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2.2% per year<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Firms that sent local workers for training saw labour productivity improve over two years, likely because retrained workers performed tasks more efficiently, says SkillsFuture Singapore and the Ministry of Trade and Industry<\/p>\n
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38%<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
…of employees rated the current learning and development programmes at their workplaces as \u2018fair\u2019, \u2018bad\u2019, or \u2018very bad\u2019, according to the NTUC LearningHub\u2019s Workforce Learning in Workplace Transformation 2021 report<\/p>\n
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81%<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
…of employees in Singapore say they are ready to learn new skills or even completely retrain themselves, according to professional services firm PwC’s Hopes and Fears 2021 report<\/p>\n
By employees, for employees<\/h2>\n
So how can businesses ensure that they upskill and reskill employees successfully? For some companies, the answer is simple: Let employees drive innovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our employee engagement strategies is to constantly nurture and develop our employees through professional challenges,\u201d says Ms Ong.<\/p>\n
Mr Subhan worked with a workplace learning specialist from CWLP to design the job scope, skills and challenges of a new role: Technician and security officer.<\/p>\n
Together, they developed the blueprint for on-the-job training.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great opportunity for us to transform processes and create meaningful jobs for our employees,\u201d says Ms Ong. \u201c(The engineering team) saw it as an opportunity to upskill and safeguard their career during the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the project kicked off last January, about half of the engineering team have obtained their security licence from the Singapore Police Force.<\/p>\n
Encouraged by the results, Ms Ong says the hotel plans to expand this cross-learning programme for the front office and F&B teams.<\/p>\n
Professional services firm Deloitte is another company that believes in cross-skills training.<\/p>\n
With input from employees, the Financial Advisory arm of Deloitte worked with CWLP to develop a training exercise for its team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to equip our people with cross-servicing capabilities, and empower them to share ideas and co-create innovative solutions so that we can transform the way we work and how we serve our clients,\u201d says Mr Keoy Soo Earn, financial advisory regional managing partner, Deloitte Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static.straitstimes.com.sg\/s3fs-public\/articles\/2021\/11\/25\/deloitte-keoy-soo-earn.jpg\")
Upskilling and job redesign should be performed with foresight to help employees stay relevant, says Mr Keoy Soo Earn, financial advisory regional managing partner, Deloitte Southeast Asia. PHOTO: DELOITTE<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n The training exercise combined certain job roles of employees from the Merger and Acquisition Transaction Services (MATS) and Valuation and Modelling (V&M) business units.<\/p>\n
It is a sensible move. Before the exercise, certain processes within the Financial Advisory business were duplicated by employees from the two teams, says Mr Keoy.<\/p>\n
For example, the teams used to manually input the same set of financial numbers from a client into data books that were held separately.<\/p>\n
By merging the two teams and introducing a single-source data book with automated dashboards, efficiency and productivity can naturally increase.<\/p>\n
Growing together as one<\/h2>\n
Merging teams, however, can be challenging \u2014 especially in a time of remote working and limited face-to-face interactions.<\/p>\n
An October 2020 survey led by US-based think tank Pew Research Centre found that 65 per cent of employees felt less connected to their colleagues due to work-from-home arrangements.<\/p>\n
Building camaraderie among the two teams was what Deloitte had to do as part of its remote training exercise.<\/p>\n
\u201cChange is never easy,\u201d Mr Keoy says. \u201cWhile our people acknowledged the importance of upskilling and reskilling, it did take some effort to push past the hump and embrace the change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, a MATS team leader might not have been very convinced that a team member from V&M would look beyond their valuation mindset to work on the financial due diligence aspects of the project, and vice versa,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
To foster trust, Mr Keoy ensured that the employees had the chance to work together on projects and engage with their teammates from the other unit.<\/p>\n
About 15 per cent of employees from the MATS and V&M teams volunteered to take part in the pilot training exercise. They are now working in their new cross-servicing roles.<\/p>\n
Mr Hoo Jiunn Yih, financial advisory director, Deloitte Singapore, is one employee who has benefited from the training. \u201cAfter the exercise, our team became more efficient on the analysis, which in turn allowed us to have more clarity and better understanding of the deals during execution of both financial due diligence and business valuation projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to refining our skills further as we work on more projects, as I believe this will help all of us service our clients better, and advance our career,\u201d Mr Hoo adds.<\/p>\n
The training exercise will be expanded across the Singapore team and other selected teams in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
For Mr Keoy, the project has been anchored by three pillars: The insights and gaps identified from previous projects, open communication with employees on how to improve work processes, and the independent, unbiased perspective from the CWLP.<\/p>\n
\u201cCWLP came in to conduct independent interviews with our people so that we were able to have an unbiased view of what our people thought about going through the exercise,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Mr Keoy stresses the importance of such programmes for survival: \u201cUpskilling and job redesign should be performed with foresight so that our people can stay relevant in today\u2019s dynamic marketplace, particularly as organisations focus on transformation to thrive in the new normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enabling those who yearn to learn<\/h2>\n
The Institute for Adult Learning (IAL), an autonomous institute under the Singapore University of Social Sciences, has been promoting workplace learning since 2018.<\/p>\n
In January 2020, it established the Centre for Workplace Learning and Performance (CWLP) \u2014 a dedicated unit within the IAL that focuses on helping enterprises build a culture of continuous learning.<\/p>\n
The CWLP works together with companies of all sizes to identify business goals or challenges, and build workplace transformation projects to enhance enterprise productivity and competitiveness. It has helped more than 80 enterprises to date.<\/p>\n
One of its recent initiatives is its employee-driven innovation programme, which encourages employees to lead the improvements of work processes, from ideation to implementation.<\/p>\n
Urgent need to be relevant<\/h2>\n
The country-wide initiative to upskill and reskill employees has never been more urgent. The real threat of losing one\u2019s job amid a crushing pandemic has made it critically important.<\/p>\n
A report released by the Ministry of Trade and Industry last week revealed the devastating impact of Covid-19 on livelihoods in Singapore. By the third quarter of this year, the country\u2019s total employment had dropped by a cumulative 196,400. More than half of these jobs were lost during the circuit breaker period in the second quarter of 2020.<\/p>\n
However, the job market is showing signs of recovery.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Manpower’s latest Labour Market report notes that total employment has declined at a \u201cconsiderably slower pace\u201d: 3,400 jobs were lost in the third quarter of 2021, compared to 16,300 in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said earlier this month: \u201cAs our economy restructures and recovers from Covid-19, our workforce needs to develop the right skills to meet the changing needs of industries and businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
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