Workforce Development Committee (WFD) Meeting

DateSeptember 9, 2021
Event categoryAdvocacy
VenueDouble Tree by Hilton Yerevan
On September 9, 2021, AmCham in Armenia held a Workforce Development Committee (WFD) Meeting in Double Tree by Hilton Yerevan, Chicago Hall. AmCham President Ashot Hovanesian, Board Directors Tigran Jrbashyan, Irina Dumanyan, Gevorg Goyunyan, Dagen Valentine, 12 WFD Committee members, and AmCham Executive Team were present at the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Karine Sarkissian, the Executive Director of AmCham in Armenia.
During the discussion, Karine Sarkissian introduced how the Committees are being set up as per the AmCham Committee Rules and Procedures. She briefly presented the story of creation of Workforce Development Committee (WFD). As there was a big amount of interested companies among AmCham members in the creation of WFD Committee, it was decided to form the following Working Groups (WG) under the WFD Committee to meet the common interest:
-Education, Training and Development (ETD) WG
-Strategy and Operational Excellence (SOE) WG
-Labor WG
With the simple majority principle of an election, Dagen Valentine from American Councils was elected as a Chair of WFD Committee and Areg Abramyan from PwC was elected as the Co-Chair of the Committee.
Dagen Valentine was elected as the Chair of ETD WG.
Areg Abramyan was elected as the Chair of the SOE WG.
Lilit Gevorgyan, Grant Thornton was nominated and elected as the Chair of the Labor WG.
It was decided that Dagen Valentine, Tigran Jrbashyan, Irina Dumanyan, and Gevorg Goyunyan from the Board of Directors will be representing the Board in the WFD Committee and in the 3 WGs.
The Committee stated a brief mission for each Working Group.
• For ETD WG it was decided that the major idea is to understand and identify the existing and possible problems in education, its different sectors, analyze them, find out what sphere of the overall education needs amendments and what privileges (e.g. tax exemption, special spaces, etc.) can be given by the Government to promote the growth of more productive workforce.
• Regarding the Strategy and Operational Excellence WG, it was decided to focus on what has to be done from the operational point of view. The question is about what has to be done in tax regime, tax accounting, in order to create a more affordable or welcoming environment for companies to invest.
• The 3rd WG is about labor issues. Again, to involve more voluminous workforce in and outside of Armenia it was decided to find out what has to be done in changing the labor policy and labor code generally to gain better results.
Next Steps
• The Chairman prepares a content about the Committee mission, objectives, and activities for the upcoming WFD Committee meeting
• Call of the Committee members of engaging in the 3 WGs
• The Board Directors’ Approval of the WFD Committee
• Decide on the date and the frequency of the meeting