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All major companies in the air transport sector have committed to set up Company Training Committees (CTCs) with their respective unions in the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster. These include key air transport employers Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Changi Airport Group (CAG), dnata Singapore, SATS and the SIA Group.
The respective companies are committed to work with their unions to increase the capabilities and productivity of their workforce by re-designing jobs, reskilling and upskilling workers in line with the various productivity and innovation initiatives rolled out under the Air Transport Industry Transformation Map (ITM). A total of 34,500 workers employed in the sector could potentially benefit.
Already, dnata Singapore has formed a CTC with dnata Singapore Staff Union, and SATS has formed CTCs with the SATS Workers’ Union and Air Transport Executive Staff Union. Some early initiatives include SATS sending their employees for the SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace course, to first help them develop awareness of emerging technologies and its importance in the workplace.
Inclusive Manpower Development for Air Transport Ecosystem
The NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster will ensure all training initiatives are inclusive and made available to everyone in the airport community. This includes outsourced workers, who are an important workforce segment in the airport – a major employment hub. There are about 5,000 outsourced workers comprising cleaners, security officers, landscape maintenance workers, facilities management workers and trolley retrievers working in the airport terminals.
For a start, Certis and the Union of Security of Employees had already formed their CTC in July 2019. There are about 3,000 security officers working in Changi Airport. More details of CTCs formed between other service providers and their respective unions will be shared on a later date.
Cluster Approach to Support Sector Transformation
To better support the various CTCs, the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster, together with CAAS, also intends to form a sectoral-level CTC workgroup to extend the CTCs’ lenses to the sector level. Through a community approach, the workgroup will ensure that the entire air transport ecosystem is ready for more integrated man-machine workplaces, in line with industry transformation.
To do so, the workgroup will consolidate the air transport CTCs’ discussions and plans and identify common sectoral challenges to better shape the sector’s collective priorities and pool common resources. For example, for jobs that face challenges in recruiting additional local workers, the workgroup will discuss how the sector as a whole can accelerate technology adoption to overcome recruitment challenges. For jobs that continue to require manpower and are difficult to be complemented with technologies, the workgroup will look at how to strengthen the industry’s attraction and retention efforts to sustain its manpower pipeline. This can include looking into improving the work environment and branding of specific jobs.
The workgroup will also look to aggregate the training needs identified by the various CTCs and work with educational institutions to design training courses relevant across the air transport sector, especially for jobs with similar training needs. Digital and technology skills are two areas where training needs can potentially be better aggregated, as the various CTCs are looking into raising the digital awareness of workers or transforming them into digital workers to keep pace with industry transformation. For example, the focus for rank-and-file workers will be to enhance their digital literacy. For others, there will be training in new areas such as Robotics Process Automation, which makes use of digital technology to automate routine processes and trigger responses with minimal need for human intervention. Companies can then use these available courses as a base to further customise the training to suit their own operational needs.
Kevin Shum, Director-General of CAAS, said, “The air transport industry’s transformation must bring about enhancements to our workers’ jobs and skills. We are heartened that our sector’s employers are forming CTCs, to better synergise their transformation plans to their workers’ developmental needs and create win-win outcomes for both employer and employee.”
Ong Hwee Liang, Chairman of the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster, said, “As our unions in the Cluster work with management through the various CTCs to ensure our workers are better prepared for the future, we hope that the sector-level approach that the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster is undertaking to complement the CTCs’ efforts will help accelerate workforce and job transformation across the entire air transport ecosystem. The air transport sector consists of a few key players and there are competing business needs amongst them. It is therefore heartening to see that we can come together and undertake unified actions to tackle common sectoral manpower challenges.”
Cham Hui Fong, Supervising Lead of the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster said. “Changi Airport itself is a major employment hub of different working communities, either outsourced workers or direct employees. We must address every aspect of the airport and airline business, from passenger services to cargo handling, airside functions, airline operations and air traffic control to the outsourced services in the airport. Improvements in one area cannot achieve full potential unless complemented by changes in other areas. Tripartite partners need to come together to not only drive innovation and productivity, but also ensure that every air transport worker is equipped with the necessary skill sets to become Worker 4.0, as the airport transforms into a smart airport.”
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