Plugging Skills Gaps – Lessons from a Young Professional

Clichéd as it may sound, change really is the only constant. That is especially true in the context of our workforce today, as multitude of factors such as technological advancements and pressing issues of sustainability drive fast evolving skills needs. It is no longer enough to keep up with changes in traditional job roles, but to be ready for the emergence of new ones.

This requires a mindset shift, one that I have learnt from Hazel, a young professional in the deep-tech sector. Her career journey started off in teaching. Four years ago, she made the switch to the high-tech farming sector, motivated by the use of technology and data to improve crop yields in conditions with environment limitations. She first prepared by dipping her toes in the world of coding through an entry-level online course, then continuing with a 6-month long structured career conversion programme in software engineering. She got a job as a software engineer but Hazel then noticed a growing demand for Cloud Solution Architects, decided to upskill in cloud engineering, and subsequently landed her role with her current employer.

Hazel’s career pathway may be considered off the beaten track in the past but in current times where the jobs and skills of today can turn obsolete tomorrow, the pursuit of continuous learning, upskilling and career transitions can open new doors of opportunities. How may we encourage more of our workforce to be like Hazel? We take a closer look at how different stakeholders in the skills ecosystem can come together to enable that.

Our Evolving Skills Ecosystem

In Singapore, workforce development, from pre-employment training (PET) to continuing education and training (CET) has been our key focus since the start of nation building[1]. Through tripartite efforts, we have maintained the competitiveness of our workforce and our economy[2] over the decades. These efforts need to be accelerated as our economic transformation pick up speed and our skills ecosystem becomes more developed.

The concept of a ‘skills ecosystem’ was first coined by Professor David Finegold in 1989, who posited that a high-skills economy can be achieved by ensuring the skills supply meets the skills demand. He emphasised that the matching of skills needs required deliberate coordination between key stakeholders, identified as the education and training providers, the employers, and the workforce.

In the early years of our economic development, we took pains to ensure our post-secondary education institutions and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) produced graduates with the requisite skills. Although this remains relevant, we are now putting even more emphasis to ensure our incumbent workforce has the requisite skills to develop career versatility and be able to realise their career aspirations throughout life stages, in parallel to supporting business transformation.

Today, our skills ecosystem is far more mature than 20 years ago. The more recent example was the launch of SGUnited Jobs and Skills in 2020 at the peak of the pandemic. Together with training and employer partners, Singapore created jobs, hosted training, and launched career conversion and reskilling courses for industries and their workforce impacted by the pandemic. Over the two years, 22,000 Singapore citizens have enrolled for the SGUnited Jobs and Skills training opportunities. This is testament to the agility and timely response from the stakeholders within our skills ecosystem, from employers to education and training providers, the Labour Movement and the government.

Under the charge of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), our Training and Adult Education sector has grown from strength to strength. The speed to convert from in-person training to online training at the peak of the pandemic is testimony to their responsiveness. Since 2018, our IHLs (Universities, Polytechnic and Institute for Technical Education) have transformed their role into Institutes of Continual Learning (ICLs), taking on the lifelong learning mandate on top of their traditional research and teaching responsibilities. While this is a new venture for our ICLs, they have gained good traction in their new mandate.

To better anticipate and identify skills, we have advanced from depending purely on expert input on an episodic basis to leveraging dynamic labour market intel and data science techniques on an ongoing basis. This allows Singapore to keep track of skills demand and supply in a timely manner, and ensure that we have adequate quality CET courses to meet the skills that matter. The regular publication and dissemination of our jobs-skills insights, including SSG’s first annual Skill Demand for the Future Economy Report 2021, our inaugural Jobs-Skills Quarterly Insights, and Jobs-Skills Insights Webinars are resources to support decision-making of our citizens, enterprises and education & training providers.

What more needs to be done to turn the flywheel of our skills ecosystem?

All Hands on Deck in our Refreshed Effort to Reskill and Upskill Our Workforce

We have done it before, and will do it again. The main difference is that we expect the speed and frequency of change to be intensified. While government support continues, a whole-of-nation effort is required to scale and sustain pre-emptive reskilling and upskilling efforts. Businesses, individuals, CET partners, training providers, and intermediaries (such as trade associations and chambers) must come together to ensure “skills-to-market” cycle is delivered ever more quickly.

I) Employers: Play an active role to articulate skills, develop skills and recognise skills

Based on the Singapore Business Federation’s National Business Survey 2021/22[3], attracting/retaining manpower has leapfrogged market share growth and cost reduction to become one of the top priorities for businesses in the next 12 months, with staff training rounding off the sixth highest business priority.

This shift in business priorities is not unfounded. Investment in staff training is expected to increase as more work processes and operating models change to take advantage of the Green Economy and Digital Economy. As a result, jobs transformation[4] in Singapore is expected to accelerate at an increasing rate. An initial study by SSG estimates that some 170,000 jobs in job functions relating to Operations & Administration, Human Resource, Sales, Marketing & Customer Services, Finance & Accounting and Engineering & Technology, will expect to see varying degrees of job content change within the next three years.

Employers are in the driver’s seat to close the skills gaps in their workforce. This entails articulating the skills needs in tandem with business needs, providing the workplace learning environment that translates skills to performance, and proactively developing not only its current but future workforce.

Let’s zoom into local engineering services company Rotary Engineering Pte. Ltd. as an example that has established a robust skills-based career paths for their employees in Singapore and globally. The firm works with the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) to run work-study programmes for their employees. Employers such as Rotary Engineering believe that waiting to recruit ready-skilled talents is no longer tenable and steady streams of talent pipeline must be established upstream, and developed on the job. This is why SSG is working with the National Centre of Excellence for Workplace Learning (NACE) to help workplaces develop their capability to design and facilitate workplace learning for performance. As of April 2022, NACE has helped 1,500 companies implement workplace training programmes, supporting initiatives from internships to work-study programmes, SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways (Company Training), and company-based training.

