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TRAINING OF BRASILIA'S PUBLIC SERVANTS FOR BIG EVENTS

The learning of foreign languages to act in the 2016 Olympic Games

Layla Maria de SOUSA SANTOS

Soraia SORICE DA SILVA

Stéfane Natália RIBEIRO E SILVA

Viviane PIRES DE MORAES

Vladmir Silveira dos SANTOS JUNIOR

Final report written and submmited at the Public Management

for Competitive and Innovative Cities course - Nov 2014

at IMC University of Applied Sciences - Krems.

Krems am der Donau November, 2014

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ABSTRACT

The project proposes a training program in foreign languages for public

servants using the structure of the Public Servants School (EGOV) of the Federal

District and the Interscholastic Centre for Languages (CIL). The focus is to prepare

the servants directly involved in the realization of big events to receive the

participants, overcoming communication barriers created by the lack of knowledge

of a second language.

The soccer matches of 2016 Olympic Games will take place in cities that

were hosts of 2014 FIFA World Cup and some of these matches will be played in

Brasilia.

The aim of this project is to promote English and Spanish courses for public

servants of the health, security and transport services. Classes and lectures held

during the Public Management Training in IMC University of Applied Sciences

provided the theoretical basis for the development of this project and the practical

knowledge of each group member contributed to the development of this proposal.

Taking advantage of existing structures and qualified CIL’s teachers, the

project can be applied in a short term and can serve as basis for more programs of

continuing training of public servants.

Keywords: training / languages / big events / public servants / public management.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction 4

2. Training contents and learning outcomes 5

3. Evaluation of Training Contents 9

4. Case Study: Brasília 12

5. Conclusion 18

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1. Introduction Federal District’s Government (GDF) has a project called "Brasília 2060",

with the goal of transforming Brasília in one of the most competitive cities in the

world, through a plan for the next 50 years. One of the points of this project is to

include the city in the international events scenario in order to attract tourists and

business investment.

Brasília has been the scene of several international events, especially

after being one of the 2014 FIFA World Cup host cities. In the year 2016, the

Olympic Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro and, as a way to take advantage of

the structure built to the World Cup, the soccer games will be played in a

decentralized manner. Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and

Brasília will receive the soccer games audience. In addition, some teams will be

staying in the city as the Brazilian National Diving Team that will use the aquatic

complex for training.

The City of Brasília was selected by the World Water Council to welcome

the 8th World Water Forum in 2018. The selection was consisted in a voting that

followed a rigorous evaluation process. The World Water Forum is the world’s

largest water event that gathers international stakeholders every three years and

aims to set water firmly on the international agenda. The World University Games,

also known as Universíade, will happen in Brasília in 2019. The Capital was

chosen and beated Baku (Azerbaijan) and Budapest (Hungary), also candidates to

host the event. Being the host of Universíade encourages youth and adolescents

to practice sports and become healthier. It also improves the life quality in the

whole country, considering the ideas that the event will socially spread. After the remodeling of the stadium, several international artists included

Brasília in the itineraries of their South American tours. Not neglecting to mention

the events that have already occurred, making the city has increasingly more

attractive, such as the International Film Festival, International Book Fair, World

Spiritual Forum, international conferences and others.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup was considered a successful event for the

people who participated: spectators and organizers. However, as in any event,

some faults happened and some of them were portrayed in the news. In the eyes

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of the surveys conducted by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism, some foreign

tourists mentioned the difficulty with the language as one of the biggest problems

faced during the period they were in Brazil.

According to the goals established in the Brasília 2060 project, there is a

need to enable public servants directly involved in the execution of events to

attend foreigners the best way. One of the biggest barriers is the ability to

communicate in a foreign language. People might be prepared to serve the public

with excellence and to create the good impression about the city.

In Brasília, there is the Public Servant School (EGOV), a training space

and human resource development objectivizing to promote a model of public

management with humanist and scientific focus. EGOV is also responsible for

maintaining exchange with local, national and international educational institutions.

