Staff Engagement, Training & Development, NTU – Monetising Assets,
Rohei – Digital Workplace & the upcoming Excel training
We have learned that neither Agape nor our employees can force workplace engagement. It has to be ingrained in our business and within each individual employee. The more engaged an employee is, the more work they will put forth. Employee engagement has evolved considerably over the last decade. With the current pandemic situation, we have adjusted ourselves with flexible working hours and working from home for some of us.
Here are the pictures of 2 employees… one comes into work earlier than his/her stipulated working time each day, is eager to be there, and constantly comes up with and share ideas for improving operations. The other employee gets to work on time every day, does the bare minimum, and counts the time until they can leave. Which employee is highly engaged?
The answer is obvious! Engaged employees have a sense of comfortability and camaraderie with Agape.
In Agape, we work hard to beef up the engagement programmes to keep our employees “high” every year. Planning & goal setting were done way before a new year starts.
We emphasize acknowledging employees for their hard work through activities such as celebrations, broadcast accomplishment through Capability Awards & Long Service Awards, appreciation through Teachers’ Day celebration, Town Hall meetings, and more, not forgetting one crucial way, training and development.
Long Service & Capabilities Awards are one of the significant milestones for our employees as it is a recognition of their achievement, contributions and commitment. We will not miss this great opportunity to reward our employees for their loyalty and hard work, putting in their sweat and tear during their journey with Agape especially during the Circuit Breaker period.
Many employees want to develop their skills and continue challenging themselves. They do not want monotonous tasks that require minimum effort. Engaged employees constantly use their mind and boost their skills.
Besides the usual Early Childhood courses that we encouraged our employees to participate, we had also arranged interesting courses to up skill our staff. With the current trend in remote learning, we had sent our employees in batches for the SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace (Synchronous e-Learning) Programme. Our course provider, Rohei had specially designed the programme for our teachers and supporting employees to adopt a mindset and tips to be adaptable to learn new things so that they can be aware of emerging educational technologies that are impacting learning. During the course, they have the opportunity to learn how to use online tools to create learning materials and to engage students. By learning how to use ways to ensure our teachers and their students are safe and secure during remote learning, the journey was wholesome and applicable to our work in many ways.
“Monetising your business knowledge assets” is another course that all the leaders had gone through to enhance their perspective of Agape business. It gives them a better idea of the importance of managing the knowledge they have and generating ideas for potential business opportunities for Agape in future. Apart from the basic knowledge that they require for any job, be it manual or implicit which comes from experience, there is social capital or knowledge of how to collaborate and get people to work with them such as Managerial skills. The highlight of the course is the future knowledge or knowledge they need for their business or cost centres to do well. This is the knowledge that future leaders in Agape must have.
In the forthcoming months, we will be organising a series of Microsoft Excel courses of different levels to hone the employees’ skill set which is crucial to advance their career. Sharpening their skillset in this area will improve their efficiency and productivity. This will make them a more valuable member of Agape with their ability at organising data better and make their job easier. The ultimate aim to this exercise is to ensure that the employees are able to reach the highest level of being able to use Excel Dashboard. It is a useful tool which after acquiring the knowledge, the employees are capable to create an interactive dashboard that allows them to filter data and switch views. This will in return empower the employees to provide insight, analysis and alerts of the business overview.
After each training programme, our staff is expected to fill out the post course survey in order for us to determine the outcome of the course in order for us to improve in either customising the course to the needs of the employees or in the selection of the courses.
Since 2017, Agape had embarked in the Project Joy programme developed by Workforce Singapore Agency and managed by the Association of Early Childhood and Training Services (ASSETS). This programme helps us create a supportive and happy workplace environment for our employees through training and consultancy to enhance our HR practices. From the yearly Employee Engagement Survey, we managed to identify the areas for improvement and review on some actions to be taken. From the survey, we collate the list of trainings that the employees yearn to go through and develop a training plan for the year. Part of above mentioned courses are the results of the Employee Engagement Survey of 2019. With this learning journey planned for the employees, we hope that it will lift the career progression to a higher level of those employees who are ambitious and are determined to work alongside with Agape.
Looking ahead, Agape goes back to basics and embrace our new value of “Empowerment” with the tried and tested principles of autonomy and recognition will witness greater levels of employee engagement.
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