Thilafushi Corporation Limited: Promoting Industrial Development In Maldives

Overview of Thilafushi Corporation Limited

Question:

Discuss about the Training Process of an Organisation.

The Thilafushi Corporation Limited was founded in 2009 by the government of Maldives to promote industrialization in the country. It was built on reclaimed land filled by waste and is the pioneer in its area.

Industry Details:

The organization is run by the central government and can approach the governments of the neighbouring countries like India, China, Ausralia and Japan for industrial and diplomatic help to develop the economy of Maldives. It will also help RCL to realize its goals in a larger way.

Vision:

The main mission of TCL is to accelerate the industrial development in Maldives by providing a profitable platform to both foreign and domestic companies participating in large and medium scale industries. TCL envisions creating an industrial environment, which, will be receptive to the industrial requirements and benefit the consumers.

Products/Services:

TCL is a government enterprise whose main aim is to promote medium and large-scale industries in Maldives both from within and outside the country. The industrial zone is already harbouring key production, warehousing and service providers and looks forward to promote potential further industrial development in Maldives.

Number of Employees/Scale of Business/Revenue

The board of directors is led by Mohamed Rasheed, chairman while Ahmed Nasif is the managing director. Aminath Hameed, Adil Jaleel and Ahmed Nasheed are the three directors and Fathmath Amna Ibrahim is the company secretary ("Overview – Thilafushi Corporation", 2017).

TCL earned a profit of 24260466 Maldivian Rufiya in 2015 against a loss of 26930444 in 2014, which is promising. The organization employs over a hundred employees in various posts. It will need to employ more employees to run its ever-growing organizational structure, which is going to see more expansion with globalization. TCL as a government organization should take help from similar organizations in the neighbouring countries. The organization can also approach Indian banks like the State Bank of India financial help to provide better training (Edirisuriya & Gunasekarage, 2016).

Figure 1. Statement showing profit of TCL

(Source:"Auditor General's Office - Official Website", 2017)

The employees of all departments of TCL are made to take a training program after the requests of the departmental heads to the HR department. The Maldives government created Thalafushi Corporation limited to bring about industrial development in the islands of Maldives.

The following are the steps of the training employees undergo at TCL:

The first step to start an effective training program is to assess the needs of the trainees for example, the need to train in order to make the employees nurture a positive attitude towards their job roles and targets. Since, TCL is determined to bring about industrial development in the country; the employees should develop a multicultural attitude to adapt to the transnational work culture of the multinational corporations (Moore, 2016).

Maldives does not follow IFRS, which repels global companies (Bank, 2017).  Incorporation of IFRS in the Maldivian accounting standard should be one of the most high priority training needs. The marketing personnel should receive training in the most advanced methods, which are accepted and applied globally. Training needs should depend on the designation of trainees and their professional requirements.

Mission of TCL

Figure 2. A comparison of accounting standards in Maldives against international standards

(Source: Bank, 2017)

The training requirements of the employees will be assessed after considering their performance and their record of accomplishment in TCL and with previous employers, if possible. The gap between the expected level of performance and the achieved rate of performance will be compared and this will act as a guidance to decide on the training programme to be used.

TCL aims to attract investment in form of joint venture and contractor financing both from the foreign and domestic investment companies ("Investors Opportunity – Thilafushi Corporation", 2017). This will bring the TCL in contact with the international laws and trade policies in various countries.

Figure 3. Graph showing export and import in Maldives

(www.wto.org, 2017)

The figure above shows the falling exports and the rising imports in Maldives which points out towards low productivity human resources and various other factors.

Creating Action Plan:

The next step involves creating an action plan keeping the aim of training and the skills the trainees should have at the end of the training. This includes study of the theories, handouts showing the job details, study materials and so on. The theories can be various leadership theories for the people for the posts of managers and above (Luna, D. (2015). The trainees who are entrusted with the role of marketing the organization on various national and international platforms should be trained on the selling and marketing theories, target handling techniques and stress management. The employees who will deal with the areas of accounting, laws, procurement of resources, supply chain management and related fields should be trained on the laws pertaining to these fields that are prevalent in the partner countries (Wild, Wild & Han, 2014).

