Competencies You Need to Have or Develop for the Future Workforce (Author's personal view)

I was too lazy to create a new article and so this new blog post I made is more of a personal opinion.  So please excuse me for expressing on the first person.

Our country (Philippines) has a new president who promotes change (Pres. Duterte).  The newly elected U.S. president, Mr. Trump is also different from the usual profiles of the previews U.S. presidents.  Changes that somehow rattles the nerves of half of the country's population. Now, with them sitting on the government, we wonder what would be the future of the workforce?  What would be the future of the economy?  That is what we have to watch closely.

As I have mentioned, I am too lazy and so I just captured this presentation from one of the blogs that I read - found at "fivestarsandamoon" website.  This is a print screen of the skills needed for the current and future workforce.

Above are the top 10 skills discussed or were presented in the World Economic Forum.  I wanted to share it with fellow HR practitioners and suggest that we post it on our board to remind us constantly of the skills we need to develop for our human resources.  These competencies are not common and usually the same sets of skills we look for our supervisors, and managers.  These skills are well-developed for those who have gained wisdom from their work experience. 

If you look at our current workforce, many organization are experiencing difficulties in maintaining and sustaining their talents.  We tend to lose them because of the high demand for employees having these competencies.  Not only the competition, but also the interest of the current workforce are so diverse.  Information is so high and wide-spread that consistency of functions performed also present a challenge - "boredom".  HR Managers are now constantly on high-gear thinking creatively of programs that would keep the employees entertained in their job.

Most developmental programs for employees are anchored on Competencies.  Thus, before you go further with your programs, it is best to define first the competency-requirements of your organization.  Doing so, you will have a guide for recruitment, training and with your management program.

Now, looking at the above top 10 skills list, I noticed that there are missing ingredients that we as HR managers always hope to find among the workforce.  What I am pointing at are the softskills we need, particularly in the co-op sector.  These are few of the traits or characters that we need to sustain the culture of "cooperativism":

• Integrity and Honesty
• Commitment
• Loyalty
• Members-centered or customer focused
• Compassion

I know that the above soft-skills are hard to find and determine during recruitment. Only time can tell if we are able to capture the heart of our employees.  And also, you may want to add more to the list I have given above.

The next thing that now comes into my mind is how to develop the soft skills among our employees.  I will try to share my experiences from the interventions I will be making.  You see, most of the consultancy requirements I have now are mostly on how to improve the employee relations and the employees' morale.  These are factors related to the organizational culture.  Hopefully, I'll be able to document it.  I will try to write some small articles as I develop a documentation on the culture and climate of Philippine Cooperatives.

Until my next blog... Please feel free to share your opinions on this matter.  Have a great day ahead!!!

When Does Employee Benefits Becomes a Motivator?

Many cooperatives have lower compensations and benefits packages compared to other financial institutions.  So employees seldom feel that they are receiving enough for the work they do.

But considering the work requirements and the culture of cooperatives, there are benefits that are not well communicated to them.  For example, the training and travel opportunities that they get for attending seminars given by federations are not much valued as a benefit.  Other employees in the corporations have to earn their training opportunity and some even have to spend out of their own pocket to be able to improve their competencies. But in the cooperative sector, training are abundant (except for some cases of front liner employees like cashiers, who finds it hard to leave their post).

HR of cooperatives should be able to communicate the monetary equivalent of all the benefits they give to employees, to help their employees realize the value of their work.  As I have read in an article of "employeebenefits.excellenceessentials.com" (written by Lynn Lievonenn),  "Communicating effectively and regularly about the benefits of benefits plans provides a better understanding and higher adoption rate by your employees. It helps build employee engagement and a more loyal workforce that takes less sick time."

By communicating the benefit plans to the employees, they will see that the organization is not neglecting their basic needs and the plan tells them how the organization understands their needs.  If there's no schedule of increases due to the organizational performance, at least the employees would also know that if they work together and try to achieve the targets, there's a big chance that they will reap the fruit of their labor in the future.  Employees need to understand that they are stewards and partners of the cooperative, and valuing their members and being able to serve the members well, will be rewarded too.

Some cooperatives even offer opportunities for the family members of the employees to find employment in the organization.  Some cooperatives allow relatives to work at the same organization, provided that the internal control is not sacrificed.  Some co-ops also provide scholarships for the employees' children, and some give scholarship for the employees as well. 

So my advice to HR of cooperatives is to review what compensation and benefits' packages that you have and try to monetize it.  This will give you an understanding of what you can offer for recruitment and what you can tell your employees should they decide to find greener pastures.