The Public Servant School aims at technical cooperation, and promotes case

studies, debates, conferences and other events to formulate and improve public

policies and management.

Within the government structure, there is the Interscholastic Center for

Languages (CIL), with eight specialized schools in teaching modern foreign

languages, whose teachers are civil servants of the local Education Secretariat.

Considering the scenario described above, the structure of government

and the existing demands, the objective of this project is to create a civil service

training program in foreign languages in order to better performe at big events,

especially during the 2016 Olympic Games.

2. Training contents and learning outcomes

The Public Management for Competitive and Innovative Cities course,

offered by the IMC Fachhochschule Krems, University of Applied Sciences Krems,

was very intense and productive. The special group of professors, experienced in

the different themes that were discussed during the four weeks of this course,

made possible an extraordinary learning experience.

Along the course, specific abilities related to Public Management were

trained and improved. The approach of the professors considered the content

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integrating five different modules, each of them composed by an important list of

elements, reaching different knowledge fields.

The trained elements and abilities, mentioned above, are shown as follows.

In this topic, the themes discussed in each module (classes and lectures) are

shown highlighted, in order to facilitate its identification by the reader.

2.1. Module 1: Entrepreneurship

The main idea of entrepreneurship applied to Public Management

discussed along the course can be defined by the creation and the maintenance of

an environment that supports the entrepreneurs, making them feel encouraged

and able to solve the main logistic problems that they usually face. The Social

(Entrepreneurship) aspect of the theme is related to the promoting of a common

Centre for the entrepreneurs to exchange experiences among themselves.

In this module, Strategy Development and Corporate Culture were seen.

The training related to this topic had an emphasis in the strategic process to

understand the actual corporate context and to prepare the decision making in

order to achieve a new and desirable goal in the most efficient way as possible.

In order to promote and achieve new goals, the discussions about

Innovation and Change Management were really useful to understand the

innovation processes and to try to well manage the changing actions. These are

desirable ways to promote an effective development of the labor processes, most

of all considering this new way of supporting the workers, inside an

environmentally motivating scenario, understanding their needs and encouraging

them to feel good about their tasks: the so called New World of Work (NWOW),

also applicable in Public Management.

2.2. Module 2: Sustainable Development and Urbanization

The main idea of the Sustainable Development is related not only to

people's attitudes in their corporate lives, but also to their daily actions, taken in

their personal context (with friends or family, during the leisure time, for example).

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Thinking about this subject, it is essential to have always in mind these two

elements: (1) our needs and limitations; and also (2) next generations' needs and

limitations.

Based in the elements above, the corporations must develop and improve

their processes to achieve an Environmental and Sustainability Management

system in their business activities. The main concepts that have to be followed in

every step of their activity processes are: Engaging, Encourage, Exemplify and

Enable.

In this context, arises the concept of "Corporate Social Responsibility -

CSR", that orients the implementation, starting by companies, of the sustainability

principles in the life style off the whole society.

2.3. Module 3: Smart Cities

Studying the Smart City concept made possible to understand that is

desirable to build integrated communities in a sustainable and intelligent way,

through an adequate Urban Planning.

Some simple and manageable examples were shown while visiting Vienna,

where the students group did see:

- Smart Buildings, with systems that maintain heat more time than the usual

and store energy in a more efficient way;

- Smart Neighborhood, being build with strategic planning;

- Companies that create innovative solutions in urban planning and

Transportation Systems, involving the society.

Those benefits, shown in the actual places they are being implemented,

consider important principles of this topic, such as some mentioned above and

others, like sustainability, climate conditions, participatory planning and the

constant reach of technical proceedings improvement.

2.4. Module 4: The City as a Tourist Destination

To make a city become an attractive destination, talking about Tourism, it's

necessary to improve not only the infrastructure and the actual attractions there. It

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is essential to deal also with the image of the place, the idea that is given to the

foreigners about what can be found in there. It is necessary to touch the visitors

feelings about that destination.

In order to promote those positive changes, becomes really important to

improve the framework in which the city usually "fits in". By the end, to materialize

these ideas, it is necessary to go through the concepts, well discussed during the

last four weeks, of Innovative Event Management Concept Development (not

forgetting to emphasize the Safety and Security Management in those big events).

