PH needs "motivational" model to push brain-gain

CEBU, Philippines - To develop “brain-gain” at the same time sustain its competitiveness in attracting investments, the Philippines must create an effective model to motivate employees to stay here.

The Philippines is strongly known as a low cost investment site in Asia, the reason why it is attractive for Foreign Direct Investors (FDIs), however, its low-cost attraction is seen not to stay for long term, said renowned international strategist Brian To.

To, who is a senior Fellow at The Wharton School, and working with Fortune 500 corporations as business professor and manager adviser for over 25 years, said that the Philippine government in particular should immediately create a program, or model that will encourage companies to allocate fund that will go specifically for workers’ motivational activities, including taking up advanced educational and skills improvement training.

In other ASEAN countries, he said some governments impose percentage of employees’ salary for this sole purpose. Companies must donate for this fund, while the government creates different programs for employees or workers’ advance skills and educational background.

He said China for instance was known for many years as low-cost country for investments, because of the low labor cost, and cheaper environment in doing business. However, today China is no longer a low cost country—labor and operational expenses have gone up.

The Philippines, also he said is going into this track. Thus, he strongly recommended that the Pnoy government should put more emphasis on education, and bigger chunk of budget should be allocated to improve the country’s educational system, as well as offer cheaper or even free post-graduate courses to Filipinos.

The remaining niche of the Philippines today, is no longer its attraction of being a low-cost country for investments, but it is lure investments or FDIs because of its good manpower supply. This has to be sustained, while other countries also working double time to prepare their next generation manpower pool for competition.

He said the robust BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), athough its growth is encouraging, should not be seen as long term economic driver. He said it could only give life to the country’s economy in short-term.

The Philippines he said should develop highly-skilled, internationally competitive manpower pool, meaning to provide large number of talents that have good educational backgrounds such as doctorate degrees, post graduate-masteral degree holders, among others, and the competition in the next few years will demand people with strong educational backgrounds.

The Philippines, will be competiting with India and China in terms of global human resource supply. He said these countries are preparing their next generation workforce to compete globally.

“The Philippines has fallen in all areas of opportunity,” he said compared to other countries in Asia, or in ASEAN. (FREEMAN)