EDUCATIOMNAL NEEDS OF PROBATION PERSONNEL AS AN INDICATOR OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Educational needs of personnel are an important characteristic of the current state of an organizational culture and an indicator of its development directions. The peculiarities of training needs remain traditionally relevant, both for everyday management practice and in the sense of interdisciplinary studies of the nature and causality of organizational phenomena. The purpose of the article is to highlight the empirical results of an experiential-inductive study of training needs in the context of the problems of organizational development of probation. The results. It was found that there has been an internal organizational request for training in a wide range of areas in probation. The most in demand is training in the following thematic areas: psychology of working with clients, information technologies and computer programs, cooperation with other organizations and institutions, professional rights and responsibilities. The peculiarities of the connection of gender, age, status and other characteristics of the respondents with various issues of training are determined. The specifics of the training interests of the employees were also investigated in view of the frequency of their work meetings with subjects of probation. The conducted factor analysis established that the greatest potential for simultaneous satisfaction of personnel needs and organizational development as a result of training is, on the one hand, a certain “psychologicalization” of this process. On the other hand, the training process must be implemented against the background of activated interpersonal relations of employees (group training format). The combination of the specified methodological features determines the expediency of using such an educational format as complex business games along with classic lectures, webinars and seminars. The application of regression analysis made it possible to reach conclusions about the relationship between various educational needs and such variables as job satisfaction, relationships with colleagues, future plans, socio-demographic differences of respondents, etc. In general, the obtained results prove that educational needs are an important indicator not only in the sense of planning and organizing corporate training to improve the professional competence of personnel, but also an effective indicator of management culture, improvement of the general organizational atmosphere, and effective direction of personnel policy. Key words: training needs, organizational development, probation, factor analysis, regression analysis.