10 October 2024
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) will work with the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs), the Human Resource (HR) community and employers to implement the eight recommendations by the Alliance for Action (AfA) on Widening Access to Talent. This was announced by Senior Minister of State for Manpower, Mr Zaqy Mohamad, at the People Behind People Forum 2024.
Objectives of the AfA
2 MOM and SNEF invited NTUC, TACs, business leaders and industry representatives to form the AfA on Widening Access to Talent in January 2024. The AfA aimed to develop industry-led solutions to increase talent competitiveness amidst rising manpower constraints due to an ageing resident workforce. The AfA is jointly led by Dr Bicky Bhangu, President of Rolls Royce SEA, Pacific and South Korea, and Council Member of SNEF, and Ms Aileen Tan, Group Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Singtel and a Master Professional certified by the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP). The AfA comprises industry representatives from the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Manufacturing and Retail sectors, representatives from the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF), SGTech, Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), IHRP and NTUC. The full list of AfA members can be found in Annex A.
Recommendations by the AfA
3 Over the course of nine months, the AfA members conducted pilots within their own industries and firms to understand the manpower challenges faced by employers and test solutions. Through this hands-on and iterative approach, the AfA members identified four key areas that will support employers to widen their access to talent notwithstanding growing manpower constraints:
a. Leverage transferrable expertise from adjacent talent pools through skills-first hiring practices.
b. Improve workforce agility and retention through skills-first workforce development to promote internal mobility.
c. Increase job accessibility for workforce segments with diverse needs through job redesign, and
d. Uplift HR capabilities to enable skills-first practices, and support SMEs to access HR services.
Under these four key areas, the AfA has made eight recommendations as set out in the full AfA report.
MOM and SNEF’s Response to the AfA Report
4 MOM and SNEF support all eight recommendations. We thank industry partners for coming together in this industry-led AfA to develop tangible solutions that are grounded in real business needs and operating environments. MOM and SNEF call on all employers to adopt skills-first hiring and workforce development practices to increase talent competitiveness amidst slowing resident workforce growth. MOM and SNEF will work with NTUC, TACs and the HR community to develop and provide programmes and resources to support employers to do so.
5 The AfA is part of Career Health SG (see Annex B) which seeks to maximise the potential of Singapore’s talent pool. The AfA’s recommendations will enable employers to better attract, develop and retain talent, which will in turn improve productivity and support business growth. Details of the recommendations and the response from MOM, SNEF, and other ecosystem partners are in Annex C.
AfA Co-Leads’ Response
6 Dr Bicky Bhangu, co-lead of the AfA on Widening Access to Talent said: “A productive and agile workforce is pivotal in driving business growth. I am proud of the pilots and recommendations that the AfA members have co-created to enable employers to adopt skills-first hiring and workforce development practices. With the support of SNEF and the TACs in driving these efforts forward, businesses will be better positioned to attract, retain, and engage talent to overcome manpower challenges and remain competitive in the long run.”
7 Ms Aileen Tan, co-lead of the AfA on Widening Access to Talent said: “The AfA members have dedicated their time, effort, and resources to offer valuable insights and practical ground-up recommendations. HR plays a pivotal role in setting the stage within our organisations to enable the adoption of skills-first practices. By creating the right environment for these practices, we can better address talent challenges and ensure that our workforce is equipped for the future. I am encouraged that MOM, SNEF, and industry partners are supporting these efforts to scale.”
For More Information
8 The full AfA report is available at https://go.gov.sg/afareport2024.
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Annex A – List of AfA Members
| Involvement | Company/ Organisation |
Name | Designation |
| ICT Sector | Cisco | Cassie Fleming | APJC Talent Acquisition Director |
| Cisco | Sarah Chen | Talent Acquisition Leader for Corporate Functions in Asia Pacific | |
| Grab | Tho Lye Sam | Head of People Business Partners | |
| Grab | Tan Hark Kah | Country Head of People Operations, Singapore | |
| Paypal | Stephen Crowe | Senior Director, HRBP, Enterprise Sales | |
| Salesforce | Chow Kok Lam | Director, Employee Success, ASEAN | |
| SAP | Angela Wong | Director of Talent Attraction for Southeast Asia | |
| Singtel | Joshua Teo | Head of Strategic Resourcing | |
| Temus | Damian Tan | Head of Talent Acquisition | |
| SGTech | Yeo Zhi Han | Director, Chapters and Strategic Programmes | |
| Manufacturing Sector | HP Singapore | Ani Setiawan | People Partner |
| OMRON Asia Pacific Pte Ltd | Colin Lim | General Manager, Human Resources Management | |
| OMRON Asia Pacific Pte Ltd | Goh Yen Teng | Talent Acquisition Manager | |
| Rolls-Royce | Priscilia Yap | People Partner | |
| Seatrium | Yee Lok Yeen | VP Transformation | |
| Siemens | Shalabh Bakshi | VP for Digital Enterprise Services | |
| Singapore Manufacturing Federation | Dennis Mark | CEO | |
| Retail Sector | CapitaLand Investment Limited | Jane Leo | Vice President, HR Business Partnering |
| Commune Lifestyle | Joshua Koh | CEO | |
| Decathlon Singapore | Arjun Mutreja | People Leader, Singapore | |
| Decathlon Singapore | Milena Osika | Talent Acquisition Leader, Singapore | |
| Mothercare (Kim Hin International Pte. Ltd) | Pang Fu Wei | Group Managing Director | |
| Sheng Siong | Lin Ruiwen | Executive Director | |
| Singapore Retailers Association | Stephen Sing | Executive Director | |
| Partners | IHRP | Karina Kuok | Director, Head of Assessments & Insights |
| IHRP | Li Feng Ling | Head, HR and Admin | |
| IHRP | Dionne Lo | Assistant Manager, Assessments & Insights | |
| NTUC’s e2i (Employment & Employability Institute) | Gary Goh | Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Industry Partnership Group | |
| NTUC’s e2i (Employment & Employability Institute) | Ong Mei Ling | Deputy Director, Lifestyle | |
| NTUC’s e2i (Employment & Employability Institute) | Teo Jie Min | Principal Specialist |
Annex B – About Career Health SG
Career Health SG is a national initiative in support of the SkillsFuture movement. It arose from the Forward Singapore conversations in 2023, as a concept to empower Singaporeans to achieve their career aspirations and develop resilient and fulfilling careers.
