Chairman of Human Capital Singapore, Mr Richard Magnus;
CEO of Human Capital Singapore, Madam Ho Geok Choo;
Distinguished Speakers;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good morning and thank you for inviting me to speak at this event. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament in Jan 2016 and spoke about why innovation is important for Singapore’s continued progress and development. This is a matter close to my heart.
I believe that Singapore should innovate and grow by making full use of our competitive advantages such as our trusted brand name, excellent connectivity, and openness to talent.
At the same time, we must also develop our local talent to build a strong Singaporean Core.
Please allow me to share an excerpt from my 2016 speech:
“One of our key success factors has been our ability to stay connected to the world and be open to new ideas and talent from abroad. We must preserve these elements if we want to remain an innovative society.
The critical thing is that when we open up, we do not lose our identity and we must continue to ensure that Singaporeans remain at the core of everything we do.
This is not easy to achieve and there will be tensions, but we must find a way to strike a good balance between these objectives.”
So, I was glad to read the recent speech by Mr Ravi Menon (Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore) where he explained how Singapore should grow an innovative economy. And why we will need a strong Singaporean Core working alongside the best talents the world has to offer.
Achieving this balance is a challenge for many countries, including Singapore. There are genuine concerns with foreigners working and living here, and it is not always easy to explain why we cannot have more jobs for locals without some competition from foreigners.
The government will take steps to address these concerns, but without turning inwards and closing our doors to the world, because doing so will ultimately hurt us. Given our small domestic economy and our position as a global and regional hub, it is more practical for Singapore to build bridges to connect with the world than to build walls to shield ourselves from external competition.
The key is how we can persuade as many of our people as possible to support a balanced approach of keeping ourselves open to international investments and foreign workers on one hand,while protecting the livelihoods and well-being of our local workers and ensuring that Singaporeans remain at the heart of everything we do.
We also recognise that it is important to have economic growth and for businesses to do well so that they can provide good jobs and opportunities for our workers.
When we enlarge the economic pie, there is more for everyone to share and greater scope to achieve win-win outcomes.
Hence, NTUC will continue to support policies that are pro-business, and at the same time ensure that they are pro-worker, especially during this pandemic when everyone is facing head winds and challenges.
At a recent Singapore Business Federation tripartite dialogue with business leaders, which Dr Robert Yap and Minister Tan See Leng also attended, I said that an important factor which affects the “lived experiences” of local workers is how their employers and HR managers treat them at work.
These experiences are powerful in shaping perceptions, more so than our policy explanations and statistics. When the emotions in our hearts feel different from the logic in our heads, most people will follow their hearts. It is what makes us human.
A Parliamentary colleague shared an anecdote of her resident who lost his job when his company went through a difficult time. When he attended a job interview with an MNC, the foreign HR manager asked him “you wrote in your CV that you spent two years with the SAF, what is SAF?”
He was almost in tears when he related this story to my colleague. As a proud NSman who had served and defended his country, it was hurtful for him to be asked “what is SAF?”.
I am puzzled how this HR manager can be responsible for interviewing and hiring Singaporean workers when he is not even familiar with our country and culture?
More than 80% of our HR professionals in Singapore are locals, does the company not have a local HR manager who could do the interviewing and hiring? Or if it is a foreign HR manager, could it not be someone who has been in Singapore for some time, and understands our country’s culture and social norms?
Our Labour MPs have advocated for anti-discrimination legislation in Singapore, which the Ministry of Manpower is reviewing. The coverage should go beyond nationality, to include safeguards against discrimination based on other factors such as age, race, and gender.
Yesterday we celebrated Racial Harmony Day. It is a timely reminder of our commitment to build an open and inclusive society, and why multiculturalism and workplace diversity are important factors that support innovation.
Although it is a small minority of employers and HR managers with unacceptable practices, the discrimination against locals has a disproportionate negative impact on the lived experiences of Singaporean workers.
Some encountered this first-hand at their workplaces, while others learnt about it from their family members and friends. I understand why they are upset. I would feel the same way.
Hence, in dealing with the concerns of foreigners working and living in Singapore, a key part of our response must focus on collaborating with employers and HR managers through our tripartite partnership to improve workplace practices for local workers, strengthen the emphasis on developing local talent and invest in building a strong Singaporean Core in our workforce.
