More firms find WSQ courses beneficial for business

By Xue Jianyue, TODAY, 12 Jun 2014

More companies have found the Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) training to be good for business, an annual survey evaluating the WSQ showed, but fewer firms said the training was useful for their workers.

Overall, most of the 1,480 firms surveyed in the Singapore Workforce Development Agency’s (WDA) Outcomes Evaluation Survey (OES) felt the WSQ training had a positive impact on work productivity, product quality, sales and profitability.

About 77 per cent of companies experienced higher work productivity following WSQ training, a 3 per cent increase from 2012.

More firms (70 per cent) also said the quality of their products improved last year, up from 66 per cent in 2012. The proportion of companies that reported improvements in sales and profitability increased from 48 per cent in 2012 to 56 per cent last year.

Bucking the trend was the number of firms who found the WSQ training to be useful for their workers, which dipped to 83 per cent last year, from 85 per cent in 2012.

Employers TODAY spoke to said the WSQ courses were an eye-opener, but called for simpler modules without the business and accounting concepts taught as those were more suited for managers.

First Gourmet co-owner and director Joseph Lee said the WSQ modules taught him how to reduce wastage in unnecessary work processes.

His company sells Indian cuisine and has since implemented a blast chiller to chill food immediately after it is cooked to preserve its quality and freshness for delivery to different outlets.

Besides operational knowledge, Mr Lee also learnt some mathematical formulas and business philosophies that he said are useful to him at the managerial level.

Such training, however, might not be as relevant to supervisory staff and small business owners, he said. “Because if you are a small company, where the owner has to get his hands dirty and be very busy doing multiple things, you are going to find it difficult to focus on the philosophy.”

Supervisors who oversee the operation of machines would find accounting and cost management concepts irrelevant too, he said.

Mr Danny Yap, finance and human resource manager of Chloride Batteries, spent a week almost every month undergoing WSQ training over 15 months. The modules taught him how to reduce inefficiency in the firm, such as having tools located in a centralised location.

However, Mr Yap hopes the WDA can create a simpler module for rank-and-file workers, doing away with lessons on business process and managerial concepts.

“I want it shorter, so I can send more people,” he said. “Maybe, have the simplified version that can be completed in two to three days for rank-and-file workers.”

Mr Yap also suggested a WSQ module that summarises several modules for participants at the chief- executive level.

Separately, another survey conducted by the WDA — the Awareness and Adoption Survey (AAS) — found that 54 per cent of 7,480 companies had adopted WSQ training last year — a 43 per cent increase from 2012.

To date, more than 1 million individuals have been trained under the WSQ system since its inception in 2005.