Dubai's fast growth needs competitive workforce
As Dubai and the UAE continue to grow rapidly with companies expanding internationally, further skills enhancement of the workforce is now essential to keep pace. "Dubai will continuously grow and attract an array of global businesses in industries across the board. This growth adds to the dynamic change in the workforce and in the competitiveness of this workforce. As such, individuals are under tremendous pressure to enhance their skill sets and maintain a competitive advantage in the global economy. Vice versa, companies are facing serious challenges in talent retention as the mobility of the workforce has increased exponentially," Professor Evelyn Gullet, assistant professor at U21Global, an online graduate school that offers globally recognized graduate programmes, told The Business Weekly.
As it is a well-known fact that sending employees for further studies or training in a face-to-face environment would require huge investments for corporations, online learning becomes a cost-effective alternative, according to Gullet.
Huge investment
"From a cost-benefit scenario, it is a known fact that many organizations are reluctant to send their employees for further education because it means that they will be away from their workplace for significant periods of time. Face-to-face (F2F) education can be a huge investment for corporations not only due to the cost of the programme, plus travel and accommodation, but also because of the significant opportunity costs associated with the employee being absent from the workplace," Gullet said.
"Online programmes such as U21Global provide employees with high-quality learning outcome of traditional on-campus learning with the added benefits of being able to 'earn and learn' at the same time, study anywhere in the world, and set their study schedules to meet their own unique time constraints."
"In essence, the company gets to keep both the employee and the learning without having to send the employee away to school or bring groups of employees together at one locale for development programmes, both of which represent enormous savings and benefits to companies," she added.
Gullet further stated that online and blended type of learning, such as those offered by U21Global, will allow businesses and their employees to remain focused on individual and organizational goals, whilst creating and growing the knowledge base of both the individual and the organization.
Training programmes
"By offering academic and certificate online training programmes continuously, the organization communicates to the employee that it sees them as human capital, that they are important to the overall strategic goal," Gullet said.
"Programmes of this nature will assist the employee to exceed his goals and the organizational goals, while also satisfying the employee's hunger for achievement and purpose. With additional applicable knowledge gained, the employee will feel that it even make a greater difference. It deepens the employee's sense of corporate citizenship," Guller pointed out.
Open to any business sector, Gullet explained that the online programmes are flexible and can be customized to the business sector and employee level by making use of various resources, from professor expertise to the integration of industry/business sector-specific articles and other case studies.
By Albert Alba
© The Business Weekly 2008
