Preparing Students and Faculty to Work Effectively in Diverse Situations
Svay Rieng University (SRU) is a public higher education institution initiated and founded in 2005. Despite graduates have an incredible track record of gaining employment after graduation, university staff are developing their curricula to ensure graduates can perform to the best of their abilities in the workplace and cooperate with coworkers and networks.
Among the many factors determining the quality of higher education, human resource factors play an important role in bringing qualified graduates the chance to challenge the job market as well as to earn a living.
Through the Erasmus+ programme, HR4ASIA, SRU and other partner universities are collaborating to build both staff capacity for developing human resource training and students’ understanding of the concepts needed for good workplace communication and relations. SRU and the partner countries also conducted an initial survey of local and national human resource needs, which was compiled into a comparative study of existing human resource practices throughout the region. Staff further expanded their understanding of HR needs through a series of training/workshop, conferences, webinars and online workshops. As a result, SRU has developed a Strategic Human Resource Management 2019-2021 featuring clear vision and goals in planning the action plan for effective human resource development within the institution to move forward with realism.
Beyond these local goals, SRU will join the ASEAN University Network (AUN-HRM), a regional exchange of knowledge and best practices in teaching and training HR principles to fit Southeast Asia’s needs and sustainability of the HE4ASIA project as (http://www.hr4asia.eu) mentioned:
14The irruption of Human Resource Management (HRM) as a strategic element for quality development of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is relatively recent. Few decades back and until our days, HR approaches just focused on staff recruitment, employment contracts and payment of salaries. This scenario is deeply changing with the international growth and increasing complexity of Higher Education. HRM aspects such as staff motivation, continuous development, evaluation, and strategic planning are gathering momentum under HEIs’ strategic plans worldwide.
The evolution of HRM is, however, slow and certainly challenging in developing countries. In Southeast Asia (SEA), HEIs are facing significant difficulties derived from disparities in their countries’ political and social structures as well as the backgrounds of their Higher Education systems. Well-structured HRM strategies could very much contribute to HE development and HEIs’ autonomy, thus supporting the processes of reform towards regional growth.
Against this background, HR4Asia aims at contributing to HE organisational reform in SEA by improving HRM at the target HEIs from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Thailand.
This global objective will be pursued by means of three specific objectives, namely:
(i) Building capacity in HRM at SEA HEIs to enhance organizational performance;
(ii) Improving HRM Strategic plans for more staffing autonomy;
(iii) Setting up of a University HR Network as a regional forum for the exchange of knowledge and best practices.
With these, HR4Asia will introduce in SEA HEIs a scheme to developing and implementing innovative HRM approaches, paying attention to transversal and additional skills, such as communication and self-learning.
To learn more about HR4Asia and partner countries, please visit the programme website.
