In Learning & Organisational Development, we seek to work alongside clients to create an active learning environment from which all staff has the opportunity to grow by learning. Since adult learning is very different from other learning phases in life, we are constantly on the outlook for new ways, improved mechanisms, novel designs etc. to help stimulate minds that have seen it all, done it all.

Linda Hon’s View on

Talent Management & Development, Corporate Learning

In the heady days of eighties and nineties, corporate training - particularly in Asia - in the management soft skills area, has been targeted at changing behaviours. This was an acceptable approach when economy was blooming and an extended bull market with no end in sight. Salary increases, steadily in double digits, year after year. Unemployment was an unfamiliar word, buying power was unlimited. Job promotion and salary increment were guaranteed facts of employment life and there was virtually no worry about job security. Employees exhibited the "acceptable" working behaviours and were rewarded handsomely. Employers worried - too much business and not enough manpower. Management training was thus to accelerate people through the corporate hierarchy in the fastest way possible; and in Hong Kong, to combat the brain drain.

In 1997, the drastic economic downturn, the uncertainty of Y2K, into the new millennium corporate scandals, SARS, bird flu, natural disasters in grand scale, the financial tsunami of 2008 ... and suddenly, nothing was certain.

Corporations switch to survival mode and job security, salary increments, promotions become a distant dream. Retrenchment,a popular option. Employees are required to work longer hours on expanded job scope to fill in those retrenched, while having to face constraints at every turn. Do more, use less is no longer a phrase, but a policy in every office.

The external environment keeps heaping changes with little fore-warning. Worst, these changes come with rapid succession so much so that they are labeled "discontinuous changes" in text books.

• What kinds of skills and competencies are required under such circumstances?
• What must mature, experienced employees do to cope?
• What does the young workforce need to learn to survive?

Changing behaviours, the obvious short-cut, is no longer sufficient. With conflicting changes forces acting on us, changing behaviours merely cause burnt-out quicker, resulting in lowering productivity, higher stress, and a deterioration of the quality of life in general.

We need to switch to changing the mindsets instead. We have to understand how the mind functions before we can un-learn and then re-learn.

• When the mind receives different kinds of paradoxical inputs such as delegating more and yet having to control vigilantly, how could one make decisions quickly and efficiently and yet adhere to the corporate mission and vision?
• When the world is spinning like a hurricane, what do we cling to in order to remain sane?

Can the traditional approach of a list of standard training programmes fulfill the demands of leaders for tomorrow's world?

A lot has been discussed about the battle for talents. Well, so far, talents are winning. Time for organisations to take stock and re-consider their strategies and approaches in this arena.

How must organizations re-structure to take into account the assessment, development, management, compensation, retention, engagement of talents and yet still manage to keep the rest of the staff highly engaged ?

We believe we have something unique and of value to offer you. If you are interested to learn more on behalf of your company and your staff, please give us a call or send us an e-mail.