Transguard Group has revealed that four years after launching its Centre of Excellence, more than 35,000 employees have so far received cross-platform training and upskilling opportunities. “Our purpose-built Centre of Excellence is the heart of our training programme, and key among its initiatives is continual cross-training for our site-based employees,” says Greg Ward, Managing Director. “Offering every member of our team an equal opportunity to grow their career is a cornerstone of our human resources strategy; empowering our employees with diversified skill sets enables us to better serve the UAE.”

Multi-skill training takes place across the entire business, particularly in Transguard’s manpower and aviation divisions, where more than 11,000 and 4,000 employees respectively have completed courses in a diverse array of subjects, including technical skills, customer service and others.

“Offering multi-skill training in other disciplines opens up new career pathways for our workforce. We have a gratifying number of employees who join us in entry level positions but work their way up to more skilled roles, both at site and in our headquarters. For example, employees who join us as unskilled labour can take our free skills training and English courses and eventually qualify to join the ‘Fix’ team of Transguard Living, our consumer home services division,” Ward explains. “With an incredibly broad training programme that applies across all of our business units, this is just one among many upskilling opportunities that we offer our employees.”

Most notable was Transguard’s continued focus on training even during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when more than 1,500 employees from across the business were specifically cross-trained in Facilities Management to help support the company’s disinfection and sanitization programme. In addition, 60 former Housekeepers have recently transitioned onto Transguard’s Security team after completing their SIRA certification and Transguard’s own rigorous training programme.

“The need to pivot and adapt during the global pandemic was not unique to Transguard, but we are exceptionally proud of the fact that during this time we safely cross-trained more than 5,000 employees to better support the country’s recovery,” Ward concludes. “Particularly with high-profile events like Expo 2020 Dubai on the very near horizon, our team is more than prepared to continually set the bar for business excellence, customer satisfaction and passionate support for the UAE.”