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Those who need to recruit local domestic helpers or post-natal care workers should be familiar with the quality services offered by the "Smart Living Scheme" and "Smart Baby Care Scheme" of the Employees Retraining Board (ERB). However, don't ever think that the ERB only concerns about training of domestic services. Its work portfolio is simply much wider!

"Established in 1992, the ERB has operated with a clear mission," says Stanley Ng, Executive Director of the ERB. "We strive to provide a flexible, quality and resilient workforce to meet the demands of Hong Kong's knowledge-based economy."

Working in close partnership with over 110 appointed training bodies, the ERB has established the largest training network in Hong Kong. Together the training bodies offer a wide variety of training courses supplemented by a full range of support services. The service targets of the ERB are close to 2.6 million people.

To ensure sustainability on the part of ERB's services, the Legislative Council approved in early 2014 the injection of $15 billion into the ERB primarily as seed money for generating investment income to  nance its day-to-day operation. With government's funding support, the ERB will roll out its longterm strategic plan to enhance the employability of Hong Kong employees.

Going the extra mile
Stanley Ng points out, "In response to the "Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2012", which advocates the importance of bolstering employment to reduce the risk of poverty, we at the ERB will go that extra mile to explore the employment potential of different social strata and plan ahead for the necessary support services."

The consultation document "Thoughts for Hong Kong" issued by the Steering Committee on Population Policy considers it necessary to unleash the potential of female homemakers and early retirees as well as new arrivals, the disabled and ethnic minorities through education, training and employment.

"The ERB has already been working along the directions advocated in the consultation document "Thoughts for Hong Kong"," adds Stanley Ng. "We are formulating a range of new initiatives to strengthen our training and employment support for different social groups with special needs as well as for employers."

All these efforts are part and parcel of the overall strategy of "Training for Empowerment, Employment for Alleviation of Poverty", which is prominently featured in ERB's Threeyear Strategic Plan for 2014-15 to 2016-17.

Flexible working hours for female homemakers
Currently, about 80% of ERB's trainees are female. Female homemakers in fact dominate some popular training courses pertaining to domestic helpers, post-natal care workers, healthcare workers and masseurs. Through operating the "Smart Living Scheme" and "Smart Baby Care Scheme", the ERB has helped foster an increasingly supportive environment for household employers who wish to make use of these personal services.

"We have recently seen the trend of an increasing number of female homemakers landed on property management and security positions," says Stanley Ng. "But some of them are unable to work full-time due to their family commitment, we have a duty to explore other suitable job options for this group of female homemakers who may otherwise experience tremendous dif culties in securing employment."

Some of these female homemakers have to take care of elderly family members. Some others may have to look after their young children. Their inability to work on a full-time basis can thus be addressed by flexible or perhaps shorter
working hours.

Sourcing more part-time jobs appears to be an alternative. Stanley Ng however points out that while generally taskbased jobs such as hotel housekeeping or airplane cleaning might offer more  exible work schedules, the "casualisation" of jobs is leading to concerns over job security, pay and benefits, and terms and conditions of employment. A sensible balance has to be stroke between  exibility and employment protection to avoid possible conflicts.

The ERB is enhancing the variety and intensity of training for female homemakers. Other work on the drawing board includes development of tailor-made training programmes, launching thematic promotions through advertisements and publicity leaflets/pamphlets, and organisation of femalefocused training and recruitment activities at the district level.

Discovering the strengths of early retirees
To address the twin problems of aging population and labour shortage, the Government has recently advocated early retirees to re-enter the employment market. "The ERB at present does not operate any dedicated service for people more senior in age. However, some 45% of our trainees are aged 50 or above," says Stanley Ng. "There is an obvious need for us to strengthen our services for this social group."

The ERB will commission a large-scale market research to ascertain the employment and training needs of early retirees and to canvass the opinions of other stakeholders. There may be some worries on the health and physical conditions of early retirees, but they should be able to command the majority of available job openings. Of course, vacancies requiring shorter working hours and more intellectual input may even be more suitable for some early retirees. A particular strength of these people is their experience and interpersonal skills, and this may place them in good stead when performing selected functions. "For instance, housing management staff more senior in age may be more skilful in building dialogue with and resolving disputes between residents," Stanley Ng adds.

While it takes time to conduct the market research and analyse its findings, the ERB wastes no time in serving the early retirees. A series of workshops will be organised in the three service centres of the ERB to update their job search and generic work skills. Separately, the ERB will put in place measures to facilitate people more senior in age to attend training courses. "We will use larger font sizes when preparing teaching materials. We will adjust the daily learning hours to relieve pressure on the part of the trainees, perhaps with the organisation of half-day classes instead of full-day classes. This will better maintain their attention span throughout the learning process and enhance the learning outcomes," Stanley Ng explains.

Enhancing the employability of social groups with special needs
In his 2014 Policy Address, the Chief Executive stressed the importance of poverty alleviation by giving under-privileged people, who are capable of working, new opportunities to become self-reliant and improve their livelihoods. For new arrivals, employment is also a way for them to integrate with the local community. "We provide new arrivals with comprehensive foundation skills training that include information technology and language training. They may also enrol in other training courses that suit their needs."

Insofar as training for ethnic minorities is concerned, Stanley Ng admits that it is a real challenge for the ERB. The number of attendance has from time to time fallen short of expectation. This notwithstanding, the ERB leaves no stone unturned in enhancing the attractiveness of its training courses to ethnic minorities. To facilitate their integration with the local community, the ERB provides ethnic minorities with dedicated Chinese language training, while some popular courses are delivered in English to increase their available training options. To captialise on their language proficiency, the ERB is developing new training courses for the tourism industry for ethnic minorities who can speak  uent English. They will be trained to provide service for overseas visitors at the Kai Tak CruiseTerminal.

