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Saturday, Feb 22, 2025
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Staff training up amid brain drain
About 70 percent of local employers have devoted more resources to staff training, with last year's overall training budget rising to an average of 1.9 percent of the company's payroll compared with 1.3 percent the year before, a survey found.
The increase came about as part of a corporate push to retain staff amid the city's brain drain. The Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management surveyed 116 companies - with a total of 74,400 full-time employees - across 20 industries between March and May.
The survey's results showed that the staff-training budget rose from 2.5 percent of overall company spending in 2020 to 2.8 percent last year.
On average, each employee received 14.1 hours of training last year compared with 12.9 hours the year before.
The business and professional services sector invested the most in training followed by the construction and real-estate sector.
"Since the labor market was particularly impacted by the brain drain due to resignations and emigrations, I'm sure a lot of companies want to retain local talents," said Chester Tsang Wing-cheong, the institute's executive council member. "As such, a remarkable chunk of development spending went into hiring their replacements and training them."
Tsang added that the development of the Northern Metropolis also created a huge demand for skilled workers, prompting the construction industry to draw up a comprehensive plan for retaining talent.
In last year's survey, the need to retain staff was also widely acknowledged as nearly half of the 102 organizations that took part said it was "important to reskill and upskill employees."
As for remote working, 94 percent of the companies that provided data to the institute last year said they have been adopting digital-learning technologies, a percentage that far exceeds the mean of the past decade.
Over 70 percent of these companies said they have been conducting webinars or virtual classrooms while some 60 percent said they used training videos.
More than 60 percent said they provided new learning content in response to the pandemic, including health and safety guidelines as well as mental-health support.
However, many cited the challenges raised by remote working, highlighting reduced interaction between employees and higher levels of distraction.
Indeed, 81 percent admitted that employee training had been somewhat disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The survey's results showed that the staff-training budget rose from 2.5 percent of overall company spending in 2020 to 2.8 percent last year.
On average, each employee received 14.1 hours of training last year compared with 12.9 hours the year before.
The business and professional services sector invested the most in training followed by the construction and real-estate sector.
"Since the labor market was particularly impacted by the brain drain due to resignations and emigrations, I'm sure a lot of companies want to retain local talents," said Chester Tsang Wing-cheong, the institute's executive council member. "As such, a remarkable chunk of development spending went into hiring their replacements and training them."
Tsang added that the development of the Northern Metropolis also created a huge demand for skilled workers, prompting the construction industry to draw up a comprehensive plan for retaining talent.
In last year's survey, the need to retain staff was also widely acknowledged as nearly half of the 102 organizations that took part said it was "important to reskill and upskill employees."
As for remote working, 94 percent of the companies that provided data to the institute last year said they have been adopting digital-learning technologies, a percentage that far exceeds the mean of the past decade.
Over 70 percent of these companies said they have been conducting webinars or virtual classrooms while some 60 percent said they used training videos.
More than 60 percent said they provided new learning content in response to the pandemic, including health and safety guidelines as well as mental-health support.
However, many cited the challenges raised by remote working, highlighting reduced interaction between employees and higher levels of distraction.
Indeed, 81 percent admitted that employee training had been somewhat disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
