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Steering your career: How S’poreans are preparing for the future of work

With industries evolving faster than ever, focusing on building career health can help workers to navigate change confidently, says experienced career coach

BY KAREYST LIN | PUBLISHED 06 NOV 2025

BRANDED CONTENT

Steering your career: How S’poreans are preparing for the future of work

With industries evolving faster than ever, focusing on building career healthy can help workers to navigate change confidently, says experienced career coach

BY KAREYST LIN | PUBLISHED 06 NOV 2025

At 39, Ms Parameswari Seenivasan was married with two children aged three and six, with a stable job in public relations. 

Most people would have clung to that stability. But Ms Parameswari chose a different path: She walked away, took a 10 per cent pay cut, and started over.

Why? “I realised there was no point (working in a job I didn’t like) till retirement,” says Ms Parameswari.

That pursuit of purpose led her to Workforce Singapore (WSG), where she has spent the past 16 years as a career coach. She had no prior experience and learnt everything on the job, with guidance and support from WSG. 

A statutory board under the Ministry of Manpower, WSG delivers initiatives to help individuals reskill, advance their careers, and support employers in workforce transformation and job creation.

In the past, career support initiatives were often spurred by industry transformation, encouraging individuals to reskill to stay job-ready. But today, WSG’s focus is on helping workers build career health so they can adapt, plan, and grow in an unpredictable world.

“If we want our people and businesses to thrive, we need to be proactive and preemptive about career health and the entire journey that comes with it,” said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng at the launch of the national initiative Career Health SG on Jul 10.

It is a shift that Ms Parameswari has witnessed firsthand. The senior career coach has helped over 2,000 professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) – most of them mid-career switchers like herself – navigate their career journeys.

“When I first started, career conversations were more linear,” she recalls. People wanted to know how to climb up the ladder within a single function or industry.

Career planning, she observes, is no longer seen as just a luxury. “Now, with economic uncertainty and rapid technological change, people are prioritising strategic career moves and skills development over immediate financial gains,” says Ms Parameswari.

Her advice for navigating this uncertainty: Build your career health and plan ahead.

Just like physical health, Ms Parameswari explains, career health needs regular check-ups. By routinely evaluating their skills and goals, individuals can recognise opportunities for growth and strengthen their employability proactively.

But what does career planning look like at different stages of work and life? Here are some Singaporeans and a local business exemplifying the shift, each pursuing prospects, clarity and productivity in the work they do.

Mr Dan Lum felt the pressure to land a job soon after completing his classes at the Singapore University of Social Sciences in May. 

“There’s a lot of societal pressure to be employed right away,” says the 26-year-old, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing in October. “I also wanted to be financially independent (soonest).”

That urgency drove him to apply for up to 30 positions a day, mostly entry-level finance roles. 

At the time, Mr Lum only had a vague idea that he wanted to be a financial analyst.

On paper, he seemed like a strong candidate, having completed four finance internships, including a stint in Shanghai. 

But at interviews, Mr Lum found it challenging to move beyond broad, general responses. The two offers that did come his way were not roles that he was interested in, Mr Lum recalls.

The turning point came when he joined Polaris by Volunteer Career Advisors (VCA) in September. 

Launched in early 2025 by WSG, the programme offers fresh graduates like Mr Lum one-on-one advisory sessions with industry professionals who help them craft personalised career plans, share sector insights, and point them to useful resources for their job search. 

The sessions are free for all fresh graduates.

Mr Lum’s key takeaway from the sessions: “Figuring out what I truly want in this industry, and how to set goals that would shape the early part of my career.”

Developing the workforce

Workforce Singapore offers a range of programmes and platforms to help employers transform their workforce and workers build their career health. These include: 

With guidance from his advisor – a finance professional with about 20 years of industry experience – Mr Lum narrowed his focus to corporate commercial transaction banking, with asset management as a secondary option.

