#VoicesofWomen: Bespoke skilling should be kept open for anyone aiming to work better, writes Meena Muthukumar, in her winning entry at VOW. Read On!

Training for Women?!

Women have been paving the path for entrepreneurs in every industry for many decades. From Estée Lauder, who launched her cosmetics company in the 1940s, to Ruth Fertel, who wanted to have the best steak restaurant — Ruth’s Chris Steak House, women entrepreneurs have been able to withstand economic and business pressures at their best.

Today, the list of women entrepreneurs spans many industries. Not only being entrepreneurs, but women excel in every field they take up!

One can applaud and laud the work success of many women in the career sector and hope all people learn from their wisdom and achievements. Indeed, some of these women are personal heroes to many others, especially to those who strive for career success. Kudos! However, what is happening to the rest of the women? More importantly, what does the future hold for women in workplaces?

Workplaces do recognize women and their work. Sometimes, it is life that pushes women to step back from their career path when they lose confidence while handling their tasks, either when they meet someone competent, especially after their return from their maternity leave, or when they gradually lose the hang of their projects due to the insecurities that childbirth brings along with it!

Not only childbirth, but it could also be many other reasons that crib women from earning, either society based or maybe “periods”. I mean, why not? Little things like making decisions about groceries to buy or getting dressed in the morning become monumental, and women agonize over them. Many women experience premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, a collection of unpleasant symptoms, such as anxiety and bloating, that typically occur one to two weeks before menstruation and might influence one’s Behavior throughout the menstrual cycle.

An estimated 85 percent of women experience at least one symptom of PMS every month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates.

While PMS and its related hormonal changes are often talked about and are even the subject of endless jokes on TV sitcoms, the truth is that the hormones in a woman’s body can influence her moods and actions throughout the month.

Therefore, women’s inability to perform better is because of the reasons stated above, just like every individual is assumed to behave when they go through major mood swings and not because they lack any particular skill to keep up with their jobs! But women still keep up with their jobs after experiencing all this within themselves every month. This inability I am talking about never leads to the company’s loss and is not portrayed like an “inability” by any women!

Hence, I don’t think women specifically require bespoke training. It would be appreciable if women are not the only ones targeted for this training. Companies can bring this up for those who are a part of the cooperation for quite a long time and require additional skills to keep up with their newbies entering the cooperation. Newbies may have learned something different than what their seniors had learned back in universities. So, I imply that

Bespoke skilling should not only be dedicated to women but should be kept open for anyone aiming to work better

Bespoke training is a training course that is specific to fit the requirements of a job and can have many benefits. This course helps one prioritize their skills and areas that need to be acknowledged at their end. And these can be tailor-made to fit one’s needs without compromising quality or content too. This will not only be a blessing in disguise but also a must-try for not only women but anyone who require upscalingin their career.

Organizations identify skills, tasks, or techniques of their staff but, there isn’t anyone internally to deliver the required learning after job acquisition, and this is where offering the training by an external management is a boon to keep the employees tied to the company. The benefit of bespoke training is that it is made for you. Employing a training company that can run the entire training process, from research to design, all the way through the assessment saves employers a huge amount of time and effort too.

No matter how specialized the business operates, you have a source of support when it comes to developing essential skills among your employees. When you have a training course that is made for you, you don’t need to worry about the relevance to your operation. You will know how it is going to support their skills and in what time frame.

A few courses that can be offered are:

Safeguarding courses — focuses on developing robust safeguarding practice and managing safeguarding investigations. Safeguarding for trustees is a bespoke workshop to equip boards of trustees to meet their safeguarding responsibilities.

Funding training — equips staff to make the strongest proposal or contract bid and meet donor reporting and grant management requirements. Monitoring & evaluation courses- provide the practical skills needed to design and set up monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning processes and systems.

Advocacy training — upskills staff to create an effective advocacy strategy, strengthen strategic clarity and embed learning.

Project management courses — one can get to the heart of designing, managing, and evaluating projects and programmes to have the greatest impact.

Okay so how about this, virtual training? Face-to-face learning can be converted into a virtual classroom during this pandemic time. Doing this translation would increase not only the employee’s productivity but the productivity of the company as a whole.

So, I would strongly recommend bespoke training to not only women but everyone!

REFERENCES:

1. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040515/10-most-successful women-entrepreneurs-decade.asp

2. https://www.everydayhealth.com/womens-health/how-your-menstrual-cycle-affects-your behavior.aspx

3. https://www.bond.org.uk/training/bespoke-training

Author: Meena Muthukumar is currently studying at Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College Of Engineering. She is one of the Popular Choice Award Winners of VOW(Voices-of-Women), an annual women focused blogging contest presented by We-Ace, powered by IBM.

Connect with us on: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.