An Education Needs Assessment of CARIFORUM Firms

Figure 11: % of training areas receiving a ranking score of 1( i.e. ranked as being the most important)

Rank selected areas of training in order of importance - with '1' being the most important to you.

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3.8%

Trade/Business Negotiations Training

30.1%

Strategic Planning Training (e.g., designing and…

25.8%

Market Access Training (e.g. customs, duties, shipping and…

0.0%

Human Resource Management Training

19.3%

Grant/Funding Proposal Writing Training

37.8%

Marketing and Advertising Training

45.4%

Supervisory and/or First Line Management Training

0.0%

Project Management Training

24.3%

Management Training

22.6%

Export-related Training (e.g. training in export promotion,…

44.1%

Entrepreneurial Training (e.g. setting up a new business,…

25.6%

E-commerce Training (e.g. online selling/buying; setting up…

38.8%

Digital Skills Training

28.3%

Customer Service Training

23.8%

Business Development Training (e.g. business plan writing)

24.6%

Business Economics and Statistics Training

15.3%

Accounting and Financial Training

36.1%

Regarding soft skills, communication (47.8%) and time management (44.9%) were the most

popular training needs identified by businesses in Figure 12. Communication was a repeated soft

skill gap identified from previous studies in the desk research, with some studies linking

communication and customer service skills as crucially important for the region given the

dominance of the tourism sector across many CARIFORUM states (OAS 2017; Pierre 2018;

Jordan 2020). Some businesses further specified negotiating skills, networking skills and

professional self-development skills as “Other” general trai ning needs not captured under the list

in Figure 12. Regarding perceived importance, respondents appear to attach equal weighting to all

of the soft skill training areas, suggesting that they are all equally important (see Figure 13). This

is not surprising given the importance of soft skills for services-based economies (Ripani 2015).

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