 19 training elements). CONCLUSIONS: The research have valuable contribution in the field of human resources development, particularly by offering a concrete solution in designing and tailoring a training program for sustainability managers started with the training needs assessment and the Qualification Matrix definition.