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Why nurturing talent is key to beating the labour crunch
There is an urgent need to build an ecosystem of lifelong learning to mitigate workforce and economic challenges
To encourage talent growth and development, companies must create opportunities while being flexible to the needs of workers.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Toh Ee Ming, Content STudio
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In adapting to ever-present economic challenges, companies will need to prioritise talent development to build a future-ready workforce.
It is a sentiment echoed by global experts at Singapore’s inaugural Global Lifelong Learning Summit 2022 last month.
But there are challenges across different groups of workers at various stages of their career.
Specifically, three groups of people are at risk of being left behind, said Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam, in his opening address at the summit.
- Blue-collar and non-professional white-collar workers who are more at risk of stagnating in their careers compared to professional workers;
- Mid-career workers who have long left school and with little time for learning because of other obligations;
- Those in small and medium-sized enterprises that lack the scale and resources to develop training programmes.
It will therefore be society’s “largest economic and social endeavour”, said Mr Tharman, to design a new system of lifelong learning as part of a continuous investment in human capabilities.
He adds that this is even more urgent in maturing societies with low labour force growth and a fast-ageing workforce.
The “art and science” of training adults is very different from the conventional methods used in the regular education systems, said Mr Tharman.
Adults want to have a say in deciding what to learn and the strategy should focus less on content-oriented learning, but problem-centred learning.
Likening it to training for sports and sustaining injuries, Mr Tharman said there is a need for constant upskilling and learning throughout life to build a “collective resilience” to bounce back from downturns or disruptions.
Held from Nov 1 at Pan Pacific Singapore, the two-day summit was themed “Maximising the Socio-economic Impact of Lifelong Learning”. It was jointly organised by the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL) and SkillsFuture Singapore.
International partners include the Asia-Europe Meeting Lifelong Learning Hub, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Unesco Institute for Lifelong Learning.
Governments, organisations, educational institutions and major companies came together to discuss how lifelong learning supports inclusive economic growth, and how to adapt to increasingly rapid changes to their workplace and work requirements.
Build a flexible education ecosystem
Businesses need to develop workers’ skills in a flexible manner to better respond to dynamic markets and adapt to digital and green transitions.
Likewise, those in the informal economy will need to have access to flexible learning options to develop skills and qualifications that give them decent work opportunities.
From left: ILO lifelong learning specialist Pedro Moreno da Fonseca, MQA deputy chief executive officer Khairul Salleh and director general of India’s Standing Conference of Public Enterprises Atul Sobti spoke of the challenges and opportunities with the use of micro-credentials.
PHOTO: INSTITUTE FOR ADULT LEARNING
That’s where micro-credentials can come in to address the challenge of flexibility and adaptability, said Mr Srinivas Reddy, Skills and Employability Branch Chief of ILO.
“They can help learners develop targeted skills, even when qualifications are not available, at their own pace and at an affordable price.”
By developing both technical and soft skills in a “personalised and targeted way”, it helps firms become more productive and innovative, and improve the career progression of workers, adds Mr Reddy.
For example, the European Union has been supporting young Africans on a self-directed learning-to-earning journey since 2020.
According to ILO, more than 20 per cent of those aged 15 to 24 in Africa are jobless. In 2020, young people worldwide were three times as likely to be unemployed as adults, due to reasons like a lack of access to training, insufficient work experience and limited financial resources.
But thanks to a digital portal, Yoma, which incorporates micro-credentials, the young have a chance to develop skills, engage with a community and access employment. More than 250,000 young people have already benefited from Yoma’s programmes and gained new entrepreneurial pathways.
Another example is Malaysia, which is building a strong micro-credential ecosystem, said Professor Khairul Salleh, deputy chief executive officer of the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).
In Malaysia, higher education institutions like universities offer micro-credentials that originate from their academic programmes.
This year, the MQA will roll out the Stand-Alone Micro-Credentials pilot programme to provide more recognition for micro-credentials towards attaining a formal qualification from higher education institutions.
The entire ecosystem has to be in place, from important stakeholders like traditional short-course providers, employers, employees, funding bodies and regulators. “We need everybody to be in the same team,” said Prof Khairul.
By the numbers
- US$11.5 trillion
The amount of cumulative GDP growth that 14 G20 countries could lose if the digital skill gap isn’t addressed, according to a 2021 report by research institute RAND Europe
- 220 million
The number of learners reached by massive open online courses from 2011 to 2021, according to a report this year by management consulting firm McKinsey and Company
- 70 per cent
Of adults across 19 countries say they will be financially worse off than their parents based on today’s economic conditions, according to a survey this year by US think-tank Pew Research Centre
- US$50 million
TikTok’s investment in its creative learning fund. In 2020, TikTok announced a new #LearnOnTikTok programme, which paid for educational videos during Covid-19 lockdowns.
- 282 million
Estimated number of young people who are not in education, employment and training in 2020, according to an ILO report this year
To progress and profit, invest in talent
Another key point at the summit: Companies also need to take the lead to help their workers be future-ready.
When technology evolves so rapidly, workers need help to cultivate a mindset of constant learning to keep up, said Mr Zhang Zhengjun, Asia-Pacific vice-president of telecommunications giant Huawei.
To help its workers, Huawei has an internal learning platform that staff can access anytime. They can also tap external resources like universities to brush up on their knowledge in tech and other sectors.
Investing in talent pays in many ways, such as increased productivity, staff retention and employee engagement. That was the case for local fintech firm M-DAQ.
During pandemic lockdowns, the company introduced a credit system for staff to buy items to be more productive while working from home – be it a Wi-Fi mesh router to improve internet connectivity, a gaming chair for comfort, or noise-cancellation headphones to enhance their working environment.
The firm also embraced the hybrid working concept and has since signed up for co-working space memberships to give workers more flexibility. Staff productivity increased, said Mr Richard Koh, M-DAQ’s founder and group chief executive officer.
Another interesting trend highlighted is the shift from hiring based on previous job experience towards a “skills-first” lens. This could help raise the talent pipeline by some 10 times, said Ms Trisha Suresh, head of public policy and economic graph for South-east Asia at LinkedIn.
For instance, front-line and hourly workers may possess skills similar to customer service representatives, which helps them find opportunities to pivot into new roles, she said.
At global tech training firm General Assembly, its instructors are real-world practitioners who bring in-depth experience from the field to the classroom each day, said Ms Christen Bollig, the firm’s chief operations officer.
Such emerging providers also play a complementary role to traditional higher education institutes. They “act as incubators” to pilot new strategies.
“What allows us to be successful is the nimbleness and speed in which we can introduce new concepts and curriculums… Those things tend to be more challenging in a traditional academic structure,” she explained.
This was produced in partnership with
