Click images to view larger versions

More focus is needed to make the training scenario in Oman conducive to the needs of industries
Nazia Khan

It’s a function that doubles up as resource and facilitator for the smooth running of any organisation. Training supplies the edge that moves from a company’s base, goes on to cover its highest echelons, and, in the process, propels all its interactions in the corporate and customer world. As more and more companies see their people as their capital and their training budgets as investments as opposed to costs, the dimensions of the task are expan-ding, making room for internal innovation, external collaboration and a symbiosis across the divisions.

Khimji Training Institute recently signed an MoU with Amity, the first and largest private university in India, to bring several education and training programmes from the Amity Educational Institutions to Oman. The signing of the MoU means the start of prioritising training areas in the future but it is planned that business learning will be one of the focus areas. Meanwhile, Competence HR, in association with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) will soon have a series of three-day residential management devel-opment programmes in Oman. Participants will be certified by IIM-A, which has been voted among the top-three business schools in the Asia-Pacific region.

Training curve
While such tie-ups mean good news on the training front for Oman in the future, the present training scenario here does have considerable gaps in the services that it offers. For companies looking to outsource their training needs, there are training institutions in Oman that provide courses in languages, IT, fire safety and shipping management and operations, among other areas. But there isn’t enough specialised, advanced and industry-specific training, offered at competitive training costs, available here. Says a banker in the training function at his institution, “We don’t have sufficient choice when it comes to external institutes which provide management courses. The existing courses are not very focused. Also, there are few advanced and high-level banking courses here.” Adds Vivek Pande, general manager, Lifestyle Group, Khimji Ramdas, who sees data storage and data security as big areas of growth in Oman, in the future, “A lot of skills are needed to be able to install data storage and security software. Currently, Oman doesn’t have those technical training avenues. I would say that the critical mass is not there yet.”

The training choices before companies are also obviously influenced by costs. And in some cases, different standards relating to the factor make the choice for companies. An executive from the hospitality industry says that presently some of their hotel’s training needs are outsourced outside Oman because the training here is somewhat expensive. “Take English classes for example. If you’re a native English speaker, there’s a certain price. If you’re a good English speaker but not a native, the price is different. So to find the right person for an acceptable price is difficult.” A banking representative has another comment on communication, a very important element in any training mix. “The language courses here tend to concentrate on verbal communication skills. There is a lag when it comes to written English. But these skills are also essential for organisational communication.”

For a variety of introductory as well as advanced courses to be initiated successfully across industry segments, dialogue between companies and institutions is essential. What is also needed is an understanding that trai-ning is essentially what an industry requires it to be. Explains Michel Huot, general manager-operations, Sohar Aluminium, “Operation processes like reduction of aluminium, fabricating an anode, and casting an ingot, among others, are special to an aluminium smelter. Graduates who come out of universities, even those with a good technical background, from any country, don’t know about the specific processes. The processes have to be explained to them once they start.” Knowing that aluminium smelting is a new industry in Oman, Sohar Aluminium has already started talking to several schools and colleges here to ensure that programmes can be better adjusted, over time, to its needs.

Brinda Murugasu, director of training at the Shangri-La’s Barr al Jissah’s Resort and Spa informs that the hotel has developed a prog-ramme with the Ministry of Manpower and the Oman Tourism College in Seeb whereby three batches of 50 students from the interior areas of Oman, will be part of a six-month prog-ramme specifically tailored for Shangri-La. “These students will spend two and a half months with us, gaining practical knowledge before going to college for a full-time education in hospitality. We hope that one day they will become our permanent team members.”

Changing dynamics
A dynamic job market calls for a training scenario that can keep pace with it. In the new workplace, the quality of training that companies provide their employees, in-house as well as external, might just be the binding factor that combats attrition, among other issues. As training and development consultant Richard Coles sees it, one reason why people change jobs is because they feel they weren’t being developed and trained at their old one. “It’s something employers have to think about, because when people leave, it is quite costly to replace them.”

Coles’ point of view about training as a motivational tool for staff finds credence in Pande’s experience. Khimji Ramdas periodically shortlists employees from different departments for international management programmes. Says Pande, “Most of the persons we have sent on these programmes have stayed with us. There is a direct link between a person having being sent for training and him staying with the company. It gives him a career path and direction.”

What also keeps employees in the company fold is innovation in training methods. NBO has recently started screening inspirational movies, among them the Denzel Washington starrer Remember The Titans, about a newly appointed football coach and his high-school team on their first season together, for its staff members. Says Taqi Ali Sultan, general mana-ger - organisational effectiveness at the bank, “The screenings, which will be conducted once a month on an average, help staff bonding in an informal setting, apart from providing learning value.”

