Don’t send a boy to do a man’s work

It’s a matter of what can be done and what needs to be done. Industry is raising its voice about the growing mismatch between on-the-job demands and the abilities of today’s graduates, reports.

Asource of enduring perplexity among the drivers of the Hong Kong economy is the questions: Why does local education persist in training for tomorrow and what was needed yesterday?

There is a mismatch between the skills needed by commerce and those of graduates. Some experts contend the solution lies in better communication between those in the ivory towers and those wielding the pointy end of the stick in business.

Calvin Lam, founder and chief executive officer of Masterson Technology Limited, put it bluntly enough. New employees don’t have the skills he needs. Instead of contributing to production flow, the new employees become a drag, he says. Lam says the new employees can’t get the ball rolling on projects to build his company and secure profits.

Lam’s company is a consulting partner to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Cloud computing is their game. Lam’s company comes up with solutions for clients who use Amazon’s services, so that they can run their apps, manage their content delivery networks, data storage and so on. It requires a high level of competency and experience in cloud computing. Finding such people isn’t easy.

Careful as he has been with recruitment, Lam complains there’s still no shortage of duds. He’s hired new staff who can’t do what’s necessary in specific areas of the work. So he has to teach them from the ground up. There’s a lag of about nine months before each new trainee can work effectively, Lam said.

It was costly, a waste of human resources and a liability for profit-making companies, Lam acknowledged.

Learning lag

Under present circumstances higher education in Hong Kong, in its myriad faculties, doesn’t consult business leaders about skill sets for different occupations, noted Reuben Mondejar, a visiting associate professor of the Department of Management at City University of Hong Kong.

Industries, from hotels to banking and retail sales, have their trade associations and they all get together for meetings and conclaves about what their industries need. But communication among schools and the associations isn’t happening, leading to the exasperating skills mismatch prevalent among many industries today. Employers can’t find the right candidates coming out of tertiary education.

In technology, of course, things change so fast that trying to get a clear picture of what’s next is like being spun on a merrygo-round. There are changing demands and skill sets. New skills come, old ones fade away. Every field has a different set of demands and those demands change quickly and often. It fell to universities and other institutions to keep abreast of the changes so that students made the smooth transition from higher education to the workforce, said Mondejar — a belief echoed by many others.

Lam’s recruitment needs are different from what they used to be. There’s a tool banks and other major companies relied on in days of yore. The gargantuan thing called Documentum functioned as a content management tool for storing and protecting data, Lam said.

Since the dawn of cloud computing, Documentum and many software systems once considered de rigueur have been eclipsed. Now Lam is on the cloud. He wants recruits with Linux experience and AWS certification, a qualification as a solution architect, system operation administrators and developers in computing.

The standard for better cooperation and integration of ideas between industry leaders and educators may already be in place at the Institute of Vocational Education (IVE). It’s considered the leading vocational training provider in Hong Kong. IVE asks

Businesses want quick money. It’s unsurprising they don’t want to pay money to a green employee who can’t guarantee a tangible benefit.”