Is popularity of training programs reflected in performance improvements? A case of Mexican public financial institution

Nowadays, talent management is crucial for organizations to remain competitive and successful. Organizations must pay higher attention to a training of their employees to attract highly skilled talents. However, due to high costs of training programs, organizations need to control and demonstrate their added value. In this case, it is very important to understand employees’ characteristics to create adequate training program systems. In this article, employees’ preferences over training programs are analyzed in a Mexican public financial institution. Further, the article seeks to discover whether training program popularity is reflected in improvements of employees’ competences. The results indicate that female training policies should be linked more to soft skills training, whereas training policies for males should be linked more to hard skills. Results also indicate that there is no relationship between training course preferences and employees’ performance and the effect is near to zero or negative.