The training program of TCL must project towards bridging the gap between the international business practices followed in the global companies and the conservative Maldivian business culture. The action plan should ensure that the Maldivian workforce accepts international standards rather than viewing them as challenges to their customs and traditions.

Implementation of Training Initiatives:

This is the step where the training programme is actually started and the HR department has to decide whether the training will be theoretical or in the field. The entire training schedule should be segmented into appropriate segments based on availability of resources to the trainees like machines and tools available during practical training. The trainees should be continuously assessed to measure the effectiveness of the training programme.

The successful implementation of the training initiatives in the real life job place depends on government policies and laws. TCL should create the best competitive environment, which will allow the employees to apply their newly applied skills and bring about their own development (Lisbon et al., 2016).

Evaluate and Revise Training:

Training is provided to employees to enhance their skills, which will better their performance. The trainer should assess the trainees to measure their ability to take trainings and improve their efficiency. Trainers should make the employees more target oriented and productivity concerned (Lasrado, Gomiseck & Uzbeck, 2017).

Board of Directors

Companies need to evaluate the training programmes and examine the outcomes of them. They are able to assess the improvement in the skills of the trainees and estimately the probable and expected increase in their productivity (Konings & Vanormelingen, 2015).

Donald Kirkpatrick developed the four level model for evaluation of training methods. The four levels of evaluating training programmes are reaction of the students, the learning of the trainees, behaviour of the trainees after the programme and the results of the programme (Pierre, 2014). They help the both thebtrainer and the trained to measure the outcome of the training and need of any further training.

Reaction:

Every training programme is aimed at enhancement of the skills of the trainee employees in order to better their productivity. The trainer should ask questions to trainees regarding the training programme, whether they feel that they have profited by the programme and to what extent were they able to participate in the training session. The reactions of the trainees act as the parameter to measure the success of the training sessions. The trainees can also give idea about the requirements of the future training needs and the potential benefits they would derive from the training programmes. It has been founded that this level of evaluation actually records more than seventy percent of the training programme (Schminke et al., 2014).

Challenges will allow the trainees to apply their newly earn skills and make them feel the need for further trainings. It will lead to innovations, new products and more employment (Narula, 2014).

Learning:

The companies hold training sessions to enhance the performance of the employees to increase the productivity of the companies as a whole (Konings & Vanormelingen, 2015). Trainings are important because they instil new capabilities in the employees, which allow them to perform even in the face of stiff competitions. The learning of the trainees tells the success of the training sessions and the trainer. The trainer can test the increase in the productivity of the trainees by assigning realistic assignments to them and check their performance in terms of marks or grades. The HR department can use these marks or grades from several training sessions and the superiors while appraisal of these employees. The outcomes of the training programmes by this level can also be used to determine future training sessions.

Behaviour:

This level tests the behavioural changes in the employees after the training and the enhancement of the level of their productivity. This level measures how the employees perform by applying the newly acquired skills.

It can be pointed out that employees change their behaviour only when the conditions are more favourable to apply the newly gained knowledge.  The learning and reaction of the trainees are positive only when they are able to apply their new skills and advanced knowledge when the environment allows the same. For example, when the sales staffs are subjected to the marketing conditions, which challenge their marketing skills, they apply their newly learnt marketing knowledge. However, extreme pressure and target hinders application of new skills and the employees keep away from applying them, as they are not sure about the outcomes of the application. The trainer might think that the trainees have not learnt anything but that is not the fact.

Training Program at TCL

Result:

Companies conduct training sessions to enhance the productivity of their employees so that the company is able to deliver more and earn more revenue. The results of the training sessions are measured on the grounds of the quantitative increase in the employee productivity. TCL uses flexible training method to train its employees for the various posts. The methods are designed to make the employee capable of taking responsibilities along with an optimistic attitude towards the economically developing nation of Maldives.

