‘We train staff to leave us!’

By ALPHONSE BARIASI
MOST corporate in-house or external training is aimed at producing the best brains and skills to enhance the core business of entities, be they private or government-run.
Training is meant to improve staff performance with the goal of attaining efficiency, greater customer satisfaction and ultimately greater profitability in the case of businesses.
That is a given, however there are entities that go out of their way to train people in areas apart from their professions or careers so that upon their exit, they don’t feel like fish stranded on dry land.
Port Moresby-based security firm Rapid Response or RR for short, goes out of its way to provide the best training possible for security guards and other staff to face life beyond RR. Unlike most businesses that concentrate their resources and man hours on training to produce the best employees, the company provides other forms of training for staff to help themselves when they leave.
In other words, says company director Alexis Tam, RR trains staff to leave and do something else for themselves if they choose to.
“We believe in the saying ‘Do unto others what you would have them do to you.’ We have to do our part to help people. It is a corporate social responsibility.
“We train staff beyond the security business; it is not just training for the work they do. With the skills they acquire, they can leave us to do something for themselves if they want and feel they are able to do their own thing.”
Tam says if more companies did likewise, they would have more and more loyal people working for them and when they leave they can easily find themselves doing something else to help themselves.
“Big companies make millions of kina in profit every year. Why can’t they give back to their staff?”
Corporate social responsibility in the provision of social services and infrastructure is fine, says Tam, but more should be done also for employees with a secure and enjoyable retirement for them in mind.
Tam says while workers approach retirement, they should be trained or equipped with some knowledge and skills for life outside of their professions.
“Why wait till they reach retirement? Bring the retirement plans forward. Employees should be given appropriate training even during their active years of service,” Tam suggests.
True to the RR philosophy, five staff from the company underwent a two-week personal viability training run by the Human Development Institute and graduated on June 21.
Although the HDI operates within the RR compound at 6-Mile, and the founder of the institute is none other Tam’s dad, Samuel Tam Snr, the
company staff have not really understood the nature of education provided by HDI.
It was indeed a new thing for the six employees as they learnt the basics of business class knowledge. They graduated with 22 others who became the 179th batch of trainees to have undergone the personal viability training run by the HDI.
“We want to be the best security company in the country for how we treat our employees,” Tam vows.
RR started in Port Moresby in 2006 with six employees. Today it has 300 staff, 230 of them guards. Its senior management staff including the head of human resources are all female.
Women are simply better workers, Tam asserts.
Among the 28 graduates two weeks ago was mother of two from Gaire in Central, Hane Ali who was the May winner of the monthly HDI quiz in The National. She secured a K2,000 scholarship from the Papa Sam Foundation to attend the personal viability levels 1,2 and 3 courses.
She worked with Forward Mechanical Engineering when she saw the quiz in the paper and entered.
The graduating class was so moved by the training they had received from the founder of the HDI, Samuel Tam, they decided to write to the Prime Minister.
The letter, signed by the representatives of group which added to the 40,000-plus Papua New Guineans who have so far undertaken PV training throughout the country reads:

Dear Hon. James Marape,
The Personal Viability (PV) alumni congratulate you for being the eight Prime Minister. We embrace your vision of Papua New Guinea becoming the richest black Christian nation in the world.
We, the grassroots people of PNG have waited a long, long time for a prime minister who wants to bring prosperity to his people.
Representing the 40,000-plus PV alumni in PNG, we believe without any doubt, the answer in achieving your vision is in the Human Development Institute’s unique Business Class Education system for PNG.
If you wish to know more, please contact the secretariat of the PV Alumni. Email: [email protected].
Signed by the praxis of the 79th batch of the PV Level 1 training course.
Date June 21, 2019, 6-Mile, NCD.