Unleashing Productivity Potential: An Insightful Conversation with Maria Nicolaou Christou
FFWD had the privilege of speaking with Maria Nicolaou Christou, the acting director of the Cyprus Productivity Center (CPC). As an organization with over 40 years of experience, the CPC has played a pivotal role in driving socioeconomic development in Cyprus. With a redirected focus on supporting individuals, companies, organizations, social partners, and state authorities, the Center aims to facilitate a successful transition into the globalized world.
In the following interview, we delve into how the CPC utilizes its accumulated knowledge to strengthen its role in various areas. We explore their strategies for enhancing organizational competitiveness and effectively navigating the challenges of the 21st century and discuss the Center's focus on aligning their actions, plans, and initiatives with Cyprus' National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Maria uncovers CPC's current training programs and explains the Center's emphasis on digital skills, and the pivotal role of education in enhancing productivity levels in organizations. The conversation also touches on the key factors that contribute to overall productivity in a business and how the Center stays updated on emerging trends and best practices in productivity enhancement.
CPC keeps an eye on Cyprus's performance in the areas of management, training and productivity as reflected in national, European and international comparative reports like Cyprus Competitiveness Report, Global Competitiveness Report, Doing Business Report, IMD World Competitiveness Reports, and by monitoring relevant indices published by Eurostat. We set out priorities and plan our activities according to the weaknesses identified and in accordance with the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance, to which we belong, which are in turn aligned with the broader European strategies and in particular with the Principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Commission's initiatives included in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan.
This year for example the emphasis is on training for the development of the skills needed in the labor market to satisfactorily address the challenges of the green and digital transition challenges. As you may know the European Council and the European Parliament agreed on a European Year of Skills for the period 9 May 2023 until 8 May 2024. The overall objective of the European Year is to promote a mindset of reskilling and upskilling. The aim is to boost the competitiveness of European companies, close skill gaps and shortages and create quality jobs.
Some days ago -on the 31st of May- the Council of Ministers decided on a national action plan for the European Year of Skills, proposed by the Minister of Labour and Social Insurance with an aim to promote Sustainable and Inclusive growth while dealing with the green and digital transition. The actions of the Plan entitled “Modern Professional Development for the green and digital transition” evolve around three pillars:
A. Development of modern professional culture that includes green and digital skills, safety and quality.
B. Provision of socially targeted vocational training.
C. Promotion of professional specialization and certification.
CPC will assume a primary role in relation to the development of modern professional culture as well as the provision of socially targeted training, while it will cooperate with the Human Resources Development Authority for promoting professional specialization and certification.
For the purpose of developing modern professional culture several training opportunities will be offered: presentations, workshops, seminars, online courses and webinars.
The specific needs of businesses and their employees are expressed by employers' and employees' organizations with which we have a close cooperation. In addition to targeted needs, diagnostic surveys are conducted when there is a need to.
CPC has undertaken an important project in relation to training for the acquisition of digital skills addressed to people over 55
The Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance participated in the consultations with the European Commission during the development of Cyprus’ Recovery and Resilience Plan and CPC has undertaken an important project in relation to training for the acquisition of digital skills addressed to people over 55. The aim is to equip these people with the necessary digital skills that will strengthen their social integration by allowing them to hold a job, be productive and confident with it or as retirees be able to take advantage of the many opportunities offered by digital technology for participating in social events and recreational activities.
As I mentioned before, currently the focus is on digital skills. Several training programs are offered, financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Facility. In the coming months the focus will be on the development of modern professional culture and will involve training programs on green and digital skills as well as on safety at work and quality.
The aim of this training, which will be short and will be offered in various forms (physical presence, webinars, asynchronous learning) is to raise the awareness of employees, unemployed and future employees like students and soldiers of the importance of a green, digital, safe and quality professionalism for themselves but also for the productivity of the organizations they work for or will be working for and for Cyprus' economy and society as a whole.
Human capital, which is largely formed by education, is the most important productivity differentiating factor for organizations.
There are numerous studies proving that there is a strong relation between education and productivity both at micro and macro level. That is at the level of an organization or at a national level. Several measures are used to capture the level of education in a system. Such measures are the amount spent in education -educational expenditure- as a percentage of the total budget or the GDP if the focus is on the national level, the % of people with higher education, or the number of hours of training received by the workforce during a given period. On the other hand productivity is usually measured as Labour productivity -a measure of how much output is produced per unit of labor input, for instance, per worker or per hour works- or by Total Factor Productivity that represents the quantity of output that growth in capital or labor does not explain and has to do with how efficient the factors of production -capital and labor- are used. Human capital, i.e. the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual, largely formed by education, is the most important productivity differentiating factor for organizations.
There are numerous factors that affect the overall productivity in an organization. Some are what we call internal factors i.e. factors within the control of the management of the organization, while some are broader factors that have to do with the structure of the economy, the level of available infrastructure in a country -telecommunication, electricity, transportation infrastructure etc-, the legal and regulatory framework for doing business, financial stability, tax policy, market size and others. As far as the internal factors, management practices, attitudes and values, and human resources skills and competencies are the more important ones.
CPC’s officers participate in mutual learning events organized by the European Commission or other member states in Cyprus and abroad
CPC’s officers attend major European and International conferences where research results on emerging trends are presented. In addition, CPC’s officers participate in mutual learning events organized by the European Commission or other member states in Cyprus and abroad and in joint EU funded projects with partners from a small number of European or non European countries. The emphasis on such projects is on sharing good practices and developing common approaches.
In a few days, -June 15-, one such peer learning event will be organized in Cyprus on Establishing an Ecosystem for the support of social enterprises. A CPC officer will be there together with colleagues from the Department of Labour and the Department of Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities to discuss what kind of training is necessary to strengthen a social economy ecosystem and look into key insights, lessons and potential next steps from peer countries. The particular interest of CPC is to offer suitable training for People with Disabilities to help them get employed and work in a social enterprise or to enable them to create and manage a social enterprise themselves.
