Enterprise Work Skills Strategy

7/31/2019 Enterprise Work Skills Strategy

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Revised 25 February 2009 Page 1

Proposal for Skills Transfer through Enterprise Workforce

Development Strategies

Richard Curtain

Public Policy Consultant

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.curtain-consulting.net.au

Presentation to Workshop on Jobs and Training Opportunities in the Timor Sea, 23 -24 February

2009, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dili, Timor-Leste.

The following proposal is the responsibility of the author alone and has been developed at my own

initiative. It is floated here at this workshop as an idea that merits further discussion and action. It is aproduct of the experiences and information I gained in conducting a national survey of enterprise skill

needs in construction and hospitality in late 2008. The survey was funded by AusAID and it was

conducted in cooperation with the Secretaria de Estado da Formao Profissional e Emprego

(SEFOPE).

Proposal outline

Timor-Leste suffers from a serious skills deficit. In sharp contrast, foreign enterprises are usually skills

rich. Foreign enterprises provide work opportunities for Timorese but, in many cases, these

opportunities are either short-term or few in number. The challenge for Timor-Leste is to work out how

to capture the longer term benefits in the form of skills transfer for individuals and the economy.

A well-designed workforce development strategy at enterprise-level is proposed as a vehicle for

enabling Timorese workers to acquire much needed skills. Foreign enterprises should be at liberty to

propose how they plan to do this and to specify what skill transfer outcomes they aim to achieve.

However, incentives from the Government of Timor-Leste to do so, particularly for large scale projects,

would encourage foreign enterprises to develop and implement such strategies. There is also scope for

the government to offer guidance on the skills needed, and to provide a framework for recognising

those skills. Individual trainees and skills training providers also have important parts to play in the

skills transfer process.

This paper proposes a framework for enterprise workforce development strategies and offers some

suggestions about the forms they might take.

Background

Foreign enterprises will play a central role in building Timor-Lestes infrastructure and in extracting the

oil and gas from the Timor Sea. The benefits from these projects will be in the form of new assets -

buildings, roads and electricity generation capacity as well as revenue. Immediate benefits will also

flow to a number of Timorese in the form of employment. However, there is also the potential to

capture longer term benefits in the form of skills transfer to build up a national skills pool. This will

require a concerted effort by foreign enterprises to do this, supported by incentives and other forms of

assistance from the Government of Timor-Leste.


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The need

Timor-Leste needs to foster its national skills base in terms of both the range and depth of skills. The

AusAID funded Survey of Enterprise Skill Needs in late 2008 showed that only three in ten workers in

construction had been recruited from local skills training providers - which are in most cases offer only

short courses of three to six months. Another one in ten workers were foreign workers. The remaining

permanent workers had acquired their skills on the job. The survey identified a profile of priority skillssets that employers are seeking to enable them to grow their enterprises.

These skills sets can be cultivated locally encouraging enterprises to take on Timorese with some

foundation skills to give them the opportunity to consolidate their skills by workplace practice and to

acquire further skills.

How best to promote skills transfer

The tendering process is one way that Government could promote skills transfer. This was done in the

recent (July 2008) tender for the National Connectivity Project. This tender included a request to submit

a training plan to ensure that 25 Timorese acquired the skills to maintain the new wireless Voice overInternet Protocol (VoIP) network. The response of the tenderer to this request was given a specific

weighting and was included as one of the key criteria used in the overall assessment of the tender.

Other, more traditional ways of governments directing enterprises such as setting quotas for the

employment of nationals are not likely to have any longer term impact as they do not address the

existing skills deficit in the available pool of Timorese workers. Employment quotas for nationals may

merely encourage enterprises to employ Timorese in low skilled jobs. If the employment quotas are set

for specific skill levels, and these skills are not available from domestic sources, the project is

unnecessarily restricted in its operations.

Benefits for foreign enterprises

The benefits to foreign enterprises are several. First, enterprises gain certainty over their engagement of

foreign workers to provide needed skills in return for a strategy for skills transfer, endorsed and

supported by government. Second, enterprises get access to a reliable recruitment and selection process

by being able to select the most capable trainees for ongoing employment. Third, enterprises can show

they are good corporate partners by being part of the national system for developing the skills of

Timorese workers.