To achieve effective success, all the effort to bring notorious events to the

city (which will bring more tourists there) have also to deal with a strategic plan of

Pricing, Branding and Marketing of the Destination.

2.5. Module 5: Social Competencies

Understanding cultural diversity is, nowadays, an essential social

competency. Along the course, were shared a classifying model for cultures, what

shows different behavior variations, such as:

- Linear-active, multi-active and reactive cultures;

- Chronomic, monochronomic and polichronomic cultures; for example.

The different Intercultural Competences are really important when dealing

to foreigner groups and interests.

Those differences help to determinate how should work a leader (in the

private sector and also when dealing to Leadership in Public Management) of a

multicultural team, for example, or even the best ways to manage business (with

topics like Motivation of Teams and Presentation & Reporting). In many times, the

success of a negotiation, for example, depends also in knowing the way different

people behaves, such as the way they usually look to a business partner, a

specific dressing code, the way they express themselves among them and the

differences when they are dealing to a different person (who is not a part of their

own group). The idea is to avoid an eventual bad impression or even to avoid

some actual problems from happening.

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3. Evaluation of Training Contents

The topics that follow deal specifically to the training content applicable to

Brasilia’s reality (themes related only to this paper content) and will be used

among the development of the project that is being presented in this document,

related to the main idea of the improvement of the abilities of the Brasilia's public

servants, specially for Big Events.

3.1. Innovative Event Management Concept Development

Brasilia, as a co-host city for the 2016 Olympic Games, will be the place for

some important events, specially soccer and water sports training.

It is necessary to develop a high quality work in this field, in order to

promote the city and improve the image of Brasilia as a key host for international

events. For that, some good actions have already been promoted when the city

was preparing itself to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer event, such as

improvements at public transportation, signaling and the organization of public

places. Even though we had those good examples, there are other issues that

have also to be faced. At that time, were promoted courses in foreign languages

for different kind of workers, such as taxi drivers and hotel workers. Dealing

specifically to this topic, becomes really important to improve the ability to speak

foreign languages also for public servants, increasing the efficiency of the

attendance to the visitors coming to Brasilia during the event.

The importance of hosting an event like this was discussed in the

classroom. Some of the objectives aimed in this case are:

- Achieving a different appeal in comparison to local or national events and

the impact of the good effect that can be seen by a good managing of the event;

- Promoting the city abroad, empowering the population and improving the

good feelings about the destination of those who live or visit the city;

- Improving image ad global recognition from a marketing, media and

tourism perspective;

- City and/or national pride amongst population;

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- Potential short and long-term economic benefits, including foreign

investment and influx of qualified international personnel to the city;

- Further legacy opportunities (environment, social inclusion, education,

public private partnerships, and others);

- Potentially accelerated infrastructural improvements in preparation for the

event (transport, accessibility, housing, communication and other public

infrastructure);

- Planning is also done with a legacy mindset and transparency on public

spending.

All those objectives can be achieved (even in partial manners) in the

context of hosting an event like the Olympic Games.

3.2. Intercultural Competencies

Intercultural knowledge is essential to organize an event like the one

proposed in this paper. Training the public servants to deal with intercultural

aspects is important because Brasilia will be visited by people from many different

nationalities and cultures during the 2016 Olympic Games.

To train the public servants in order to improve their way of dealing to the

cultural differences they are going to face (about talking, dressing and behaving,

for example) will be an effective way to make the visitants feel comfortable about

being in our city.

Using the 2014 FIFA World Cup as a starting point, the international press

highlighted some positive aspects about the Brazilian culture. Some examples

found in the respective newspapers websites: "Streets full of happy fans and party

environment all the time" (Spain, El País); "Brazilian good quality in soccer and

enthusiasm on the streets" (EUA, The New York Times); "Pleased about the

Brazilian passion for soccer" (England, The Guardian).

