21 - Learning Strategies for Global Competitiveness — The Petronas Experience

Summary

Learning is a key competency to success. One has to keep on learning in order to achieve one'sgoals and to positively contribute as a team player in a company. Learning itself can provide the catalyst and the intellectual resource to create a sustainable competitive advantage for many organizations. Such is the case for market champions — entities who strive on continuous learning, and who continue to learn how to do things better. At Petronas, the adoption and implementation of learning strategies have been very successful.

Petronas, or Petroleum Nasional Berhad, is Malaysia'snational petroleum corporation. Since its incorporation in 1974, Petronas has transformed itself into a fully integrated multinational petroleum corporation with business interests in more than 30 countries. Petronas has embraced the fact that learning how to learn can positively contribute towards the success of developing human resources. Correct learning strategies, coupled with correct training or teaching strategies, when implemented, are the key competencies for sustaining global competitiveness. To necessitate this, trainers and learners together have to know the principles required to achieve these strategies, and to be able to translate such principles into practice.

Often, companies need to realign their business direction, and so the current workforce needs to be trained quickly in order to face challenging business demands. Re-skilling is not just a new fad; it is an important recipe for success in human resource development, as new knowledge is constantly needed to solve new on-site problems. For big multinational companies such as Petronas, this is not only a business reality — it is a business priority. Petronas has recognized that to enable performance to be achieved at the required standard, competence should be seen as a combination of awareness knowledge, skills and attitude. The company thrives on its human resource mission statement, i.e., “We want to develop people who are Capable, Confident and Committed and develop a Challenging, Attractive and Conducive environment”.