Cebu chamber to businesses: Upskill employees during crisis-induced lean season

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) is urging companies affected by the travel ban to make use of the lean season to invest on upskilling idle employees.

CCCI president Virgilio Espeleta called business owners to invest on training, up-skilling at this time of bleak business, instead of letting the workers go home temporarily.

Espeleta is specifically addressing mostly the hotels, restaurants and even retail outlets that are now affected by the travel ban brought about by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

As a businessman, Espeleta said he understands the businesses’ plight during a crisis like this, “because how can we pay the employees if there’s no money coming in?”

However he said, while upskilling and further training are also due to most of the companies considering the fast changing consumer preferences and technology advancement, this lean season could be an opportune time to improve the skills of the people across departments.

“As much as possible we encourage those businesses to make use of this season to fix facilities, or maintenance, training, etc.,” Espeleta recommended.

On the other hand, this type of set up also needs the cooperation of the employees to help their employers in sustaining the business amid inevitable revenue losses. After all, this is just temporary.

“What is happening is beyond our control. We just have to help each other [employers and employees),” added Espeleta.