career
Let’s get to know more about SCB Academy from Khun Worawat “P' Big” Suvagondha, FEVP & Head of SCB Academy
I believe that learning is endless. It is therefore important for everyone to keep developing their skills. If you believe that you still have the potential to upskill your capabilities and keep developing, you will be ready to take on opportunities whenever they arise and use your learning and skills as a platform to leap even higher.
SCB Academy was established to support SCB’s digital transformation. SCB management believe that this transformation will have huge impacts on its staff. Some functions will no longer exist, so we have to take care of our staff members, allowing them to reskill and upskill, and offer them new knowledge so that they can rotate to other functions. An organization will achieve sustainable success if its employees possess practical skills and knowledge to adopt new ways of working and are always ready to keep up with the rapid changes in today's world.
SCB Academy was upgraded from the Learning & Development unit to build new know-how. We revamped traditional learning approach content, platforms, and spaces to create a brand-new learning experience.
One of our small successes in the early days was launching a Data Analytics for Upskilling course with the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), and collaborating with the Thai Programmers Association to roll out a Coding the Future course. These two courses were well received by those interested in developing their skills for career advancement. Some 1,056 people enrolled in the first course and 1,184 students in the latter, for a total of 2,240 people. It is an ongoing course that will be completed in October 2021. While learning, participants must complete exercises to ensure that they will be able to apply their new skills and knowledge to their jobs.
The challenge we are facing is to link learning or self-improvement to work opportunities, to new jobs that will allow our people to apply their new skills and make them lifelong. This will empower the human resources that are critical to the development of the country in the future.
We’ve set a goal to achieve one million learners with partners in nine groups, comprising tech media, education, government, e-commerce, startups, SMEs, content providers, tech globals, and telcos, and more to come in the future. In the past, SCB Academy has partnered with DEPA to help raise funds for SMEs across the country.
Currently, we are supporting the Revenue Department with upskilling their staff members, and we have joined with the Office of the Civil Service Commission in the Skill Future for Thailand Workforce to enhance required skills and knowledge for both public and private sector workforces. One of the most recent additions to our collaboration is that we have listed four courses on Google's Saphan Digital platform.
SCB Academy intends to embrace its past 3-4 years of experience in developing human and organizational capabilities to benefit the Bank's customers, society, and the nation. We will ready workforces in terms of knowledge, skills, and the future of work by creating opportunities for one million people. They will then be able to develop their potential by applying the different skills they have learned. We have created a platform called “Phonlamuangdee ‘Gital” (meaning digital citizens) or PMD, as a learning source for the skills needed for the future, working hand-in-hand with more than thirty partners that own content in various fields.
And we are also working with partners in both the public and private sectors to create a Future Skills Roadmap and working on Ecosystem Development so that all sectors can have a common approach in developing essential skills throughout the country in order to build a systematic and concrete competitive framework for the future. To achieve these goals, we are also working with EdTech and HRTech start-up groups to create a platform that will serve as a skill marketplace connecting organizations that need new skills for work or projects with workers who have developed and possess new sets of skills and abilities critical for the work of the future.
PMD is a platform created by SCB Academy, aiming to bring together a wide range of knowledge about future skills, such as customer-centric approaches, data analytics, agile project management, and digital technology, in order to create opportunities for outsiders and society. We want to support people to upskill for the future.
However, it is not possible to handle this project alone. So, we searched for partners from various areas, such as educational institutions, government agencies, and other organizations both inside and outside the country that possess the same passion and are willing to help. We then invited them to post their content and programs on our platform to attract people who are interested in developing themselves. We’re connecting providers and users on this learning platform, free of charge and accessible to anyone. Our partners are willing to join this project without wanting anything in return other than to develop skills for the future.
We have already launched two projects. One is Data Analytics for Upskilling with AIT. We also received support from DEPA to make this course a success. The other project is Coding the Future, created along with the Thai Programmer Association and Microsoft. It is open to anyone, from those starting from scratch to those with some experience but seeking to learn more about programming or coding. In the future, the PMD47 project will be able to meet the needs of society at large. SCB Academy believes that this project will bring the synergy of all its partners together to create a platform supporting Thai society in dealing with the future world.
One of the most important things in learning is how to make people happy and help them develop a strong passion for lifelong learning to improve themselves. This is the most challenging job for any educational institution or organization involved in human resource development. Doing this will build a lifelong-learning society whose members are always eager to improve. Learning is not confined to just classrooms.
At present and in the future, there will be no fixed formula for achieving success. Amid changes, learning is the key. Classroom learning is becoming obsolete and may not be that necessary, but it can be a part of the factors leading to success. Learning while working is also important. However, having effective processes or tools that allow our people to learn at any time is the key to our success.
