Opening remarks at IHRP's People Behind People Forum
Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State for Manpower, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands
Mrs Deborah Ong, Chairperson of the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP)
Mr Aslam Sardar, CEO of IHRP
Mr Sim Gim Guan, Executive Director of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF)
Ms Caryn Lim, Assistant Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and CEO of the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i)
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. Good morning. It is my pleasure to be here today, at the 5th year of the People Behind People Forum.
2. This annual gathering is testament to the HR community’s dedication in staying at the forefront of HR issues and shaping the future of our workforce. Today’s theme, “Empowering People, Driving Business”, underscores the critical role of employees in driving business success.
3. With a rapidly evolving business landscape, HR professionals are at the forefront of transformation, feeling direct pressure of stronger competition and uncertainties in a more complex working environment. We hear two key concerns from our HR professionals:
a. First, technological disruptions like the advent of Generative AI are fundamentally changing the way we work, phasing out yesteryear's skills and business strategies.
b. Second, evolving expectations of a multi-generational workforce on the back of our changing demographic requires employers to cater to differing priorities of workers around learning, flexibility, and purpose.
These translate to significant challenges for employers to recruit, develop, redeploy and retain talent. According to a 2024 study by PwC, skills gaps are holding back business transformation for six in 10 businesses, while less than four in 10 report a positive outlook for talent availability in the next five years.
4. Our ability to navigate these changes will require innovative approaches to workforce development. This is why the Government is rolling out Career Health SG in support of the SkillsFuture movement. Career Health SG seeks to empower Singaporeans to chart long-term career pathways through career coaching and deepening skills with insights on jobs growth and industries.
a. With this, Singaporeans can take proactive steps to improve their career outcomes through training, on-the-job learning, and intentional career moves.
5. Career Health SG also equips employers to invest in human capital development and take a skills-first approach to hiring.
a. In this way, we will enable employers to access a larger talent pool from adjacent sectors or developing skilled talent from within. Employers who do this systematically will benefit from a highly skilled, motivated, and agile workforce that will contribute to, and drive productivity-led growth.
b. This is also an area where HR can show its value to business transformation, moving from a more backend function to growing strategic assets to drive the next bound of business growth. They are truly the people behind people.
6. It is with these considerations that the Ministry of Manpower and the Singapore National Employers Federation formed the Alliance for Action (AfA) on Widening Access to Talent. This AfA brings together industry, employers, and HR leaders to collectively redefine how we attract, retain, and engage talent.
a. Over the past nine months, the 20 AfA members across the Information and Communications Technology, Manufacturing and Retail industries and Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs), comprising SGTech, Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) and Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), have been hard at work ideating and test-bedding potential solutions to address common talent challenges.
b. The process saw support from tripartite partners SNEF and NTUC, as well as key stakeholders such as IHRP.
7. [Announcement] Today, I am happy to announce that the AfA has completed its work. It will launch a report to showcase forward-thinking solutions and put forth actionable recommendations that companies, the Government, and ecosystem partners can adopt to transform talent management practices here in Singapore. I want to thank the AfA for their hard work. Allow me to share a preview of some of the key findings and recommendations that you can expect.
The AfA Journey
8. Through industry consultation, the AfA identified our focus areas to guide employers in widening access to talent, each addressing a pervasive talent challenge.
9. The first area is how employers can leverage transferable expertise from adjacent talent pools through skills-first hiring practices. Employers in Singapore are more willing to adopt skills-first hiring. More employers are also not using academic qualifications as the main hiring criterion, but many cited challenges in implementing skills-first hiring. To help hirers look out for transferable skills during recruitment, the AfA came up with a few recommendations.
a. One of them is an AI-Powered Assessment Tool to automate applicant screening based on objective skills-based metrics. The tool was found to be effective in improving efficiency of the hiring process and reducing unconscious biases, resulting in a wider candidate pool to be considered for further screening. This is seen in Cisco Singapore, where the implementation of skills-based assessment reduced the average hiring lead time by 20% and increased diversity hiring rates from 21% to 40%.
b. Building on the success of the AfA members, the AfA recommends that more of such sector or jobs-specific standardised assessment tests for skills-based jobs be developed. This will help employers assess transferable skills of candidates and widens your hiring pool to candidates who may not have the relevant qualifications or job experience on paper but could actually do well on the job.
10. To further drive adoption of skills-first practices in Singapore, the AfA also recommends the adoption of a common nation-wide skills taxonomy and developing a database with verified skills of the workforce. This provides a common language for employers and jobseekers to find the right skills match.