The ERB offers persons with disabilities or persons recovered from work injuries another training recipe. "On top of the existing course list, we are developing training courses on business start-up or self-employment with the use of the internet platform. Training contents will include knowledge on business development, information technology and government regulations," adds Stanley Ng. "It will provide another option for those who do not prefer traditional employment relationship to choose to set up their own businesses."

May for Youth
Supporting the younger generation is on the centre stage of the 2014 Policy Address, with special attention given to strengthening young people's life planning by providing education and career guidance services. The ERB has made good progress in this direction for the past few years. The "Learn and Leap – Teen's Action" programme was implemented in 2012 and 2013 to provide career planning seminars, industry taster courses and workplace experience opportunities for secondary school leavers to help them understand the world of work and plan ahead for their future study and careers.

"After a comprehensive review of the operation experience, the ERB has decided to revamp the programme and launch the "May for Youth" project this year," says Stanley Ng. To make good use of the break after the DSE and associate degree examinations, the ERB will organise a series of career seminars, interview skills workshops, and industry taster courses in the month of May, to be followed by a large-scale youth career expo at the latter part of the year. "These will equip young people with a general understanding of the industries and the workplaces, which in turn will allow them to better plan for their future. They will be more aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, and whether their qualifications are conducive to ful lling their career aspirations."

"GOLD" strategy
As part of the Three-year Strategic Plan for 2014-15 to 2016-17, the ERB will adopt a "GOLD" strategy with concerted efforts in the following directions:

Generate Interest
Stanley Ng acknowledges that not all of needy people to the ERB for training assistance. The ERB will pilot-run a series of "ERB District Guided Tours" to arrange potential clients to visit ERB's service centres, training centres and selected workplaces so as to expose them to the pathway to training and employment.

Organise Resources
To optimise operational efficiency and effectiveness, Stanley Ng advocates the wider use of information technology to ensure efficient manpower utilisation and upgrade service quality. The online platforms of the "Smart Living Scheme" and "Smart Baby Care Scheme" have helped enhance the overall user experience. The job-matching function newly incorporated into the ERB website will greatly expedite the referral process and minimise the lead time for trainees to land on employment.

The ERB will kick-start a new risk-and-performancebased quality assurance system to enhance enforcement targeting and promote self-regulation on the part of the training bodies.

Lift Quality
To ensure the quality and enhance public acceptance of training courses, the ERB arranges its courses for programme validation by the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Quali cations for recognition under the "Qualifications Framework". According to Stanley Ng, well over 500 courses out of a total of some 800 have been recognised so far. In a similar vein, the ERB strives to gain recognition of its courses by renowned professional associations in different industries with a view to opening up more employment opportunities for its trainees.

In the training quality front, the ERB is developing more standardised training materials for reference by training bodies. Separately, a quality assurance system will be launched to ensure the quality of training materials prepared by individual training bodies matches the requirements of the ERB and the expectation of the trainees and the general public.

Develop Courses
The ERB will explore new job openings with market potential, and with particular reference to the manpower implications of prevailing government policies, to be followed by the development of new training courses in consultation with relevant industries. Such job openings may involve, for instances, elderly care, concierge services for high-end property management, organic farming and cruise travel. The ERB will bear the diversity and intensity of training courses in mind in its course development work.

Employment-oriented and market-driven approach
Addressing the needs of service targets is crucial, whereas collaboration with the business community is equally important as employers are the key end-users. To cater for the manpower and training needs of employers, the ERB has set up 22 "Industry Consultative Networks" (ICNs) for different industries to cultivate partnership and foster cooperation with employers.

"There are now over 300 ICN members who are representatives of employer associations, trade unions and professional bodies, as well as veteran practitioners," adds Stanley Ng. "We highly treasure the advice of ICNs, particularly with reference to manpower requirements and training needs of various industries." He stresses that all new courses of the ERB will be submitted to the relevant ICNs for advice and endorsement, and existing courses are also subject to periodic scrutiny of the ICNs.

Joining hands with employers at different levels
With the rapid changes in the employment market and the prevailing manpower shortage especially with respect to front-line staff, many establishments, catering, property management and retail in particular, have experienced increasing dif culties in staff recruitment and retention. To address the recruitment needs of employers, the ERB has put in place a host of services free of any charge. They include job matching and referral services; industry-based and district-based recruitment activities; tailor-made training courses offering one-stop services for recruitment, preemployment training and post-employment follow-up; and experience-sharing seminars for employers. The ERB also organises a wide range of skills upgrading training courses for serving employees. Employers may join hands with the ERB to organise enterprise-based training programmes to provide in-service training for their employees. This may help build up esprit de corps among the employees and motivate them to deliver better performance.

"Employers may wish to expand their recruitment network to include special social groups including new arrivals, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and rehabilitated ex-offenders, with the assistance of the ERB as necessary. This will provide a new pool of available manpower on the one hand, and showcase the commitment of the establishment to corporate social responsibility on the other," Stanley Ng concludes.

On top of the employer services and enterprisebased training arrangements, the ERB also offers other support services including undertaking manpower surveys, maintenance of a resource hub, and organisation of thematic seminars and company visits for employers under the "Manpower Developer Award Scheme".

Interested employers can contact the ERB at (3129 1183 or 3129 1286) or (md@erb.org) for more details of its employer services.
(All information is provided by the courtesy of the ERB)