Tamkeen holds second consultation workshop with the public

As part of its efforts to gather feedback from the public and share its current and planned projects, Tamkeen hosted the second consultation workshop today at the Crowne Plaza hotel. Several sectors have been represented, whereby representatives of each sector discussed the challenges facing the Bahraini workforce for each respective sector and the solutions needed to overcome those challenges. Over 120 participants attended the workshop.

This workshop comes after the first consultation workshop, which was held on October 1^st and focused on issues and challenges facing businesses and business owners. Upon the conclusion of all workshops, feedback from the different sectors will be incorporated into Tamkeen’s Operational Plan 2014. 

“The Bahraini workforce is one of the pillars that hold up the national economy, therefore it is absolutely imperative that we collect feedback to ensure our programmes and initiatives match the needs of this workforce. The participants of today’s workshop have provided ample observations and insights, which we will take into consideration when we roll out our 2014 operational plan , especially in areas that concerns support for human resources.” commented Mr. Mahmood Al Kooheji, Chief Executive of Tamkeen. 

Tamkeen’s Customer Engagement and Support Senior Manager, Mr. Yousif Ali, initially gave the participants an overview of the programmes that are targeted towards the Bahraini workforce, which was followed by a session that discussed challenges within the labour market, then a session that discussed the solutions needed to support the workforce within the Kingdom. 

Some of the main issues that were highlighted during the second workshop included the lack of basic skills training for youth, a lack of self-improvement and development culture for graduates after graduation, the presence of a mismatch between market entrants’ skills and degrees and the actual requirements of the job market as well as the existence of difficulty in recruiting Bahrainis in certain sectors. 

In addition, the participants also highlighted that there are issues when it comes to proper utilization of modern technology in the workplace, high employee turnover, little support for training abroad, a lack of training plans, job descriptions and incentive schemes for employees, and complicated procedures for certain Tamkeen programmes. 

To overcome these challenges, the participants suggested that there should be more programmes made available for youth that focus on basic skills, streamling processes and procedures with regards to applications, providing internship programmes to university students in order to allow them to gain experience before graduating, promoting e-learning, providing special training programmes for farmers on modern agricultural methods, in addition to providing more Human Resources development programmes and technical training programmes. 

The workshops for businesses and workforce will be held again on October 6 and 7 with a different group of participants.