Employers today are operating in a much more volatile environment, marked by economic uncertainties. Meanwhile, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping how work is organised and redefining the skills that matter.

Businesses increasingly need strong human resources (HR) management capabilities as a competitive advantage to navigate changes.

Architecting organisational resilience

As stewards of human capital, HR professionals play a pivotal role in helping businesses build the agility to adapt and cultivate a strong workforce that drives organisational success.

They can lead job redesign and AI adoption in a people-first way. This means reshaping roles, workflows and team structures at a systems level to raise productivity across the organisation.

Working closely with business units, HR teams can close skills gaps through targeted hiring and reskilling, while implementing phased training programmes that link directly to redeployment and organisational redesign.

With robust change management, HR professionals help sustain employee engagement and morale through periods of uncertainty.

Talent attraction and retention is another urgent HR priority. Well-designed flexible work arrangements, for example, can boost productivity and employee engagement, especially for staff with caregiving responsibilities or changing life needs. It also widens access to under-tapped talent pools and supports broader labour force participation.

Yet, HR capability remains uneven across the sector. A broader uplift in standards and clearer recognition of high-quality HR practice is needed.

Strengthening the capability and standing of HR

Singapore’s tripartite partners have been working with the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP) to promote IHRP certification.

In 2020, the National Trades Union Congress and Singapore National Employers Federation’s (SNEF) bipartite Professionals, Managers and Executives Taskforce recommended that companies with more than 200 employees ensure their HR teams hold IHRP or other internationally recognised HR certifications, to raise practitioner standards and enhance fair employment practices.

The voluntary IHRP certification framework benchmarks HR professionals against a core set of competencies that enable them to create value and deliver positive impact to the business.

These competencies encompass knowledge in areas such as labour policies and legislation, technology and operational excellence, as well as the mindsets and behaviours for managing organisational change and shaping positive employee experience.

By reinforcing compliance, due process and the consistent application of people policies, the framework also supports the promotion of fair employment practices. It offers a clear set of standards for what good HR practice looks like across different levels of seniority, while supporting practitioners’ progression from operational roles to strategic business partners.

Amid intensifying disruption and increasing need for businesses to transform, wider adoption of HR certification would strengthen the capabilities and standing of HR within organisations.

For employers, certification provides greater assurance that HR professionals have a solid foundation of knowledge, skills and judgement to develop and execute workforce strategies aligned with business objectives.

Similarly, employees may place more trust in certified HR professionals in upholding fair employment practices, supporting job redesign and facilitating their career development.

A professional baseline

Some employers may be sceptical, viewing certification as an unnecessary “paper chase”. Indeed, many seasoned HR practitioners have built deep expertise without formal credentials, and experience will always matter.

But when the role of HR is evolving so quickly, experience alone is insufficient. Certification establishes a professional baseline that helps HR professionals to be recognised and effective in navigating the new world, particularly when their decisions affect careers and an organisation’s long-term health.

Certification is, however, not a silver bullet. Sustained HR capability depends on continuous learning and practical exposure.

To equip HR professionals with the competencies needed to drive workforce transformation and support business strategy, SNEF has been supporting their capability development through training programmes in strategic HR management, industrial relations and employment law.

Support from managers and leadership

As a business leader, I have learnt that even the best HR strategy will fail if employers do not set the team up for success. C-suite leaders must give HR professionals the mandate and strong support to do their work well.

That includes supporting HR professionals in their continuous learning journey; involving HR early in transformation planning; investing in tools, data and workforce planning capabilities that enable sound decision-making; and adopting HR tech to reduce administrative burden, so that the team can focus on higher-value work.

Equally important are line managers and supervisors – the people who make daily decisions on workload, feedback, performance, development and team culture.

As HR capability strengthens, organisations must also build people-management skills across the leadership pipeline, so supervisors can lead diverse teams, manage flexible work arrangements effectively, support constructive performance conversations, and guide employees through change.

Singapore’s next phase of growth will depend on how well employers navigate disruption, demographic shifts and intensifying global competition.

To succeed, businesses need to keep jobs meaningful, skills relevant, and workplaces fair and inclusive. HR sits at the centre of these shifts.

Benjamin Boh
Co-chair of the Tripartite Workgroup on Human Capital Capability Development and a Singapore National Employers Federation council member

[Published in The Business Times on 5 March 2026]