11. Beyond recruitment, a common challenge is retaining talent. Employees today seek more than just a job – they want to learn, develop their skills, and grow their careers. Internal mobility is thus a key cornerstone for talent retention. However, many employers lack the structures to facilitate internal deployment or plan for their staff’s training and development. This forms the second focus area of the AfA – to improve workforce agility and retention through skills-first workforce development to promote internal mobility.
a. To address this, one of the AfA members, Temus, piloted an internal talent marketplace. It is a digital platform to match employees to career development opportunities based on their skills, interests, and preferences. They observed that the tool empowers employees to try out new job roles, broadening their perspective and experience, which put them in good stead to try out new career pathways. This has led to improved career satisfaction and talent retention.
12. However, the implementation of an internal talent marketplace can seem overwhelming, particularly for resource-strapped small and medium-sized enterprises. The AfA has thus recommended to provide employers with clear guidance for simplified implementation. These include playbooks that provide templates for employers to create a streamlined version of an internal marketplace that suits their needs, and guides that identify off-the-shelf solutions to address common adoption barriers such as lack of awareness of cost-effective options.
13. We’ve discussed harnessing the potential of internal talent through enhanced internal mobility. However, some industries experience variations in manpower demands and find it challenging to hire for certain roles such as frontline retail jobs. To address the labour market crunch, employers must look beyond existing talent pools. With 1.12 million residents outside the workforce, around one quarter of them are retirees, and another 8% are not working due to caregiving responsibilities. There remains a huge untapped pool of talent who would be willing to work if suitable opportunities are available.
14. The third focus area of the AfA thus explored how employers can increase job accessibility for workforce segments with diverse needs through job redesign. The AfA recommends developing structured programmes as a means to attract students, seniors and stay-at-home mothers to take up hard-to-fill jobs. The structured programmes would facilitate the match-making process, aligning the needs of employers with those of various demographic needs.
15. I earlier mentioned that there is a ripe opportunity for HR to show its value to business transformation. Indeed, successful skills-first organisations have HR as a catalyst in securing leadership buy-in and mobilising the organisation to align business priorities with workforce strategies.
a. This was demonstrated in Singtel, which saw HR taking the lead in making bold changes to their HR policies to support internal mobility initiatives. Today, more than 20% of Singtel’s job listings are filled internally, up from its previous 10%. The organisation also benefits from increased talent retention.
16. Given the central role of HR, it brings me to the last and probably most critical area of the AfA – to uplift HR capabilities. A key recommendation of the AfA is thus to make a stronger push for IHRP certification, which allows HR to be part of a like-minded community and gain access to peer support and resources, and be kept updated on the latest human capital trends. Employers and the HR can also benefit from external help in their transformation journey and the AfA recommends that more be done to increase SMEs’ access to HR advisory and consultancy services to help them overcome barriers to adopting skills-first practices.
MOM, SNEF and ecosystem partners are supportive of the AfA recommendations
17. MOM and SNEF are heartened by the industries’ ground-up actions and are supportive of these recommendations. They are aligned to the Career Health SG which show that employers and TACs recognise the importance of our efforts to develop a future-ready workforce to drive sustainable economic growth.
a. The Government is committed to supporting employers with resources and tools to better support their employees’ career health. We recently enhanced Workforce Singapore (WSG)’s Career Conversion Programmes to co-share costs with employers who reskill new hires or existing workers for new or enhanced job roles, and will continue to support NTUC in its efforts to scale up enterprise and workforce transformation through Company Training Committees.
b. As a next step, we are exploring other ways to help workers take stock of their skill sets, and better signal that to employers. We will also do more to support employers with better skills data to facilitate skills development of their workforce and skills-first hiring.
c. SNEF will also be working with the industry to develop the AfA’s recommendations further. This includes the development of standardised skills test and structured programmes to attract students, seniors, and caregivers to take up hard-to-fill jobs.
18. IHRP will also be supporting the HR community in embarking on their skills-first journeys.
a. [Announcement] I am happy to announce the launch of IHRP’s “Job Redesign Playbook for Human Resources”, a resource with use cases and bite-size toolkits to guide HR in implementing job redesign. This is IHRP’s first response to uplift HR capabilities as recommended by the AfA and is also part of WSG and IHRP’s efforts under the Job Redesign Centre of Excellence launched by Minister last year.
19. As we explore new opportunities to co-create a stronger HR ecosystem at the forum today, we also celebrate HR leaders who are accelerating the future of progressive people practices.
a. I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to the five HR leaders who will be conferred recognition as IHRP Master Professionals. This is the pinnacle of the IHRP Certification, reserved only for top HR leaders who actively contribute to the HR industry.
b. Please continue to inspire your fellow HR and share your expertise widely with the community.
Conclusion
20. In closing, the AfA signals the strength of collective commitment among our TACs and employers to widen our access to talent and sustain our future growth. But it also shows something even more powerful: when we co-create, exchange ideas, and share innovations, we are better able to translate our ideas into action.
21. The AfA members have put up a gallery to share their experience and insights from their pilots under the AfA. I urge all of you to visit the gallery and consider how these solutions can be adapted and implemented in your own organisations.
22. Thank you and I wish everyone a fruitful forum ahead!