Larger firms that are working with a large community of small-medium enterprises (SMEs) can also bring mutual benefits by playing the role of SkillsFuture Queen Bees through offering training to the SMEs in their value-chain. One such example is local supermarket chain Sheng Siong, which is training their value-chain of SMEs in the retail, food manufacturing and logistics sectors in the areas of automation and digitalisation. The return-on-investment to Sheng Siong is higher productivity, improved predictability and enhanced service standards across its whole supply chain, including its SME partners.

As more and more progressive employers lead by example, employers must also recognise micro-credentials and skills learnt at work, beyond just formal qualifications, as part of the new skills landscape. The ability to articulate the specific skills required will be much more important than just using a general diploma or degree as a proxy of one's general capabilities. Our employers will need to acquire the skillsets to articulate such new demands in a sharper and more timely manner.

II) Individuals: Take charge of your own skills development journey

In 2021, SSG saw a record number of individuals participating in training, with 660,000 individuals completing at least one SSG-supported training programme. Our workforce training participation rate also reached new heights, with close to 50% participation in work-related structured training compared to 35% in 2015[5]. However, only 30% of eligible Singaporeans have utilised their SkillsFuture Credit as of Dec 2022, which suggests that lifelong learning is not yet a habit of our citizens.

Some citizens see upskilling and reskilling as their employers’ responsibilities, i.e.. “My employer will tell me what is needed, and will send me for the training that company needs”, while others proactively take ownership of their skills to better their career growth and mobility. No surprises on which group is more ready to take advantage of opportunities in the future of work. 

In the book The 100-Year Life, Professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott highlighted the need to manage our Productive Assets and Transformative Assets to thrive in the future of work. Productive Assets refer to skills, knowledge, experience and the continuous investment in personal reskilling and upskilling[6], while Transformative Assets is a new asset class to support individuals in traversing successfully in the multi-stage life[7]. This requires individuals to have high self-awareness, a diverse network of peers and friends, and an open mind to take on new experiences. This also means all of us should cultivate the habit of learning new skills as a form of self-care, to enrich our experiences, and achieve the desired career outcomes through our multi-stage life.

Remember, as with many aspects of life, the ‘new normal’ now includes jobs and skills. The thinking that “I’ll just wait for the next opportunity that matches my current competencies to come along” does not quite work anymore.

III) Education and Training Providers: Expand CET offerings, improve timeliness, and shorten cycle from when demand is aggregated to when the supply is activated and training completed

Education and training providers play a major role in our reskilling and upskilling agenda. They undertake the design and delivery of learning-performance interventions to meet business and workplace needs, and are responsible for measuring the training outcomes from their intervention with their clients.

The speed-to-market to roll out required training has also become the responsibility of our education and training providers. Employers are turning to online modular bite-size learning to quickly onboard their employees and support their upskilling, so that the cycle from learning to performance is accelerated. They also require training providers to tap learning technologies to scale and monitor learning progress of their clients, providing targeted assistance where needed.

As our workforce is expected to undertake career transition more frequently, our education and training providers must also step up their employment facilitation capabilities beyond just training. Career-Learning coaching service will be a form of learner-success service. Working with employment partners or developing such capabilities in-house will be a requirement.

IV) TACs, Professional Bodies and Labour Movement: Play an active role in aggregating skills needs and mobilising reskilling

In Singapore, we are fortunate to have like-minded partners in the labour movement, professional bodies, and trade associations and chambers who are committed in the reskilling and upskilling agenda. In August 2022, SSG signed MOUs with the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI), Singapore Computer Society (SCS), SGTech, the Institute of Engineers, Singapore (IES), and the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP) to jointly identify essential sectoral skills more responsively, link skills development with enterprise transformation and job redesign efforts within the sector, and help companies better recognise employees’ skills acquisition and skills mastery. This is an important milestone for Singapore’s reskilling agenda as we deepen our coordination and collaboration efforts to enhance skills articulation, aggregation and recognition.

Our Labour Movement is also a staunch supporter of workforce development. They have played a major role in rallying the workforce for reskilling and upskilling initiatives through the Employment and Employability Institute, Company Training Committees, and NTUC LearningHub.

We Can Plug the Skills Gaps Fast Enough to Meet the Skills Demand

Going back to Hazel’s story, we see the culmination of the different stakeholders' roles at play – an individual taking ownership of her learning journey supported by access to in-demand jobs and skills information and resource, quality and affordable training programmes and employers who push boundaries to grow and innovate.

With all hands on deck, we can plug the skills gaps fast enough to meet the skills demand of our economy, with increased accuracy on which skills will keep our competitive edge. We have done pre-emptive reskilling as a nation before (e.g. the National Computer Programme in the 90s; the preparation of the digital workplace in 2018-2020), and we are prepared to do so for our Digital, Green, Care and Industry4.0 economies, and whatever the future may unfold for us. As long as all stakeholders come onboard, we can achieve the vision – A Nation of Lifelong Learners, A Society that Value Skills Mastery. _________________________________________________________________________

Citations

[1] Learning for Life, 2015. Commemorative book published by Workforce Development Agency

[2] 2022 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, Singapore ranked 3rd

[3] Singapore Business Federation, National Business Survey, 2021/22.

[4] Workforce Singapore Agency, Jobs Transformation Maps

[5] Ministry of Manpower. (2021). Supplementary Survey on Adult Training. Singapore: Manpower Research & Statistics Department.

[6] Page 106- 122, The 100-Year Life

[7] Page 136-146, The 100-Year Life