ABSTRACT It is possible for the organizations to be succesful and continiue their life in the conditions of high competition, rapid change and globalization, just by working with high performance. The performance of the organization depends on the performance of its employees. So also the employees should perform their jobs at a high level of performance. This requires the employees continiously develop their knowledge, skills and abilities and the organization should create the convenient conditions to support its employees development. This need forces Human Resources Departments to focus on training and development activities. These activities generally include three stages as Identifying Training Needs, Developing Training Programs and Evaluation of Training. This study involves the first stage that is Identifying Training Needs. Training programs developed by the organization should be convenient for the employees otherwise, they will not be effective. So, initially needs of the employees should be analyzed and effective training programs should be developed to meet these needs. Three analysis are conducted to identify training needs: Organizational, Operational and Person Analysis. After conducting these three analysis, the needs that can be satisfied with training should be seperated from the other needs that can not be satisfied with training and require different solutions. Because all the problems in an organization can not be solved by training. Some of them may require some different solutions like Job Aid, Practice, etc. A number of people have made valuable contributions to this study, Firstly, I would like to thank İ. Özer ALADEMİR, Human Resources Director and Beki FERARA, Human Resources Specialist of Istanbul Çorap Sanayi Group and all the managers whit whom I have worked there. I would also thank people from business world who have contributed their comments on earlier stages of the study and furnished extensive reference materials; Mustafa KAYHAN, Ford Otosan Training Team Leader and Mustafa KAKLIKKAYA, Ford Otosan Training Specialist; Çiğdem VATANSEVER, PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resources Consultant; Gökhan TO?RUL, Arçelik Organization and System Manager. Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Canan ÇETİN, my thesis professor. I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to my family for their support, encouragement and patience throughout this entire process. Sevil KAYAŞ

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