Staying Relevant In The Singapore Workforce

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When was the last time you attended a class, workshop or a course, with the intention to develop and upgrade your skills?

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How long would it take before you start to appear outdated? Upskilling is a current topic today. We are currently in the middle of a new industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, as the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2017 had indicated.

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Things are constantly changing and these changes have a big impact on our work. To maintain relevant, we have to constantly upgrade and learn. Never stop learning. One should always approach knowledge with hunger and thirst. There will always be new things to learn. It is exciting.

Singapore is an island city-state with big ambitions and is consistently competitive. As part of the competitve workforce in Singapore and the pride among developed nations, we need to make learning a priority. Learning and development is your responsibility.

There are plenty of ways to learn and one of the most common methods is through formal external programmes which are credible.

OK, but which training then?

You may be a specialist in your field and have exhausted every training program leading to a certification… so what else can you do? Take some humility classes and work on your soft skills: sales, negotiation, conflict management, anger management, communication, cross-cultural negotiation and management, assertiveness, listening skills, networking, presentation skills and there are so many more skills required to becoming an effective manager.

As Tom Peters has mentioned: “hard is soft, soft is hard!” Learning hard skills can be easy: manuals, directions, memory, knowledge, application and repeat. Soft skills are those hard to adopt, embrace, learn, apply: these soft skills are usually those which employers often cite a lack of in their managers and employees, while employees mention the lack of soft skills in their managers. Learning soft skills effectively involves changing your own habits, behaviour and attitude that impact who you are as a person in the eyes of others. They are the greatest source of frustration or success, those who will help you build mutually beneficial and long-lasting relationships and become who you want to be as a manager.

Developing people may well be one of your top priorities as a manager if you want to increase engagement and retention levels… but you must look into developing yourself in those areas first! You are the role model; your credibility is key.

Cost

In Singapore, we are lucky! There are thousands of training programmes that are very affordable. Many of them are funded by the Government if you are either citizen or permanent resident. Also, check out WSQ and how you can put your SkillsFuture credits to good use.

Companies can benefit from a number of direct and indirect funding programmess and incentives which keep the cost down and the quality high. Cost cannot be an excuse. It should be seen as an investment. Depending on the course and the scheme, companies can even get rebates for sending you for training.

For the employer, try and compare the cost of having continuously trained employees who are relevant who might leave your organisation vs. those who are irrelevant and will definitely stay (since their “employability” lowers over time)!

The cost of having untrained people is way higher: mistakes, compliance issues, productivity issues, poor personal branding, weak employer value proposition, limited engagement, blurry market positioning, lack of innovation and worse.

This is easy to do with today’s resources provided by the Government bodies which have also made learning and lifelong learning a priority for the workforce in Singapore. Employers will need to check if training courses are aligned with the Company’s objectives currently and in the future.

Yes, you are working full-time as a manager so how do you make time for training?

There are plenty of options! Evening classes, weekend classes or even during workdays! Learning is part of your job and it will positively impact your performance. It depends on your work environment and your manager but ideally, I would encourage you to take courses during the day.

It helps maintain decent work life balance and you may assimilate much better being less tired. Personally, that works better for me as I find that my brain isn’t capable of absorbing that much after a solid day at work. 

Instructor-led training, classroom style is definitely not the only learning option but is still the most common that leads to a certification (in Singapore at least, and especially in non-technical sectors).

So start today or give yourself a deadline to lay down learning objectives for the next 24 months and get started!

Step by step, you can

• Determine learning goals based or your strengths and weaknesses, in line with your personal career aspirations and your company’s expectations
• Research the market (yes, you own your development, not HR, not your manager, you must drive it AND ask for support) for providers
• Clarify the dates, budget, funding options
• Put together a development case for your manager to approve
• Demonstrate the value to the company, your team and clients
• Once approved, communicate extensively on what you will be doing and why, how it creates value for each stakeholders –  employer branding is reinforced and that helps everyone (attraction, retention, productivity).
• If it is not approved, repeat and strengthen the case.
• If it is still not approved, escalate and do it anyway because you can’t afford to become irrelevant in the workforce!
• If you are a people manager, I strongly recommend to apply this logic to yourself and your team as well (and encourage your team to apply these steps as well)! Yes there are plenty of other ways to develop yourself and your team but this is another article to come soon.

These are the views of Lionel Crottaz, Director with Adecco Singapore. He has over 19 years of work experience across several service consulting industries with a focus on B2B. He has occupied diverse roles as consultant, entrepreneur, project manager and people manager.