If we can achieve this together through our tripartite efforts, it will help Singapore to maintain the balance we need to keep our society open to foreign workers and at the same time, provide sufficient protection and assurance to our people.
The Government and NTUC stand together with our local workers. We understand their anxieties and concerns, and we will continue to review our policies to offer protection for their livelihoods and to invest in their skills and employability.
Our position is clearly demonstrated during this pandemic, with the comprehensive range of support measures like Jobs Support Scheme (JSS), Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI), Self-employed person income relief scheme (SIRS), Enhanced Training Support Package, SG United Jobs and Skills initiatives, as well as many other training and job support measures which started even before Covid-19 pandemic began, such as Professional Conversion Programme, SkillsFuture training subsidies and SkillsFuture credit.
Without these measures, many more Singaporeans would have lost their jobs last year. But we did not allow this to happen, because we stood by our local workers and tapped on past reserves to provide the necessary life support to save jobs and protect livelihoods. Despite the pandemic, our local employment grew by 14,900 in 2020.
I know SNEF and the large majority of our employers support this position too, to build a strong Singaporean Core complemented by foreign workers as an additional engine to boost our competitiveness.
I am also glad to know that Human Capital (Singapore) has been a strong advocate and valued partner in the training and lifelong learning for our workers and HR professionals. Please keep up your good work.
In my speech today, I would like to make three suggestions for discussion. First, we should continue to encourage companies to “think local” when it comes to hiring and career progression, while adhering to the principles of having the best man or woman for the job.
I want to be clear that this is not a call for affirmative action or to prevent companies from hiring foreigners. But we want companies to adhere to the spirit of the Fair Consideration Framework, to consider local job applicants fairly, and not simply go through the motion of putting up the advertisement and waiting for 28 days to pass. If there are suitable locals who can do the job, I urge employers to lean in favour of hiring a local worker.
Please do not see this as an act of altruism or doing national service, it is a decision which makes commercial sense for the company. Fair and merit-based hiring enables employers to tap on the widest talent pool possible.
The local worker can also add to your Singaporean Core and give you more leeway to hire foreign workers in areas where there are not enough locals to fill the vacancies, or in job roles that require highly specialised skills and knowledge which are currently lacking in our local workforce.
This is the outcome we want to achieve – having foreign workers who can complement our local workforce, so that we enlarge the pie and there is more for everyone to share.
In addition, there are many government subsidies and grant schemes which only local workers are eligible for, which can help to defray the hiring and training costs for the company.
For example, we offer protection and safety nets for local workers ranging from Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) and Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) to Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) and Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI).
There are also SkillsFuture training subsidies and SkillsFuture credits, as well as the different SG United Jobs and Skills internships and attachments which companies can tap on to upskill your local workers.
I encourage employers and HR managers to make good use of these government schemes to train your local workers and provide them with more opportunities for progression.
Take Mr Tan Kian Hwa from KONE Corporation, which is a global company from Finland in the lift and escalator industry.
He started at KONE as a technician in 1993. The company sent him to Finland and Hong Kong for training, enabling him to learn from experts in these countries. It also sponsored 50% of his part-time degree programme at NUS.
Today, Mr Tan is a Director at KONE and a valued member of the company’s management team.
His story illustrates how developing a Singaporean core can lead to a win-win outcome for both the company and workers.
My second point is that companies should work with government agencies and unions to invest even more in the lifelong learning and skills upgrading of our local workers.
The late Mr Hoon Thing Leong (洪鼎良), whom we are honouring during this event, is a firm supporter of lifelong learning (活到老，学到老). He not only applied this discipline to himself, he also encouraged other towkays to do likewise by setting up the Bosses Network and publishing books to share his experience and insights.
Just as we believe that having a job is the best form of welfare for our workers, the best form of protection for our workers against global competition and economic disruption is through training and skills upgrading. Lifelong learning for lifelong employability.
We have been making steady progress on this front since the launch of SkillsFuture in 2015, but one area where more needs to be done is to get more employers to support and invest in the lifelong learning of your workers, including local workers.
I was involved in designing and pushing some of these initiatives at MOE, working together with colleagues from SSG, WSG, NTUC and the industry to launch SkillsFuture 2.0.
