Dubai Municipality conducts 500 training courses

Dubai Municipality conducted nearly 500 training courses involving 6,000 public sector workers during last year. This was 110 per cent higher than in 2000, an official of the Personnel Affairs Department reported.

"The marked growth in the quantity and quality of training courses offered during the past two years is a result of a comprehensive four-year training plan starting from 2000 through 2003," said Abdul Hakim Belshellat, Director of the Personnel Affairs Department at the municipality.

The municipality conducted 235 courses involving 1,870 government employees in its first year of implementation. Belshellat anticipates a 10 to 20-per cent increase in the number of training courses to be conducted this year.

He noted that developing human resources is a matter of great concern to the municipality as the growth and development of any organisation is based on its people.

"We are always attracting qualified manpower and training them to develop their skills, besides, we encourage them to have higher academic qualifications and offer them jobs that match their new qualifications thereafter," he said.

He added that the three-year training plan aims at improving the individual performance of employees in different sections of the municipality by equipping them with new knowledge, boosting administrative and behavioural skills, imparting the organisational culture and instilling a team spirit in them.

Ibrahim Moosa, head of the Manpower Development Section at the department, said there were different types of training courses that Dubai Municipality gives to its employees.

These include 'internal courses', offered in coordination with specialised private education and training institutes; 'basic training programmes', offered to fresh recruits or employees with limited experience; and local and overseas training programmes which aim to develop the academic and technical competence of UAE nationals.

Last year, the municipality conducted 60 internal training programmes, 125 local courses and 106 overseas courses. The training programmes offered as part of the plan include administrative programmes, supervisory courses, behavioural science, computer programmes, quality courses and food hygiene programmes.

Also offered are courses on project management, correspondence, time management, behavioural science, financial analysis, work team management, troubleshooting, decision making, classification and indexing, supervisory principles, strategic planning, accountancy for non-accountants, telephone etiquette, value engineering, compensation claims and arbitration in construction disputes, first aid, fire fighting, child psychology, customer satisfaction measuring, finance report writing, quality systems in labs, leadership and personality development.