Principles to underpin the proposed approach

Enterprises are major sources of skills transfer through learning by doing.

The costs to enterprises of providing work placements in terms of lost productivity need to be

properly accounted for and appropriate support provided by government.

Government has a major role in subsidising the costs and otherwise supporting enterprises to

maximise opportunities for skills transfer.

Skills transfer concerns not only technical and administrative skills but should also include the

transfer of good attitudes to work.

Skills training providers should also be involved in the skills transfer process.


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Proposed framework for an effective enterprise workforce development strategy

The following framework is based on two possible options for skills transfer as the basis for an

enterprise workforce development strategy.

1. One is to offer work placements to current students of skills training providers and other relevant

tertiary institutions.

2. Another is to offer an internship to a graduate of a skills training provider or of a relevant tertiary

institution.

These options are not the only ones but offer concrete examples of what could be done. Other ways that

enterprises could contribute to skills transfer are outlined later in the paper.

Key roles for at least four parties can be identified in the skills transfer process: the enterprise,

individual Timorese beneficiaries, government and skills training providers. Each party has its own

distinct set of contributions to make. Suggested contributions are outlined below.

First, it would be the responsibility of the enterprise to:

provide trainees with work experience that is realistic and appropriate;

provide on-job training to support the work experience, as well as instruction in required

workplace competencies such as work discipline and how to work in teams.

assign suitable skilled employees to act as coaches by explaining tasks, offering feedback on

work performance and supporting/encouraging the trainee in the work placement.

appoint a training coordinator to design workplace training arrangements, interview & select

trainees, organise assessments of progress, keep records for each individual trainee such as a log

book, arrange payment of on-job training subsidies, be the main point of contact for all persons intraining, and liaise with skills training provider partner or partners if part of partnership.

Identify the costs involved in relation to provision of tools and safety equipment for the trainees

lost productivity of existing skilled employees acting as coaches, the cost of the training

coordinator and other costs related to training materials

Report at agreed times on measurable outcomes such as the number and type of skills transferred

and the number of persons/beneficiaries involved.

Second. it would be the responsibility of the person acquiring the skills to:

be clear about what skills he or she is acquiring,

agree and commit to participating in the learning process for the agreed period of time,

Keep track of all acquired learnings by means of a log book, and

provide feedback to work coaches or training coordinator when they are experiencing any

difficulties.


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Third, it would be the responsibility of government to:

Invest more providing greater access to better quality skills training from domestic sources and,

where not available in Timor-Leste, source skills training from other countries,

identify the skills in demand in terms of a priority skills profile for particular sectors,

provide a suitable framework for recognising the skills acquired,

provide a statement of the competencies relevant to the work of the enterprise,

endorse, in a timely manner, the skills transfer process and measurable skills outcomes specified

in the enterprise workforce development strategy,

provide easy and quick access to available subsidies for work placements, and

provide an independent assessment process for judging whether individuals have acquired the

specified competencies.

Provide one point of contact within government who is responsible for liaising with the foreign

enterprise.

Fourth, it would be the responsibility of the skills training provider, where agreeing to a partnership

with an enterprise, to:

appoint a representative who is responsible for all dealings with the partner enterprise,

be clear and honest about what resources it can bring to the partnership, and commit to provide

the agreed services and support,

seek funding from the enterprise partner or government if existing resources are inadequate,

renegotiate the basis for the partnership if suitable funding is not available for any service

initially agreed to provide,

assess the capacities of existing skills trainers against the skills requirements of the enterprise,

and

seek support from government and the enterprise to upgrade the skills of its skills trainers if they

are below the standard required of the enterprise.

Other options for enterprises

The above framework does not exhaust the range of possibilities for enterprises to promote skills

transfer. A number of other options exist for foreign enterprises. Assistance could be offered by

providing placements for instructors from skills training centres as part of a partnership arrangement

aimed at lifting the capacity of a particular vocational training centre. Partnership arrangements could

also include providing equipment for instruction purposes and support to maintain that equipment. At

governmental level, enterprises could provide work experts to participate in developing new skills

standards and support this with advice on relevant curriculum, instruction methods and assessment

procedures.

You are invited to offer further comment and discussion on the above proposal from enterprises,

government and training providers.

Documents

Enterprise Work Skills Strategy