Recognizing the diverse productivity issues and challenges of member countries, the APO under its Technical Expert Services (TES) Program engages experts on a broad range of topics requested by member countries or in new, emerging areas of competency. TES aims to boost national productivity through the provision of real-world solutions to problems and assisting member countries and NPOs in upgrading their technical knowledge and competencies through tailor-made, intensive interventions by experts as required.

Two TES workshops were recently organized for Sri Lanka. The Workshop on Smart Service Transformation for the Public and Private Sectors for Sri Lanka was organized from 8 to 10 November to enhance the knowledge of participants on smart transformation in the service sector, enabling them to then disseminate that knowledge and best practices to their service organizations, and finally initiate the adoption of tools, techniques, and concepts for organizational digital transformation. The workshop was designed to introduce effective methods for implementing smart transformation and innovation-led productivity initiatives such as Industry 4.0 technologies, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

The Workshop on Advanced Performance Management held from 15 to17 November introduced concepts, techniques, and tools for staff performance management. Participants were guided in developing systems to measure performance which could be adopted in their organizations.

These workshops were conducted by experts from the Republic of Korea and both were attended by 60 participants from the National Productivity Secretariat and other institutions under the Ministry of Labour, Sri Lanka.