Considering the good aspects mentioned above, there is a good

perspective to work in a way that may motivate the visitors to come back to

Brasilia after the games.

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3.3. Innovation and Change Management

It is obvious that training the public servants to be able to use better their

abilities in foreign languages will not be an easy task. There is difficulty in several

aspects, but the main barrier to overcome is to implement a new idea in the

corporation culture that is already established in the Brasilia's public

administration.

Dealing with this topic, it was possible to study the different kinds of

resistance to changes and to identify some successful actions to be taken in order

to effectively implement an innovative idea, also considering the acceptance by

the community and the creation of an agreement feeling about the change,

integrating it in the common culture.

Promoting a changing process is a real challenge and, in order to be

successful, it should focus in improving at least one of the following aspects of the

established culture (in terms of production): to do things faster, better or/and

cheaper.

In the process of developing the public servants abilities in foreign

languages, the most difficult obstacles to overcome are the immaterial ones: the

structure, the knowledge, the people to work to promote the courses and several

other aspects are already available to the administration, but there is no space to

sub estimate the complexity of the training or the difficulty in convincing the

stakeholders about the idea.

3.4. Development of Corporate Culture and Strategy

In this topic, were discussed the importance of promoting, in a strategic

way, positive changes in the corporative culture. Bringing this idea to our theme,

the first step to be worked on would be to spread the idea of this new perspective

(to frequently improve the abilities of the workers) among the public servants

themselves, in order to make them understand (and buy the idea) what do this

initiative intend to achieve, how this process is going to be developed and where

do it leads to (talking about the improvement of the quality of the public services).

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To define the mission of this project and to construct creative strategies to

present the objectives of this initiative are key aspects that have to be thought,

also considering the different visions to form the whole idea.

Considering this strategic formulated plan, the chances of a satisfactory

implementation of the project increases in a significantly way.

3.5. Leadership in Public Management

The leadership styles shown in this lecture reveal that each kind of working

contexts asks for a different kind of leader. More than that can be observed that

there is not much variation among leaders styles in Brasilia's administration and

majority of them are not the most desirable style to lead and manage an innovative

project like the one is presented in this paper.

In this case, to leader different teams, such as communications, teachers,

managers and administrators, it is necessary for the leader to have multitasks

abilities. Mainly because it is necessary to implement something new and

constantly motivate the people involved in it.

Other than that, the desirable style of the leader has also to be thought to

deal with the stakeholders convincement, not only to manage the implementation

of the project.

4. Case Study: Brasília

As globalization, mobility, and communications are bringing the world ever

close together, even more urgent and important is the need for global citizens to

be competent in other languages. Brasília will be a city host for some important big

events. All these events will bring people from different part of the world, so it

means that people from Brasília might be prepared to work on this reality. Being

able to communicate in a foreign language is definitely advantageous for corporate

success. The international business community as an indispensable tool for

relationship building and financial success has long known the benefits of effective

communication across multiple languages.

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A person who is able to communicate in a foreign language can bridge the

gap between cultures, contribute to interactional diplomacy, and promote national

security and world peace. Someone who knows a second or a third language

might be helpful to others and to the development of his/her own country. Knowing

different languages serves to help improve communication, but also drives cultural

awareness – something that will continue to grow in importance in business.

Knowing another language and culture affords people the unique

opportunity of seeing themselves and their own culture from an outside

perspective. Contact with other languages and cultures gives people the unique

chance to step outside a familiar scope of existence and view their culture’s

customs, traditions, and norms as well as their own value system through the eyes

of others. Intercultural experiences have a monumental influence on shaping

identity, heightening self-awareness, and giving you a full appreciation of your life

situation.

Learning a new language allows you to access many different cultures

across the world. People have the opportunity to see fascinating new things from a

new perspective, which not many people can, and connect with the new people all

over the world. Different culture has its own music, style, history, and many

interesting things which people will be able to enjoy and understand. People will

be able to be connected and interact with whole countries worth of people,

ultimately broadening horizons, interests and views.