The initiative seeks to empower Singaporeans to chart long-term career pathways through career coaching and deepening one’s knowledge and skills with insights on growth jobs and industries. With this, Singaporeans can take proactive steps to improve their career outcomes through training, on-the-job learning, and intentional career moves. They can also make the best use of the wide array of Government upskilling and career conversion programmes.
Career Health SG also enables our businesses to widen their access to talent. Through Career Health SG, we will equip businesses to take a skills-first approach to hiring and investing in human capital development. By offering meaningful career progression pathways, businesses will be better positioned to attract and retain talent to drive growth.
Career Health SG is about realising the potential of Singapore’s most precious resource – our human capital; and through this, supporting Singapore’s economic and social goals.
Career Health SG is a joint initiative by Ministry of Manpower, Workforce Singapore and SkillsFuture Singapore.
Annex C – Recommendations and Responses from MOM, SNEF and Ecosystem Partners
| AfA’s recommendation | Responses from MOM, SNEF and ecosystem partners |
| A) Leverage transferable expertise from adjacent talent pools through skills-first hiring practices | |
#1: Encourage adoption of a National Skills Taxonomy and to develop a database with verified skills of the workforce to enable skills-first hiring.
|
MOM is supportive. Under Career Health SG, the Government is developing initiatives to provide individuals and employers with better skills data to support skills-first hiring and development. |
| #2: Develop sector or job-specific standardised assessment tests for skills-heavy jobs to help employers assess transferable skills of candidates from different backgrounds. | SNEF is supportive. As a start, SGTech and SMF will develop this for their respective sectors in partnership with SNEF. |
| B) Improve workforce agility and retention through skills-first workforce development to promote internal mobility | |
| #3: Develop playbooks and identify off-the-shelf HR tech solutions to guide and simplify implementation of internal marketplace solutions. | MOM is supportive. IHRP will work with the industry to develop playbooks. MOM will also work with the relevant agencies to support SMEs with the adoption of suitable HR tech solutions that can be realised by tapping into resources such as NTUC Company Training Committee (CTC), Productivity Solutions Grant and skills profiling tools). |
#4: Build a ‘talent co-development’ model where employers collaborate to aggregate talent development opportunities.
|
SNEF will work with SMF to design a pilot. |
| #5: Enable employers to provide career guidance and planning to their workers for career and skills development. | SNEF is supportive. As the Jobs-Skills Integrator for Retail (JSIT-R), SNEF has already incorporated structured career planning workshops for employers in the retail sector and will extend this to cover more sectors. SNEF will also work with suitable partners to scale this further.
NTUC and its affiliated unions will also work with companies through Company Training Committees (CTC) to encourage employers to formulate structured career development plans for their workers, including training opportunities. |
| C) Increase job accessibility for workforce segments with diverse needs through job redesign | |
| #6: Develop structured programmes as a means to attract students, seniors and stay-at-home mothers to take up hard-to-fill jobs. | SNEF and SRA will work together to design a structured traineeship programme for students to take on retail frontline jobs to learn valuable transferrable soft skills as a start and will explore broadening the structured programme for seniors and stay-at-home mothers later. NTUC will also support the scaling up of the programme by leveraging NTUC’s e2i talent pool and their outreach to jobseekers through job matching and career advisory services. |
| D) Uplift HR capabilities to enable skills-first practices and support SMEs to access HR services | |
| #7: Increase access of SMEs to HR advisory and consultancy services to improve employers’ skills-first hiring and workforce development capabilities. | MOM is supportive. Employers can currently tap on NTUC CTC grant, administered by NTUC’s e2i, to support their access to HR advisory services or upskill capabilities in HR, as part of their business transformation projects.
In addition, MOM will work with IHRP to pilot “CHRO-as-a-Service” to provide accessible HR advisory and consultancy services by tapping on the expertise from the certified HR community or leveraging technology (e.g. Chat Bots). HR practices will need to transform to support business transformation. In that regard, as part of its role managing the Job Redesign Centre for Excellence (JRCoE), IHRP, in collaboration with Workforce Singapore, launched the Job Redesign Playbook for Human Resources today to support the shift of the role of HR professionals into strategic business partners within companies. |
| #8: Stronger industry push for HR to level up through IHRP certification, which provides employers access to external support and resources from the certified HR community. | SNEF is supportive and will work with TACs to mobilise their members and advocate for HR professionals to obtain their IHRP certification. |
