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Opening Address by BG (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin, Minister of State for Manpower and National Development, at The Human Capital Singapore Conference, 06 July 2011, 9:15am, Resorts World Sentosa

Employment practices
Mrs Fang Ai Lian
Chairman, Governing Board, Human Capital Singapore

Mdm Ho Geok Choo,
Chief Executive Officer, Human Capital Singapore

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and gentlemen

  1. Good morning. I am pleased to join you today at the opening of the inaugural Human Capital Singapore Conference.

    Productivity as a key driver for Singapore's next lap of economic growth
  2. Companies in Singapore are expanding aggressively to capitalise on Asia's dynamic growth story. This is good news for many employees – as it has brought greater job creation, with unemployment dipping to a three-year low of 1.9% in March 2011.
  3. To ensure that today's strong labour market performance is sustainable in the long run, Singapore must constantly tweak and re-invent its growth strategies to adapt to a rapidly-changing world. This will help us to stay ahead of our competitors. We do this not for its own sake but to continue to create good jobs for Singaporeans. Amidst the need for change, however, one constant is the importance of our people who make up the workforce. We need to ensure that they remain highly capable and motivated. Countries which can do so successfully will be able to achieve sustainable income growth and a higher standard of living.
  4. A highly-skilled workforce will allow Singapore to attract investments that require more complex skill sets and that provide better career opportunities and prospects. The Government has been focusing its effort on creating a pro-learning environment and providing a first-class Continuing Education and Training (CET) system to support the skills upgrading of our workforce. Recognising that professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) now made up more than half of our workforce, we have launched the Skills Training for Excellence Programme (STEP) to provide greater depth and breath of skills and knowledge for our PMETs.

    Everyone has a role to play in the national productivity drive
  5. The Government's effort alone is not enough. We need the support and participation of everyone – unions, industry associations, businesses and individuals. All these stakeholders have a role to play in continual skills upgrading and life-long learning. With a one-Singapore effort, we can improve our productivity and our ability to compete with the best in the global market.

    HCS and HCS Conference
  6. As a HR CET centre, I'm happy to note that HCS has adopted a proactive approach in working with not just HR practitioners, but industry associations and line managers to equip them with people management skills. I understand that since its formation in 2009, HCS has awarded more than 4,000 Statement of Attainments to participants who have successfully completed the HR WSQ competency-based training in various HR functional areas. HCS has also conducted 36 Community of Practice workshops, with over 500 participants in 20 organisations across nine industries. Such cross functional skills will go a long way in ensuring our workforce remains competitive, productive and future-ready.

    The importance of HR management and skills to support the productivity movement
  7. Earlier, I mentioned about the importance of a highly-skilled workforce. But what could possibly be even more important is a highly-motivated workforce. While companies have traditionally pursued productivity initiatives by investing more in capital equipment, product development and IT, what is less appreciated is that these initiatives need to be supported by strong Human Resources (HR) and leadership practices for them to work. Good HR and leadership practices and capabilities are akin to the heartware for productivity improvements. A happy and motivated worker is a productive one. And as we all know, this is often due to the leadership and the climate created in the organisation. Organisations will thus have to look at different ways of talent management to enhance and support its productivity initiatives.
  8. In this regard, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) has in place the HR Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework as a national CET framework for HR professionals. The 2-year-old framework was recently enhanced and comprises 107 competencies. This provides HR professionals and people managers a systematic pathway to achieve HR qualifications and professional certification. The framework also serves as a roadmap for organisations to develop their HR competencies and systems.
  9. One example is Knight Frank. In December 2009, HCS launched the Chief People Officer (CPO) programme, a specialist programme to groom top executive and corporate leaders to champion the organisation’s human resource capability development. Knight Frank enrolled seven of the senior management staff, including the Group Managing Director and the Managing Directors from their subsidiary companies, for the programme. The programme gave them insights and resources to guide them in planning and developing the right human capital strategies for their organisations. Knight Frank also put their line managers through the HR WSQ training in talent management and performance management when these programmes were offered last year.
  10. Knight Frank believes that people are their most important assets and training in core competencies is the most effective way to improve productivity. The HR WSQ competency-based training system also allows Knight Frank employees to upgrade their technical competencies as well as improve people and relationship management skills, across different job functions.
  11. Mr Jordan Neo, who is the Managing Director of Knight Frank Estate Management, shared that time and again, they have seen that employees who master people management skills are the ones who get ahead. The HR WSQ framework has benefited Knight Frank employees by giving them the opportunity to 'level up and up-skill' their people management skills within the company. This, in turn, helped to boost the productivity level across the company.
  12. Good HR strategies will help companies to manage and address an inter-generational workforce, especially with the changing expectations of our new generation of workers, whose work ethos are different from their predecessors. Beyond wages, other intangible factors such as work-life harmony, fair employment practices, career development and lifelong learning are becoming increasingly important considerations in the workers' employment decision. Companies that address these needs can usually see a positive impact on employee performance and engagement.
  13. I congratulate HCS on the organisation of its inaugural conference, which will focus on aligning organisations' human capital strategies with business growth and helping companies use strategic HR management to develop their businesses and stay ahead.
  14. I wish all participants a fruitful and engaging conference as we work together to explore ways to enhance Singapore's productivity through better HR capabilities and practices.
  15. Thank you.