According to the above context, Brasília’s citizens might be prepared to

work on the next big events in the city. Brasília is going to open its doors to

welcome people from many different countries and bring different knowledge and

background. Being able to communicate with all these visitors in their language

also demonstrates some knowledge regarding the culture and manners of those

people.

Communicating with these people for the next years is a difficult task and it

demands time and dedication for success. Brasília’s servants need to dedicate

time and study a foreign language to work direct with these important audiences.

Taking advantage of hosting the next big events and the existing physical

structures, Brasília has a great chance to enable its servants to study a foreign

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language. There are several language institutes (Centro Interescolar de Línguas –

CIL) spread in Brasília. They are part of the structure of public education in Distrito

Federal. They are administrative and pedagogical connected to Education

Secretariat.

Nowadays, there are eight CIL schools in different cities in Brasilia. They

are located in: Plano Piloto (2), Gama, Guará, Ceilândia, Taguatinga, Sobradinho

e Brazlândia. They are responsible for teaching English, French and Spanish.

Therefore, some institutes also offer German and Japanese. The main purpose of

these schools is to provide students with the development of the language in its

four skills: reading, writing, speaking

and listening. After some years studying

a foreign language, students will

become autonomous and able to

contribute to improve their local, national

and global community.

In recent years, these eight

schools acted together in training

students to work as volunteers in the

Soccer World Games in Brasília. They also prepared approximately 1200 students

and 200 public servants for the course of immersion in Brasilia without Borders

program (Brasília sem Fronteiras). It is important to mention that some students

have become youth ambassadors and others have participated in important world

contexts and competitions.

In addition, it is vital to mention that all these schools, which are recognized

as centers of reference in the teaching of foreign languages, may be useful to

enable civil servants to work, contribute and collaborate to the next Brasília’s big

events. This project proposes that CILs may be used in training Brasília’s civil

servants in order to contribute to the improvement of public service, especially to

big events organization.

The difficulty of communication in a foreign language was identified as a

weakness that needs to be overcome. A good way to receive tourists and athletes

consists of training public servants in learning English and Spanish as second

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languages. A great reception would send positive images of Brasília to Brazil and

to the world, and generate a good impression of the city’s administration.  

Thus, for the purpose of the presented project is accomplished correctly

and generate positive effects, it is necessary that the Government of the Federal

District make strategic planning in order to identify the main factors that affect the

management of the event. The following aspects might be taken in consideration:

stakeholders, budget availability, city's potential to be harnessed and weaknesses

to overcome.

It is need to properly manage the time between the choice of city to host

the event and its effective realization, ordering the activities and actions that need

to be developed within that period.  

After a collective brainstorming, this project was developed following

strategic planning, based on the lecture about strategy development and corporate

culture:

1. Vision

2. Analysis (Questions)

3. Strategy Creation

4. Strategy Implementation

The vision is to invest in training of Brasília’s public servants in order to make

the city a center of excellence in big events. The analysis was based on three central

questions: (1) Why doing this training course? (2) How it should be done? (3) How will

the course contribute to a better receiving city for big events?

In order to the strategy not to exclude one of the partners, the Project and

Strategic Planning will be presented to Interscholastic Center for Languages Core

(NCIL), which is the highest department of the language centers. After the agreement

about the terms of the project, NCIL will be responsible for producing the course

content, in partnership with the language schools and the Tourism and Special

Projects Secretariat.  

The course should be divided into two modules: the first is about learning

basic English or Spanish language and the second one is connected to the usage of

language during the specific activities that will be developed in the next events.

We have filled the following SWOT Matrix in order to evaluate the feasibility of

the project and to support its planning process:

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Strengths Weaknesses

• Existence of public language schools in

Brasília

• Highly qualified teachers

• Adequate physical structure

• Possibility of using digital tools

• Capillarity of Interscholastic Center for

Languages (CIL), located in several

regions

• Few teachers available

• Rigidity in CIL’s structures

Opportunities Threatens

• Budget for big events

• Existing training culture for public servant

• Delays in bureaucratic processes

required for course formulation

• CIL’s membership resistance to the

program due to its weaknesses

The choice of English language was motivated by the fact that it is the

most spoken language in the business world. The Spanish language was

considered strategic because most of the Brasilia’s visitors are from Spanish-

speaking countries. Some data on the World Cup showed that 41% of tourists who

visited Brasilia were from other countries, most of them from Latin America1.