The employees belonging to the managerial levels are expected to show increase in managerial skills and improved objection handling. Training teaches employees to face and adapt to their ever-changing microeconomic and macroeconomic changes. The managers should be able to frame strategies in various fields like production, pricing, investments and staffing keeping the market situations in view and be mentally ready to change or modify the existing strategies to take advantage of the future conditions.

The biggest challenge of TCL is to develop Maldives as a favoured destination by competing with the other Asian nations like India, China, Sri Lanka and Malaysia who have more business friendly environment and already have companies like P&G, Microsoft, ThyssenKrupp and Coca Cola in their markets. These countries themselves are home to several multinational companies, which advertise the profitable and competitive vast market. The recommendations in the next section will further help the TCL in its vision and mission.

TCL aims to industrialize Maldives, which requires it to bring about certain positive changes to attract big global companies. The following are the recommendations which can  be incorporated in the training sessions to make them more fruitful and aligned towards long term goals of the company:

1. Understand the international laws and incorporate them in the legal framework of the country as a whole. This will allow the multinational companies to operate with greater ease.
2. Train the top managers to frame policies, which will allow the probable multinational companies to view Maldives as profitable and conductive a market for entering as India or China. TCL should follow the suit of the more powerful and developed Asian nations to attract foreign capital.
3. The central government owns TCL and it can use this status to achieve diplomatic relations with the neighbouring countries. It can enter into more trade agreements with these countries to gain access to their resources. This can allow it to strengthen its position as it is poor as far as natural resources like iron and coal are concerned.
4. Train its employees to incorporate International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which will allow them to transact with the big and powerful economies as they follow IFRS while accounting.
5. The training should aim to empower the employee to deal with the international and national environmental conditions, not demotivate them. Trainers should encourage the trainees to embrace changes rather than eyeing them as obstacles.
6. A more proactive industrial policy and globalization can enforce better competitive market. A more competitive market provides more employment opportunities and provides higher mobility of the human resources (Sahu et al., 2014). This allows the labour force to get international exposure allowing them to explore the infinite opportunities in the international market. This automatically brings out a more positive behaviour from them in areas of job productivity, corporate conduct and so on (Cahuc et al., 2014).
7. The training objective of TCL should be towards training the employees to increase productivity. Lack of foreign competition in the economy in strategic sectors and the influence of Muslim laws on the industrial laws can also held responsible for the deficit in balance of payments. Increasing employee productivity should be made one of the most important training objectives.
8. TCL should also train the employees to nurture the supply chain management in their country to enable smooth flow of resources, goods and services which is indispensible for globalization of Maldives (Forsgren & Johanson, 2014)
9. Commonwealth is a group of fifty-two nations of which Maldives was a part in the past. However, it left the group and should join it back. It will allow the government of the country to approach the other members and also strengthen bilateral ties with them.
10. The global companies follow the International Financial Reporting Standard, which is followed by most of the big and emerging economies like the United Kingdom, Australia, India and China. The apex bodies in these countries like their central banks and security market regulatory bodies require them to comply to the IFRS while reporting and auditing. Maldives should also follow IFRS and try to decrease effect of Muslim laws in the accounting and trade policies.

Summary with Conclusion:

The above clearly show that TCL is designed to facilitate industrialization in Maldives by encouraging domestic industries and attract foreign companies.  The organization provides its employees with training every year to sharpen their skills and increase their productivity. The training methods and the Kirkpatrick’s model deal with the training steps and their evaluation methods respectively. The recommendations are based on the study and aim towards a more industrialized and advanced Maldivian economy. It can be pointed out that no training programme can be successful without industrial and legal structure, which encourages globalization and entry of global companies. The Maldivian government should enact laws which will facilitate participation of global companies. Global companies will generate more employment and give more avenues to TCL to expand is operations. TCL can also train its employees better to confirm to the international standards.

The main vision of TCL is to industrialize Maldives and attract foreign investment. The employees of TCL should be able to deal with the legal frameworks of the other foreign countries and provide a strong support to the multinational companies to enter the Maldivian economy. Globalization provides with more avenues for the application of newly learned skills. The employees can learn new things and gain international exposure. The Maldives industrial laws need to be amended to match up to the international standards.

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