Press Release
| The Employees Retraining Board 20th Anniversary Commemorative Ceremony cum the 3rd “ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme” Presentation Ceremony The Employees Retraining Board 20th Anniversary Commemorative Ceremony cum the 3rd “ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme” Presentation Ceremony was held today (24 April 2012). The Ceremony was officiated by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, GBS, JP, the Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr. Paul Tang Kwok-wai, JP, the Chairman of ERB, Dr. Ng Tat-lun, SBS, JP; the Vice Chairman of ERB, Mr. William Leung Wing-cheung, BBS, JP; and the Executive Director of ERB, Mr. Stanley Ng Ka-kwong, BBS. The Chairman of ERB, Dr. Ng Tat-lun highlighted in his speech that ERB was established in 1992 to assist middle-aged low-skilled workers who were hard hit by economic restructuring to shift to other jobs. ERB emphasised that training should be pragmatic and placement-tied, with the primary objective of enhancing the employability of the unemployed. In the past 20 years, Hong Kong experienced many challenges and difficulties. ERB launched new initiatives and diversified its courses and services to cater for the changing needs of the society. Throughout the years, ERB offered over 1.7 million training places and contributed substantially to the improvement of the quality of the local labour force. ERB has extended its service to cover people aged 15 or above with an education attainment of sub-degree or below. Teaming up with about 130 appointed training bodies to launch the "Manpower Development Scheme", ERB now offers 130,000 training places in some 800 training courses annually, straddling entry-level job skills and professional certification training for its 2.6 million service targets. In recent years, ERB continues to implement a variety of new measures, including strengthening its quality assurance mechanism, developing courses with professional certification, setting up job referral platforms, publicising Skills Upgrading Scheme Plus courses, establishing ERB Service Centres, and launching innovative programmes like“Industry Loves Upgrading Scheme”, “Free Taster Programme”, and “Learn and Leap - Teen’s Action 2012”. Dr. Ng emphasised that the mission of ERB is to improve the quality of the Hong Kong labour force. In this direction, ERB launched the “ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme” in 2009 to motivate enterprises to dedicate more resources and develop long-term plans in manpower training and development. The Scheme has moved into its third year. Fifty-five organisations successfully passed the assessment of the Technical Consultant this year and are honoured as “Manpower Developer” (MD) for a two-year validity period. Thirteen of them are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The 55 MDs straddle a wide cross-section of 23 industries including notably the Wholesale and Retail, Banking and Financial Services, and Property Management and Security. Their employment sizes range from 10 to over 58,000, and their combined establishment of full-time and part-time staff exceeds 130,000. Employees’ participation in training and development activities amounts to almost 600,000 a year. In terms of training hours, the 55 MDs offered around 3 million hours of training activities for their staff in the year. In an individual case, the employees of an MD received on average 109 hours of training per annum. For the Non-SME category, the average training hour per employee was around 36 hours. For the SME category, the senior management dedicated on average over one-fifth of their time for training and development work. This is indicative of the importance accorded by MDs to this management function. Moreover, 76 establishments have successfully gone through revalidation and their validity period of recognition as MD 1st honour has been extended for another 2 years. Among them, 8 are SMEs. The “ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme” was launched in December 2009. It is the first and foremost scheme to assess the manpower training and development policies and strategies of organisations in Hong Kong. ERB has appointed the Hong Kong Productivity Council as the Technical Consultant responsible for evaluation of the overall performance in manpower training and development of participating organisations in terms of five parameters, i.e. Leading a Learning Culture; Resources Planning; Training and Development System; Performance Management; and Corporate Social Responsibility in Manpower Development. To ensure the impartiality and credibility of the “ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme”, prominent figures in the academia as well as the continuing education and human resources sectors are invited as Honorary Advisors to offer advice on the accreditation mechanism. ERB has also solicited the support of trade associations and professional organisations in promoting the award scheme. Lists of the 3rd Manpower Developers and 2012-14 MD 1st are at Annex 1 and Annex 2 respectively. Relevant information is also available at the ERB website www.erb.org.
List of Manpower Developers for 2012-14 (in alphabetical order)
List of Manpower Developers (SMEs) for 2012-14 (in alphabetical order)
(in alphabetical order)
(in alphabetical order)
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