Looking At How CBT Framework Can Benefit An Organisation

Following up from my previous blog article discussing about the potential benefits and implications of a national CBT framework and how workers can get trained and retrained, hopefully leading to new employment opportunities, I am following up with the notes and discussion of the work of other groups working on the Genetech case study during the DACE class last week.

Generally, all the teams agreed that the implemented of a national CBT framework can help an industry or a new organisation to get trained and qualified workers. The trend is currently effective to equip organisations with workers of lower education to manage their new production facilities and plants.

I have personally witnessed how the last economic recession have affected and impacted PMETs, the effectiveness of the CBT framework as well as policies in getting and helping affected PMETs might not have been as effective as it would have been for general blue collar workers.

Can A National CBT Framework Gives Retrenched Workers A Second Chance?

In my last week of DACE class where we moved into a new module in the program, i.e. Review Competency-Based Training Approaches For Adult Workers and it was another session that many of my classmates contributed in the discussions. In fact, some of the discussions got very interested and “heated” as I guessed this is something closed to everyone’s heart and I personally also added to the “heat” with my own opinions.

As this module focuses on the Continuing Education and Training (CET) system in Singapore, we had to examine the Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework, a national credentialing system that was developed in 2003 with the establishment of Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA).  This qualifications framework has similarities with UK’s National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) as well as the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).

I felt that if a national skills and competency framework is successfully implemented, it should be able to give citizens the right training within the system and equip them with the necessary skillsets to function and perform their job roles. A successful qualifications framework should also give enough job opportunities to citizens, especially when the world now is still in recession and Singapore even though is coming out of the recession, there are still not enough good opportunities for citizens within Singapore and many countries around the world.

Therefore, this was indeed a highly debated topic during the lesson last week and it’s definitely no coincidence that people would question about the success of WSQ and how the policies implemented by WDA or MOM have benefited our citizens and how many actual good job opportunities that our citizens can work on, be safe and stable, including earning the income to bring the daily bread back home.

We examined a hypothetical case study of a foreign company entering a new market like Singapore to set up a new manufacturing plant and how a developed competency-based framework can help the new setup to recruit, retrain and retain workers needed.

The above pictures are work from my group discussion and I was lucky to have Jian Hong on the team who is involved in the biomedical/pharma industry and had personally experienced the case of Genetech setting up in Singapore through his regular involvement within committees in the industry.

Here are some of my personal observations and opinions, learning from the example of Genetech and looking at the current situation in Singapore on how effective a national CBT framework has been:

• The existence of a national-based CBT framework provides opportunities for workers to get trained and retrained. I definitely agreed that this will improve the skillsets and competencies, including confidence of working citizens, especially those who have a lower education as compared to degree holders.
• National-based CBT framework should allow and give opportunities to citizens to enter and find work in a new industry which they have not worked in before, after attending training and obtaining the qualifications.
• Recent economic crisis has affected a lot of PMETs and somehow, the national-based CBT has challenges in allowing PMETs to re-enter into the workforce, especially the senior ones. This might also be due to the lack of senior roles for PMETs and hirers in Singapore might not be as open-minded to accept workers out of the industry.
• A national-based CBT framework can add skills and qualifications to a worker. However, it cannot add experience for the worker if he/she is from a different industry. This might prove to be a challenge for workers seeking work in a different industry, which he/she have skillsets that are transferrable, yet hiring companies might not be keen to explore with them.
• Lack of legislation in Singapore to protect the rights of workers can prove to be challenging when economic downturns happened.
• The Singapore WSQ framework is still new and there is still a lack of strong support and recognition of the framework from companies. This might be one of the biggest challenges of acceptance and recognition of the framework that workers might not have the second chance in their careers after being retrenched.
• Lack of international recognition for Singapore WSQ currently.

There are still many points that can be discussed and argued on whether the Singapore WSQ has been successfully as compared to other national CBT frameworks found in highly successful countries like South Korea, Australia, United Kingdom and Germany.

However, I personally do appreciate the fast response of the Singapore Government in giving grants for citizens for training and retraining under the SPUR program. I also appreciate the fact that we now have a national framework for the workforce and it is developing. There is definitely more work that has to be done by the different agencies involved in this program and I personally think that one of the challenges would be convincing our own citizens who are hirers, HR managers and recruiters in changing their mindsets and attitudes.