One initiative which we started, and I believe has potential to expand further, is to have collaborations between the institutes of higher learning and companies to develop more work-study programs and enable a larger proportion of each cohort to benefit from these applied learning pathways.
RF360 Singapore is a subsidiary of a US MNC which manufactures Radio Frequency Front-End filtering solutions for mobile devices.
The company has offered 10 student internships to Polytechnic students, and four of them have converted to full-time employees. Another four students have gone for further studies, and they could be potential candidates to recruit in future.
RF360 also partnered ITE to offer a Work Study Diploma with eight trainees in the pioneer batch. The programme will last two and a half years with on-the-job training supplementing structured academic learning.
We hope to see more examples like RF360. It is a win-win for both employers and workers, and I believe these are important investments to prepare our workers for the future economy and to develop a skilled Singaporean core for our growth sectors.
In my current capacity at NTUC, my team and I have been engaging companies, both MNCs and SMEs, to form Company Training Committees (CTC) and leverage the Operation and Technology Roadmap (OTR) tool to transform their businesses and workforce in tandem.
NTUC will work with companies to tap on the resources within Labour Movement, including e2i for worker placement and NTUC LearningHub for training, as well as incentives and grants from Government agencies.
The desired end goal is to help companies better serve their customers, upskill their workers and build stronger capabilities for the future. During this pandemic, we also want to help affected companies to survive the long and cold Winter and transform their operations to be ready for growth when Spring arrives.
When companies do well, they can provide good jobs and training opportunities for their workers. This becomes a win-win arrangement and a virtuous circle for all stakeholders.
Singtel signed a CTC with the Union of Telecoms Employees (UTES), and used this as a platform to invest in the training of its workers.
It launched #CURIOUS, a group-wide digital learning platform that features more than 100,000 curated courses and videos covering topics from technology to leadership.
UTES encouraged members to sign up for #CURIOUS and take up courses through the UTES Intensive Training Programme. Last year, the company trained almost 12,000 workers.
Singtel will be investing $45 million over the next three years to deepen the digital skills of all its 12,600 employees in Singapore and prepare them for the digital economy.
Another example is Certact Engineering, a unionised company under the Metal Industries Workers’ Union (MIWU), which transformed its business to manufacture medical equipment components like COVID-19 ventilator parts and data storage parts.
Through the CTC with MIWU, Certact Engineering redesigned its Machinists job role into Robotics System Operators, and significantly increase their production efficiency.
e2i also supported the company with placement initiatives to increase their workforce size by 25% and provide funding for their digitalisation and automation projects.
The company is also partnering NTUC LearningHub to equip its workers with digital skills.
Through all these efforts, the company has doubled its revenue and the workers have benefitted from significant wage increases.
Last but not least, I would strongly advocate that the Government should sharpen the differentiation in how we treat employers with good HR practices and strong relationships with the unions, versus those with poor HR records and do not put in effort to develop their local workforce.
There is already a differentiation today, but I am proposing that the delta should be made more explicit so that companies will have every commercial incentive to be recognised as good employers.
For example, could we consider appropriate ways to give good employers with positive HR practices and strong links with the unions more favourable consideration when it comes to government tenders, projects, and grants?
In its bus package tenders, LTA specified that maintaining harmonious union-management relations is one of the factors which will be considered in evaluating the bids from participating companies. This gives a clear and direct incentive for the public transport operators to forge a strong relationship with the National Transport Workers’ Union. I think this is a good approach which more government agencies should adopt.
Good employers who invest in building a strong Singaporean core and develop strong tripartite relations add social value, and we should recognise their contributions in tangible ways by giving them a competitive advantage.
Conversely, “triple weak” employers destroy social value with their irresponsible actions. I do not see why they should enjoy privileges like getting government grants and projects or having the flexibility to hire foreign workers.
A differentiated approach will allow us to take firm action against the small minority of black sheep, who cause problems for everyone with their egregious behaviours, without resorting to a carpet-bombing approach that would affect all employers and erode our overall economic competitiveness.
This will set the correct tone and the right set of incentives for companies and employers to support the larger social and economic objectives we want to achieve in Singapore.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to address you. I will be happy to engage in a further conversation with you during the dialogue session, if you have any questions on the topics I have covered in my speech or any other topic you wish to discuss.
Thank you.
