Techblog
Prepare your employees for 2017 with these SkillsFuture courses
With sluggish economic growth wrapping up the end of 2016, it is important that SMEs encourage their employees to upgrade their skills so that businesses continue to stay relevant amid changes in the economic landscape.
To help you cut through the noise, SME owners share what they think about how the SkillsFuture scheme can help in some areas of their businesses, and pick out five potential courses that might interest other SME owners.
Embracing the digital age
There is no way that your business can avoid becoming more digital in this day and age. “For SME owners, skill sets such as basic graphic design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) are becoming increasingly important,”said Angeline Yeo, co-founder of boutique yoga studio Yoga+ Singapore. SEO, which uses various ways to improve the rankings of a website, is quickly becoming a vital tool for businesses. Being well-versed in SEO techniques can bring more visitors to your website and generate subsequent sales or leads.
“We run on a very lean team of yoga teachers who wear multiple hats, handling marketing, operations and finance,” said the Ms Yeo, who runs the social media marketing side of the company.
“So it is increasingly important to have employees who are always keeping themselves up to date in the latest digital marketing trends,” added Yeo.
Use digital solutions to improve offline productivity
Even for a construction company like K. H. Lee Engineering & Construction, online presence is becoming more important, said the company’s operations manager, Marcus Lee.
“Having an increased online presence will enable us to expand our reach beyond Singapore and to establish our reputation amongst our clients and potential employees,” said the 26-year-old, who said that the company is only just beginning to look deeper into tapping the SkillsFuture programme.
“We’re especially interested in the SkillsFuture Earn and Learn programme as we hope to be able to attract local fresh talent and train them to take up suitable roles in our company,” he added.
A course that has caught his eye is the Advanced Certificate in Construction Productivity.
Faced with rising labour and material costs, it is imperative to increase productivity through technology and improved work processes.
“We hope to send our project managers for this course to gain greater insight into new processes and management skills, which we can then look into integrating into our existing systems,” said Lee.
Training the next batch of leaders
Apart from just learning how to market your business online, it is also crucial to learn new knowledge to incorporate new elements into your work, advised Samuel He, director of media production company Weave.
He said the company regularly brings in speakers to share about leadership philosophy, in order to help shape and train their employees in leadership positions, and noted that SkillsFuture offers another avenue for him to continue with this plan of action.
Understand the audience better with big data analytics
Mr He also believes that learning new fields, such as big data, is important to keep pushing the business beyond its comfort zone and into new territories.
“The things we do in our role, whether it be video producer or video director, these skills have been there for a long time,” explained He. “Actually right now, more than ever, we need to think about different things, apart from producing. We also need to understand the audience better.”
Employees who are interested in taking up SkillsFuture courses to upgrade their skills simply have to go to the SkillsFuture website, search for an appropriate course, contact the training provider to enrol in the course and submit your claim.
All in all, SkillsFuture courses could be what you need to take your business further:
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With the growing importance of online presence, digital marketing skill sets are increasingly in demand
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The benefits from training your employees through online courses can be brought over to offline scenarios and situations
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Always strive to go beyond your comfort zone and understand your business through the prism of other industries