It goes to show that effective training isn’t really about the size of a company’s training budget. It is more about the prediction of future trends and systematic conversion towards procedures that will become norms. Towards this end, BankMuscat plans to impl-ement e-learning. The bank, instead of increasing faculty members at their training centre, wants to deliver training through e-channels. As a first step towards that direction, it has put all product manuals and some operations manuals in HTML format, and these are available for browsing at all the branches. The idea is to develop this into a comprehensive e-learning system, complete with courses, assessment and certification. In the coming years, BankMuscat intends to deliver a lot of training this way.

Learning balance
Striking a balance between their in-house and external training programmes, and working towards agreements with local and international educational institutions, companies in Oman are finding customised training grooves that work best for them. Another bank says that the primary reason they have an in-house training system is because much of their trai-ning programmes are related to the bank’s own internal systems, procedures and products.

Meanwhile, with the range that it offers, external training, which provides specialised as well as cost-effective solutions, complements in-house training. Explains NBO’s Sultan, “In cases where large number of staff need external training on a common subject, we invite external specialists to our training centre. This has the twin benefit of cost advantage as well as customised timings for training. On the other hand, we also depute staff to attend external training off site. This is done selectively and on need basis.”

The effective outsourcing of training works for companies that are established in the region as well as those who are just taking their roots. Explains Huot, “Being a new company, we are establishing our training requirements right now. Timing is a challenge as far as trai-ning is concerned. The project is on a tight schedule and we need to align the training with that schedule. Also, various groups have to be trained in parallel. There’s also the matter of availability of equipment to practise. We need to ensure that we get good benefits from the money we invest in training. Our competitiveness depends on it.” Since the company’s first production of hot metal will start in mid 2008, the only training that is provided right now is for construction people at the site by a specialised institute. 44 trainees, who already have a diploma, have also been recruited, and are undergoing additional training in the trai-ning facilities of a local company.

For Shangri-La’s Barr al Jissah Resort and Spa, its training programmes began even prior to arriving in Oman. Informs Murugasu, “Our search for potential Omani candidates started well in advance of opening the resort. We identified young undergraduates interested in tourism careers. They were then enrolled in a one-and-a-half year hospitality training prog-ramme developed jointly with the National Hospitality Institute (NHI). Apart from the theo-retical knowledge, the students were presented with the opportunity to practise what they have learned through a six-month on-the-job training at hotels.”

To make training an integral part of the work ethic, companies are also bringing about an essential change in attitude. Says Pande, “In the culture that we are developing, training need analysis is part of the annual performance appraisal process for each employee. The analysis is then collated to check who might need attitudinal training, customer care training, IT enhancement training, and so on. We roll out various training programmes based on the analysis that we do.”

Consistently, the issue is not about internal versus external training. Rather it is about the true value that training provides.

As Sultan says, “It is not possible to claim an overwhelming superiority for any one of these two channels of training. For example, if we have to train staff about the bank’s operational procedures or technological systems, it obviously makes sense to conduct the training in-house. On the other hand, in select specialised areas like say risk management, external training helps to leverage on cross-border expertise of renowned and experienced specialists. It’s really a question of ‘horses-for-courses’ and the choice would have to be on a case-by-case basis.”

Rules of progression
Providing more opportunities for businesses to network also provides a fillip to awareness about training. Knowledge Oasis Muscat’s (KOM) open house programme sees sessions on issues ranging from e-legislation to intellectual property rights and web casting. The free-of-charge sessions, three years in the running, provide a quick training capsule perta-ining to emerging trends in industry and also the chance to interact with a spectrum of people. The Public Establishment for Industrial Estates’ (PEIE) Smart Manufacturing Conference, which addresses issues related to technology, design, packaging and international markets, relevant to its 400-plus tenants, provides a similar compact training model. Also part of the endeavour is training for entrepreneurs. Says Dave Pender, marketing advisor, KOM, whose incubator programme The Knowledge Mine is organising the Big Business Idea Competition, “You can be the most creative person in the world, but how aware are you of what the business world is really like? It’s on our agenda to develop dialogue with tertiary institutes to look at more ways in which more entrepreneurial training can be offered.”

Commitment to training in Oman, from managements and their staff, as well as from training institutions and their faculty is what it takes for the process to truly advance. Ultimately, the training goals that companies achieve will depend on the training goals that they set. It’s a simple enough equation really – the more the ambition, the greater will be the reward.