[kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues

[Harry Delano]

Dear all,

Sorry to catch up late on this. Been offline abit.

If this perhaps has been addressed, apologies for repetition, but I suppose
from the discussions aforegoing,
and in order now to move forward, I suggest we formulate a comprehensive
National BPO taskforce to give direction
and come up with a methodology of harnessing the expertise we have in place
already, and inventorize it.At 
the same time also come up with a strategy of developing and creating new
potential within the value chain. 
Talent & expertise should be developed from an early age, and the place to
start is our primary education
institutions. Can we determinedly,albeit step by step in conjunction with
the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology to start reworking on our curriculum in centres of learning
starting from the lower going up and make it
more relevant in this time and age. You would agree with me, at some point
each one of us back then did a lot of 
course subjects that are not in any way relevant to what you and me are
doing now. How about narrowing down to 
specific area of concentration in study as one progresses up leading to
specialization in career later. This would 
also help change a mindset that has existed for along time, where each of us
only looked forward to being hired into 
a job. Period! Now this would change as skill sets are developed early on
and learners exposed to opportunities and encouraged into entrepreneurship
upon graduating.

I feel Vision 2030 should encompass this approach to things. Development of
potential, ultimately. Starting now..

Harry

-----Original Message-----
From: kictanet-bounces+harry=inds.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=inds.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of
Edith Adera
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 9:11 PM
To: harry at inds.co.ke
Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues

Dear Listers,

Me thinks that not only should there be a register of the skills available,
but it would have been nice for the research to provide deeper insights on
type of skills and preferences for on-shore vs off-shore jobs - this would
allow for a better assessment of skill gaps (vis a vis the target market)
and to strategise accordingly by targeting markets where one has comparative
advantage while working long-term in filling the skills gap to pursue harder
markets to reach.

Vision 2030 is 21 years away....this also has implications for what we do
with the children joining nursery school today! Can we have short term and
long-term plans that strive to quickly upgrade skills of young people
joining the workforce (short-term: hence relevance of multi-media
university) while institutionalizing science learning in the long-term at
the start of school? This could be achieved through multi-media science
teaching from an early age (nursery). Research has proven that multimedia
curriculum content greatly enhances teaching and learning (and improves
comprehension and maintains interests in subjects that may otherwise be
boring e.g. science).

Edith  



-----Original Message-----
From: kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf
Of Walubengo J
Sent: 08 June 2009 08:06
To: Edith Adera
Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Subject: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues  t -Day 5 of 10-
BPO Discussions, Human Capacity Issues

Morning all,

I trust you had a refreshing weekend.  Today I want to introduce the theme
on Human Resource Development for the BPO industry.  The Researchers found
that India, S.Africa and Mauritius had a comprehensive inventory of their
skill-base that was also available for Validation by prospective employers
and investors.  Another observation was ofcourse the sheer numbers of Indian
graduates (millions) that made it the largest base of highly skilled pool of
graduates with strong mathematical/scientific orientation.  Whereas,
Mauritius was producing only 10,000 (university) graduates per year compared
to Kenya's 30,000 per year, Mauritius had the advantage of properly
documenting their national graduates database and marketing it appropriately
to potential clients in Europe/America.  In addition, the Researchers noted
that Mauritius had a government funded but Private-Sector oriented ICT
Academy that produced graduates specificially for the ICT industry.

In Kenya, the Researchers observed that apart from the lack of a national
database on the available skills/graduates, some of the BPO operators were
engaged in vicious poaching cycles where Agents trained in-house by one
Operater are immediately hired by the Competing Operators. It was noted,
that an attempt has been made by the .KE Government to create an
Industry-specific University (Multimedia University College of Kenya) to
address the HR gap but its success or otherwise will remain to be seen in a
few years time.  The Researchers also noted that Kenya's English-speaking
labor force had an edge over the Indian one given that the average Kenyan
had a "neutral" accent unlike the Indian graduate who tended to have an
"ethnic" accent that often distracted the Euro-American markets/clients.  

But this advantage is yet to be exploited - even as the Indians move up the
BPO value chain and concentrate on non-accent related processes such as
Software Engineering, Research (Financial, Medicine, etc), Product (e.g.
Civil and Architectural) Design amongst others. Which leads us to todays
questions.

Qtn 7: How do we develop a national database on the wide-range of available
ICT skill in Kenya - specifically which institution should be mandated to
realise this, ensuring that such a database is kept upto date over the
years?

Qtn 8: What strategies should the country adopt to ensure a continuous
supply of relevant and timely BPO-Specific skills?

Please, lets have your comments flowing,dig yahjwalu starting now...

walu.

Encl: Synthesis 3 - HR Issues
 






      

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