NTUC U Human Resource (U HR) held its quarterly U HR dialogue on 28 August 2017.
Sitting on the panel were Former Speaker of Parliament Mdm Halimah Yacob, NTUC Assistant Director-General (ADG) Vivek Kumar, NTUC LearningHub CEO Kwek Kok Kwong, Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP) CEO Mayank Parekh, Cargill Group, HR Leader Jennifer Lee, as well as Center for Creative Leadership Managing Director Dr. Thomas Goh, who was the moderator.
In an opening speech, ADG Vivek explained how "unusual" our Labour Movement is compared to overseas: “The union doesn’t work as a disruptive force, we work as the second loop of feedback to HR and the management. We work proactively with you to ensure that if there are issues that the workers are facing, together we can address that rather than wait till the last minute, when it goes out of hand and the union feels there’s a need to have an industrial action.”
The future of the HR role was also discussed, with two emerging trends identified – the HR function is being subsumed by other roles and the HR is transforming into a more strategic role that helps to solve business challenges.
To move towards the latter, Mdm Halimah urged some 60 attendees from the industry to automate repetitive tasks and use their time to come up with valuable suggestions for the management.
At the end of the session, HR professionals visited booths to learn more about IHRP certification and NTUC LearningHub’s HR-related courses.