The experience has changed the way Mr Lum looks for employment. He now applies for jobs with greater purpose, targeting firms and roles aligned with his interests, rather than randomly sending out resumes.

Mr Lum has also started thinking long term. Since he has no debts or major financial obligations, he’s giving himself until the end of the year to land his ideal role.

There’s no hurry, says Mr Lum, as “I’ve realised a career is a marathon, not a sprint”.

The career clarity that Mr Lum has today is what another volunteer career advisor, Ms Jackie They, 52, tries to help fresh graduates realise.

Ms They is the general manager of a marketing agency. As a volunteer career advisor with WSG, she has guided both fresh graduates and mid-career switchers over the past year and a half.

Many young jobseekers enter the workforce with only a loose idea of what they want, she observes.

For example, in marketing, says Ms They, a lot of graduates don’t realise that roles can range from data analytics and brand strategy to campaign execution. These are vastly different roles that require unique skill sets.

While having a clear goal matters, she adds, it may be “unrealistic” to expect to land the ideal role right away.

“You may have to work towards it (by) finding a job that helps you understand the industry better, plug skill gaps, and gain experience.”

Her advice: Keep an open mind and keep learning. “Start exploring something that interests you, even if it’s not in your main job,” Ms They says. “You’ll find that it will come back and serve you in other ways.”

Ms Marnihidahyuni Tohani, 32, used to clock steps as part and parcel of her workday.

She would weave through three-metre tall shelves at the ST Logistics warehouse in Clementi, manually picking out items for eMart orders.

Ms Marnihidahyuni joined the homegrown supply chain management company as a logistics supervisor in 2018.

Her team of six packs orders from eMart, the supply hub where national servicemen can buy personal equipment online using eMart credits.

Today, Ms Marnihidahyuni simply taps a few buttons on her dashboard. And within minutes, the goods are sent straight to her packing station by an autonomous robot that resembles a large robovacuum.

What used to take up to 30 minutes to fulfil – an order of 10 line items – now takes just five. Productivity has soared: Her team now handles up to 300 orders a day, almost double of what they did before.

This change is part of ST Logistics’ wider digital transformation that started in 2021 – which included the deployment of autonomous mobile robots and the automated four-way shuttle system in its warehouse.

To help staff keep pace, the company sent 90 logistics supervisors, including Ms Marnihidahyuni, to Career Conversion Programmes (CCP) for Supply Chain and Sustainability.

Organised by Workforce Singapore (WSG), the CCP was held over three months. Participants received on-the-job training to master the new automated systems.

What prompted this transformation? The Covid-19 pandemic, says Mr Fun Kum Wah, chief operating officer of ST Logistics.

Supply chain disruptions at that time made the company realise it needed to transform to ensure business resilience, explains Mr Fun, 63, who has been with ST Logistics for 35 years.

The transformation was underpinned by strong support for workers, says Mr Fun, to help them build new skills, improve career prospects, and grow alongside change.

In 2022, ST Logistics introduced its Skills Allowance Scheme, rewarding staff who pick up new digital and technical skills with up to $450 a month. To date, 97 per cent of its 1,100-strong workforce have tapped the scheme.

The company also leveraged WSG programmes – such as CCPs – to support its workforce development.

In addition, each employee works with their manager to identify skill gaps, chart a skills pathway, and review progress annually.

As a result of these efforts, ST Logistics saw a 10 per cent increase in new hires aged 35 and below between 2022 and 2025.

This is a clear sign, says Mr Fun, that the company’s digital push was reshaping perceptions of the logistics industry among the younger workers as “dull” and “unsexy”.

The attrition rate also plunged.

It used to hover between eight and 10 per cent, shares Mr Fun. But now, it sits at around three per cent, mostly due to retirements.

Ms Marnihidahyuni, who was used to manual processes, initially found learning to work with machines a steep learning curve.

But with training and support, she has grown more confident – and even started taking on coaching responsibilities, training newer teammates.

“At first, I thought automation would replace people (like me),” she admits. “But it actually (helped us) to do more.”