Ang Magiting - The Official Web Site of Rotary Club Makati North

“You ain’t Seen Nothing yet!”

TWTW Jan. 30, 2008
By: Dir. Daniel Wiedmer

Once more a fascinating presentation, in line with President Joe and Mike Clancy’s strategy to promote high quality guest speakers. Mr. Graeme Deegan had worked on such challenging projects as sustainable community development in the Niger Delta for oil companies and the World Bank, and dealing with a surge of human resource needs in a remote Australian city.

He showed us that a skills shortage has positive and negative aspects. The positive aspect is that a skill shortage means that the economy must be booming somewhere to absorb so many workers!

However, the negative consequences are apparent for the “source country”. The key challenges are the following:

1. It is very unpredictable. When a big Australian construction firm, for example, wins a big contract they will “raid” a similar company in the Philippines and hire all their best trained staff. The company here is then left struggling to man its own projects.

2. Training is lost. A company in the Philippines might be spending a lot of money on training and as soon as the staff is trained, they are leaving. Companies inevitably start to question what the return on their investment in training really is.

As a consequence, the source country is restricted in its ability to grow and may be lacking essential services, such as medical services and schooling, due to lack of staff.

Graeme then proceeded to show solutions that might work in this context. For example, he had promoted better coordination between industry, academy and community in a small Australian town that experienced a mining boom. Instead of hiring all qualified staff from outside the area, he worked with the mining company and universities to train local people over the 5 years that the mine was constructed. This resulted in better employment opportunities for locals and a better workforce for the company!

A second solution is to ask the foreign companies to invest in training here in the Philippines. So at least they are paying for the training, instead of raiding other companies. A third, very interesting, solution is to build partnership between Philippine companies and foreign companies that allow Filipinos to work abroad for a while and return later when their family situation has changed. This arrangement ensures a smooth transition for workers, and enables the Philippine companies to receive a compensation, which they can invest in training. He has seen this type of arrangement in the medical industry and looks forward to seeing it elsewhere too.

A lively discussion ensued, where most participants agreed that the competition for Filipino talent will get more and more intense as globalization progresses. As Mike put it: “you ain’t seen nothing yet!”