By Shukry Rashid
Photo by WDA
Employers need to take more ownership of employees’ upskilling, said Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Switzerland-Singapore Business Forum called ‘SkillsFuture – Developing a Future Ready Workforce’ held on 12 July 2016 at the Shangri-La Hotel.
According to DPM Tharman, evolving our work culture is an area where Singapore has the most to learn from Switzerland.
He said: “That involves two dimensions especially. First, the ownership that employers take in education and training, and ownership is a distinctive feature of the Swiss system. And second, the culture of society where anyone feels that they can improve continually, step by step, can become a master of a trade.”
About 200 representatives from both countries attended the forum, which was jointly hosted by Swiss Confederation President Johann Schneider-Ammann and DPM Tharman. It was the first time such a forum was held in Singapore as President Schneider-Ammann made his state visit to the island-republic.
DPM Tharman also said that Singapore has to develop a collaborative culture between employers in the industries. He cited an example of Lernzentrum Industrielle Berufslehren Schweiz (LIBS), a consortium of companies led by Swedish-Swiss company ABB that invests in training all workers of the consortium.
He also said that employers in Singapore may have the fear of training their own employees as they may leave after being trained.
But DPM said: “You will lose these employee after training, but you will gain another employee who has been trained up to the same standards. What goes around, comes around.”
Employers’ View
Singapore National Employers Federation President Dr Robert Yap agreed with DPM Tharman that there needs to be a mindset change to encourage companies to invest in training of employees even though they may leave for competitors.
He said: “But in the longer term, it is always important to train your workers because they will definitely be more loyal once they are trained by you [employers].”
Even if they leave the company to join competitors, they may return to the company in the future, added Dr Yap.
Unions’ Views
Also present during the forum was NTUC President Mary Liew, who said that that the Labour Movement can support and partner employers on training of workers.
Such supports include the NTUC-Education and Training Fund with the support of the Government, and collaborations with institutes of higher learning like Nanyang Technological University to develop technology-enabled learning courses.
Workers in companies that are afraid to invest in training may also find themselves stuck with the same set of skills.
To mitigate this, President Liew said: “There can be a two prong approach. First, to inculcate productive culture in companies through the IGP (Inclusive Growth Programme) scheme. In this aspect, we can push employers to have a key responsibility to build a productive culture and sharing of productivity gains with their workers.
“Second, individuals can take ownership for their own lifelong learning at the different stages of their lives.”
Source: NTUC This Week