 

                                                                                                                                       1  Graphic from “Observatório do Turismo do Distrito Federal” : http://observatorio.setur.df.gov.br/files/3014/1089/5911/Pesquisas_SETUR_-_Ariadne.pdf   http://observatorio.setur.df.gov.br/files/3014/1089/5911/Pesquisas_SETUR_-_Ariadne.pdf  

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Developing the work in its total range, many activities are necessary, like

the planning process, the project construction, meetings with other Secretariats

and all governmental organs involved in the process of developing the language

courses and the course classes planning. It is also necessary to have “monitoring

points”, which are meetings specially to discuss the execution of the project so far,

evaluate if changes are needed and if adjustments should be done.

With that in mind, it is imperative to create and follow a chronogram of all

activities that must be completed until the Olympic Games starts in Brasília, like

the one we present bellow:

Chronogram 2014

Nov Dec

Project Development X

Strategic Planning X

Chronogram 2015 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

Meetings with

partners and

Stakeholders

X X

Monitoring Point X

Classes planning

and course material

preparation

X X

Classes planning

and course material

preparation for the

online part of the

course

X X

Monitoring Point X

Meetings with

partners and

stakeholders to

share information

about the course

X

First module classes X X X X

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Chronogram 2016

At the end of this project, the course should be evaluated for the

investigation if it has achieved their goals. This assessment can support the

improvement of the activity, in order to enable new editions. That is important

because Brasília will continue to receive international events and the training of

civil servants in foreign is essential for the improvement of this whole process.  

5. Conclusion

The most active and modern organizations in the market have come to

the conclusion that investing in their employees is very effective and it is the

shortest and safest way to achieve their goals.  An organization depends directly

on the behavior of people who provide services to it, because of this it is crucial to

keep these people trained, well prepared and highly motivated mainly for the tasks

they will perform.  

This logic also applies to public sector, in addition, in terms of public

budget, it is more feasible to enable the servers that are part of institutions than

selecting new people.   The development process of the people means not only

provide knowledge and skills to enhance productivity.  It also means providing them

with training to develop new habits, new attitudes and increase their knowledge in

pursuit of becoming better at what they do.  Therefore, it is to go beyond a personal

training, involving aspects that approach the education process.  

In addition to expanding the technical knowledge, professional training

projects in the public sector tend to generate high productivity and increase the

motivation of civil servants.  The training program in a foreign language proposed in

this final project is feasible and doable because it uses the existing structure of the

Jan Feb Mar April May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Evaluation of the first

module X X

Second module classes X X X X X

Olympic Games X

Final Meeting for results

analyses X

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Public Servants School and CILs, creating a new type of course focused on civil

servants directly involved in big events.

According to this point of view, the government should adopt a new

design management and create a permanent and continuous training policy in

order to prepare the technical and administrative and managerial staff to carry out

their responsibilities, enabling the public official to perform their duties in a society

that changes.

The public servant needs to acquire new habits and skills to produce the

results required by modern society.  The changes have always existed in human

history, but nowadays the difference is intensity of variables such as speed,

volume and impact, generating the urgency of ongoing training in all organizations.  

One way to implement this project is to present it to the Staff Office

Secretary, that is the department that centralizes government decisions involving

more than one governmental area, working as a coordinator of multidisciplinary

actions.  Another possibility is to propose the implementation of the project for the

Tourism and Special Projects Secretary is responsible for conducting the strategic

management of big events in Brasilia.  

The main argument for stakeholders being involved is convince them that

the improvement in the quality of services is a great way to make Brasília a global

city.  Achieving this level will attract investment, create jobs and increase income,

and it will also improve self-esteem of Brasilia citizens.  The gains are indisputable

and the benefits may reach much of the population, even those who are not

directly involved.  

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