Companies are more focused on training for senior level staff as a factor considered more important and critical to business success, according to a survey released here Tuesday by the Hong Kong Institute of Human ResourceManagement (HKIHRM).

A total of 81 companies, with a combined workforce of some 39,000 employees, completed and returned the questionnaire of the survey, which was conducted during April 2004.

According to the survey results, "performance management" and "people management" skills were in general rated as important or critical to companies or businesses, and were regarded as important training topics for middle management / professional andsenior management.

It was also found that training topics being rated as importantto front-line and supervisory staff were focused on personal and language skills, including "communication skills", "interpersonal skills" and "written and spoken English".

Andy Tsui Lap-fung, chairperson of the Training and DevelopmentCommittee of HKIHRM, urged organizations to take talent development as one of their major business strategies. "It is always the people who make the difference. By providing training to their employees, it can further enhance the employees' commitment and loyalty to the company," he said.

He also advised individuals to keep improving their competency,updating their skills and preparing themselves to make the necessary changes to stay relevant to the changing demand at the workplace.

As a professional human resource institute in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, HKIHRM has over 3,600 individual and corporate members. Since 1999, it conducted the yearly Training Needs Survey to identify training needs in general and the prevailing training topics during the year.

Source: Xinhua