Mr. Leung fully subscribes to the principle of "Attitude defines Altitude" .

"The distinct competitive advantage of Hong Kong is our manpower talents. Promotion of corporate investment in manpower training and development is crucial to reinforcing this competitive advantage and enhancing our productivity", said Mr. William Leung Wing-cheung, BBS, JP, Chairman of the Employees Retraining Board (ERB).

A Real-life Testimony
Mr. Leung is a real-life testimony to the farreaching implications of corporate investment in manpower training and development on the success of the organisations in general and the personal growth of individual employees in particular. With well over 30 years of senior managerial experience in the finance and banking sector and currently the CEO of a publicly-listed wealth management company, Mr. Leung has acquired professional know-how and managerial competence mainly through training programmes offered by the employer-organisations. "I am indebted to all my previous employers who granted me exposure to a diverse range of positions and provided me with ample training opportunities. In my first placement with the American Express, I was selected to attend a supervisory programme on financial fundamentals. Afterwards, I joined the Hang Seng Bank and was sponsored to pursue courses on treasury essentials in England. In the absence of such professional training, I am afraid my career journey would never be as dynamic, challenging and rewarding as it has been", he said.

Mr. Leung took up the ERB’s driving wheel in January 2013. As a leader who fully understands the motivational effect of training on the performance of employees, organisations and the society at large, he puts in tremendous efforts in formulating the longterm strategic directions of the ERB.

Training For Empowerment
The ERB has all along been a major player in the vocational training sector of Hong Kong, and offered well over 1.8 million training places to Hong Kong people since its establishment in 1992. In December 2007, its service scope was expanded to cover Hong Kong people aged 15 or above with education attainment at sub-degree or below, including both employees and the unemployed. In close partnership with veteran vocational training institutions in different disciplines, the ERB provides employment-oriented and market-driven training courses and services with a view to nurturing quality manpower to provide the support required for the sustainable development of the economy of Hong Kong. The ERB’s training recipe now comprises over 800 courses ranging from basic vocational skills to professional certification training. Among them, some 500 are Skills Upgrading Scheme Plus training courses which aim at equipping employees with advanced job-specific skills, thereby facilitating their upward mobility.

"In the current financial year, the Government has announced the injection of $15 billion into the Employees Retraining Fund to provide the ERB with stable and sustainable financial support. This would allow the ERB to flexibly respond to the changing needs of the society and prepare it to scale new heights in the field of manpower training", Mr. Leung said.

"The theme of our "Three-year Strategic Plan for 2013-16" is "Training for Empowerment". Under this banner, the ERB will strive to encourage and support employers in providing training for their front-line employees. At present, the ERB is developing a brand new series of generic skills training courses in leadership, supervision, team building and communication, and mobilising its network of training institutions to approach employers and business associations with a view to organising training programmes on an enterprise or industry basis", Mr. Leung added.

Attitude defines Altitude
"I fully subscribe to the principle of "Attitude defines Altitude". "Attitude" is an important pillar of success and accomplishment. In Chinese, the word "attitude" (態) encompasses both the "ability to perform" (能) and "the passion of the heart" (心). Our destiny lies in our own hands, and we must always strive to equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills required for our work, and to demonstrate our abilities and competence with passion", Mr. Leung shared another secret of success.

Positive attitude in the workplace is a winning tool. "I would recommend employees to avoid, as far as possible, to be ‘calculating’. For myself, I always stand ready to take on new tasks and try my best to accomplish them. I see each and every assignment as a god-sent opportunity to prove my capability, and a gateway to my personal and career development. Exemplary performance in tasks and assignments speak loud and clear on our strengths and potentials. You will make yourself the clear choice of your organisation when new and important projects are put on the drawing board", Mr. Leung elaborated.

"I push myself to improve my job performance every day. Such improvements may be very minor on their own, but together they really count. It is also with such a mentality that I can forge ahead and achieve breakthroughs continuously in my careers." The ERB shares the same philosophy in its course offerings. It aims at advocating practical skills training on the one hand, and cultivating a positive work attitude among trainees on the other. In the latter area, the ERB has made the training of "personal attributes" a core element in its full range of fulltime placement-tied training courses. Hence, the trainees would acquire not only job-specific vocational skills, but also soft skills including work attitude, professional ethnics, management of emotion and stress, interpersonal relationship, time management and team building. These would allow them to better adapt to the working environment and deliver better results in the workplace.

ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme
"To motivate organisations to pay special attention to the training needs of their staff members, and instill a corporate culture and common social value of embracing manpower training and development, the ERB launched the "ERB Manpower Developer Award Scheme" (MD Scheme) in late 2009. Under an enabling environment conducive to training and continuous improvement, employees would readily see the need to upgrade themselves through life-long learning", said Mr. Leung.

The MD Scheme is the first accreditation system to assess the level of maturity of manpower training and development in organisations. The Technical Consultant commissioned by the ERB will assess the overall performance of participating organisations in five disciplines, i.e. leading a learning culture; resources planning; training and development system; performance management; and corporate social responsibility in manpower development. Organisations that fulfill the criteria will be acknowledged as "Manpower Developers" (MD) within a 2-year validity period, subject to renewal on a biennial basis.

"Our efforts in cultivating a corporate culture fostering manpower training and development have borne fruits. To date, a total of 245 public and private enterprises from some 30 industries have been acknowledged as MDs in recognition of their remarkable performance. The MDs newly awarded in 2012-13 had a combined employment size of over 130,000 staff, and together they offered 520,000 training opportunities involving 7.4 million training hours in the year", Mr. Leung added.

To sustain the momentum in advocating investment in manpower training and development, the ERB has rolled out different follow-up activities under the MD Scheme, including thematic seminars, topical surveys, resources hub, experience-sharing sessions, company visits, secondary school outreach programme and publication of the MD magazine.

"We value our partnership with the MDs. We shall continue to step up our follow-up services for the MDs to facilitate, among other things, their sharing of information on HR strategies and best practices", revealed Mr. Leung.