Opening Address at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023
Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Manpower, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre
Ladies and gentlemen,
2. Good morning. I am happy to join you today at the HR Tech Festival Asia.
3. The theme for this year’s festival is “Engage, Sustain, Thrive. Navigating the New Paradigms of People and Work”. This is an exciting time for HR in shaping and building organisations of the future, amidst the evolving world of work accelerated by demographic changes and technological advancements. More than ever, businesses need HR to play a proactive role in addressing its talent needs to be competitive in the global arena. This requires having a strategic perspective and leadership mindset, underpinned by strong HR competencies and future-ready skills. The Government is committed to supporting and working with the HR sector to achieve this. Let me begin with how we will help our HR community “Thrive”.
“Thrive”: Growing HR skills, capabilities and mindsets
4. I am happy to announce the launch of the HR Industry Transformation Plan or the HR ITP. The HR ITP is a five-year plan to strengthen the HR profession in Singapore and evolve HR’s role to drive strategy and operational excellence, leading to increased business value and outcomes. It builds on two key thrusts of the 2020 HR Transformation Advisory Panel recommendations: first, to build enterprise HR capabilities to support business transformation, and second, to uplift the HR workforce with relevant skills and mindsets.
5. Let me outline our plans in each thrust.
Build HR capabilities for sector and business transformation
6. Employers should view HR as strategic assets, or rather as key partners to the success of your business - not just in name, but as partners in your management meetings and boardrooms. Businesses that have a strong and strategic HR enables them to stay competitive, attract and grow the right talent to support business objectives, and seize new opportunities. A Josh Bersin study with IBM found that companies with strong HR capabilities are 5.5 times more likely to be significantly more profitable than their peers, and six times more likely to be more innovative. Imagine the role of an effective HR, and what you can achieve.
7. To support employers in HR capability transformation, we are pushing ahead with HR digitalisation. At the operational level, HR process automation will lead to time and resource savings. At the strategic level, the use of people data and analytics can help organisations better plan and align workforce skills and training needs to the business strategy. To help businesses invest in HR technology, the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) has been enhanced to support new HR tech solutions in Applicant Sourcing & Tracking, and Rewards & Recognition. From 2018 to 2022, about 11,000 PSG applications have been made to adopt HR solutions. I hope that for all of you who have not yet signed up, please do come onboard to digitalise your HR function.
8. We are also providing more tools to help employers build strategic HR and workforce planning capabilities. MOM’s Workforce Insights Portal hosted on myMOM Portal provides companies with salary and non-monetary benchmarking insights across industries to help with workforce hiring and retention. Since October last year, companies can also view their performance on firm-related attributes for the Complementarity Assessment Framework, also known as COMPASS. WSG’s HR Tech Transformation Programme will continue to support companies in redesigning HR jobs by adopting technology to meet business goals. In the year ahead, a new Job Redesign Centre of Excellence helmed by the Institute for Human Resource Professionals or IHRP will also be set up as a one stop centre to help companies navigate their job transformation journey, and facilitate access to resources for their job redesign needs.
Uplift HR with relevant skills and mindsets
9. The second thrust of the HR ITP focuses on equipping HR professionals with future-ready skills and mindsets to succeed as strategic business partners and leaders. A key step in this journey is to see more HR professionals get IHRP certified. Certification recognises the individual’s knowledge and experience as a HR professional. It also provides the individual with access to extensive HR networks and resources, including latest industry practices and manpower requirements. Many employers, such as DHL Express and Kimly Construction, have shared positive feedback on the IHRP certification. I encourage HR professionals in Singapore to be part of the over 6,800 strong and growing IHRP community. Our tripartite partners, SNEF and NTUC, have both committed last year to push for 12,000 IHRP certified professionals by 2025 and have bundled their training courses with certification to make the whole process more seamless. Training partners like the Singapore HR Institute and Korn Ferry have also come on board. We will continue to strengthen the HR training and support ecosystem. We hope to have 15,000 IHRP certified professionals by 2027.
10. HR professionals can look forward to more curated programmes to support their skills upgrading and leadership development. IHRP is SkillsFuture Singapore’s appointed Skills Development Partner for the HR sector. It will proactively identify emerging HR competencies such as in skills-based hiring and career development for employees, strategic workforce planning and flexible work models, and prioritising training in these areas. In addition, non-HR supervisors who are often entrusted to do recruitment and support their team’s development should also be equipped with knowledge and competencies on fair and progressive HR practices, including labour legislation. IHRP is therefore looking to develop a new People Manager certification to ensure a standard for their competencies. In the area of HR leadership development and training, we hope that more of you will benefit from the Human Capital Leadership Institute’s HR Leaders Programme. This is designed to prepare top HR leaders for the responsibility to influence strategy, drive transformation and impact the success of your organisation. You could also join the SG Leaders Network where our corporate leaders support one another in their professional and personal leadership journey, meet and learn through various events and networking sessions.
“Sustain”: IHRP’s continued support for the HR community
11. Let me move on to “Sustain”. To sustain a long-term competitive edge, business transformation efforts must balance employees’ needs and expectations along with business goals.
12. MOM continues to partner IHRP to support HR to implement progressive work practices. Since 2021, IHRP has introduced seven HR playbooks that address common or sector-specific HR issues. Available on IHRP’s online playbook knowledge bank, three of these playbooks are sector-specific, developed for the Food Services sector, and more recently, the Financial Services and Manufacturing sectors in 2022. The Manufacturing Employer Handbook for example, highlights companies like Tai Sin Electric Limited, which implemented a Skill Allowance Scheme where workers have opportunities to improve their salary, benefits and technical allowance by clearing skills and on-the-job assessments.
13. To sustain this momentum, IHRP will be working with Sector Agencies and Trade Associations and Chambers to develop three new playbooks in the next 12 months. They will focus on skills-based hiring for tech roles, and on helping HR in the retail and construction sectors.
14. We are also providing more guided support for our SMEs. IHRP will be scaling up their Transformation for Growth workshops. These workshops will guide SMEs to assess their HR maturity through the Human Capital Diagnostic Tool or HCDT, and implement human capital plays from relevant playbooks. Firms like Murata Electronics Singapore and Keystone Cables have found HCDT beneficial in generating comprehensive insights on key strengths and development areas, and tailoring implementable action plans to enhance human capital practices.I am pleased to announce that IHRP will also be introducing the HCDT Navigator in Mandarin later in 2023 in response to industry feedback. Do drop by the IHRP booth to learn more about their new and upcoming products.
15. I strongly encourage employers and HR professionals to reference the HR ITP and explore the rich resources available to address your business and people challenges.
“Engage”: Forward Singapore & Singapore Together
16. Lastly, as we forge ahead with transformative efforts, we remain committed to engaging all of you to build the workplace and workforce that we all want for the future.
17. Two weeks ago, I joined a Forward Singapore conversation with HR professionals. This was a lively discussion on how we could strengthen HR capabilities to support enterprise and workforce transformation, and how HR professionals can deliver the biggest impact for their organisations. Beyond business goals, this will also help many HR professionals in their own career goals. I was heartened that the HR community resonated with the need to step up and evolve their roles and I am confident that well-trained and well-skilled HR professionals with forward-looking mindsets can make a difference to employers, when they play a strategic role at the organisational leadership table. The HR community must also continue to support one another in this forward journey.
Conclusion
18. In closing, I urge HR leaders and professionals to embrace the opportunities and challenges in this journey of transformation and change. Let us work together to build an agile, strong and strategic HR that businesses will look towards for leadership, innovation and excellence.
19. I wish all of you a fruitful HR Tech Festival ahead. Thank you!