How to overcome time and resource constraints in learning new skills

Companies in Singapore are always encouraged to invest in training and upskilling of their staff. But with limited resources and time constraints, what sort of assistance can small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) tap on to keep up with the competition?
Brian Stampe from Commonwealth Concepts and Xu Wenshan from SkillsFuture Singapore share their insights in this week’s Money Talks.
This episode is brought to you by SkillsFuture Singapore.  
Here’s an excerpt from the conversation: 
Andrea Heng, host: 
What about (SMEs) in other industries? I’m thinking logistics, manufacturing, things that tend to be quite labour intensive. What kind of challenges do they face?Xu Wenshan, SkillsFuture Singapore: 
We have (done) a survey of SMEs across the economy … and we found out that there were essentially three common problems that SMEs face. So the first one is no time to send people for training. How do companies, especially SMEs, when resources are needed (for) day-to-day operations, how do they take time off to send people for training? And how can we help SMEs in this area?
The second one that they are concerned about is no money. Cost is one thing. How do we find ways to elevate the cost of training for the SMEs, particularly where the cost may not be very low for some of the sectors or skill sets (as) they could be very specialised or niche. 
The third (challenge) is no clue … There are many skills that we’ve all talked about – digital skills, green skills, customer service related skills, technical skills.
I think regardless of which sector you’re in, these are the general pain points that we see from the SMEs. 
Brian Stampe, Commonwealth Concepts: 
I’ll add the fourth one, but the fourth one is more positive. I think SMEs have no choice but to go forward with the training programmes. 
Andrea:
Especially given how things are developing around the world today, it’s so fast you can’t just catch up anymore. You have to be ahead of the curve, almost. 
Brian: 
Something obviously happened, and somebody obviously gained a comparative advantage … The key thing is the decision makers need to make that leap to see that the strategy on the people side and the business strategy are actually interwoven, because who’s going to execute the business strategy?
So I would say that the leadership’s view of the SME, especially if they are the key owners, they need to take that step and say, “This is what I want to do.” And then we find the way. The term “no time” – we all say this for everything. It’s a question of … choosing which time, where (and how) you want to spend the time. 
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