15 New Companies On Board the Human Capital Partnership Programme
08 May 2019Press Releases
On 8 May 2019, Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Minister of State for Manpower and National Development, presented HCP Certificates to 15 new HCPartners, bringing the number of HCPartners to more than 550. About 60% of the 15 new HCPartners are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). This indicates increased importance of human capital development amongst the SMEs. Some of the new HCPartners include Schindler Lifts (Singapore) Pte Ltd and Yotel Singapore Orchard Road (Please refer to Annex A for the list of new HCPartners).
ABOUT THE HUMAN CAPITAL PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME
Launched in February 2017, the Human Capital Partnership (HCP) Programme is a tripartite initiative that brings together a community of employers who are committed to grow their businesses and stay competitive by having progressive employment practices, and developing their human capital. The focus on human capital development is essential for Singapore’s economy to remain competitive, for businesses to attract and retain talent, and grow, as well as for Singaporeans to continue to have better jobs, better salaries and better careers.
The HCP Programme seeks to grow an inclusive community of progressive employers, known as Human Capital Partners (HCPartners). HCPartners are committed to nurture a stronger local workforce; maximise complementarity between locals and foreigners, and enhance skills transfer from foreign to local employees to increase the capabilities of the local workforce. They are employers of choice who value their employees and are committed to investing and developing them across all levels. They also provide opportunities for growth, continual learning and training programmes, and career development for their people.
ABOUT THE HCP MARK
All HCPartners will receive the HCP Mark (above), which is a symbol that identifies HCPartners as exemplary employers and visually represents a company’s relationship within the HCP community. It is an endorsement of the continued commitment by HCPartners to human capital development and can be used in the firm’s corporate and marketing materials.
Firms may contact the HCP Programme Manager at 6302 2782 or email hcpartner@tafep.sg for more information about the HCP Programme, as well as advice on schemes and grants to develop human capital and adopt progressive workplace practices.
BEST PRACTICES OF SOME HCPARTNERS
Enabling skills transfer and developing future leaders: Schindler Lifts (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
Schindler Lifts (Singapore) Pte Ltd is part of a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, and was established in 1975, after Jardine Matheson of Hong Kong and Schindler Holding of Switzerland embarked on a joint venture to market Schindler lifts and escalators in the Asia Pacific region. With a team of 500 employees, they provide sales, installation, repair, maintenance and modernisation of its range of products including elevators, escalators and passenger conveyors for their customers.
As they endeavour to be the organisation of first choice to their customers, they believe in supporting their people who build and grow with the business, through a holistic human capital strategy and commitment to people development.
Skills Transfer
To remain ahead in the vertical transportation industry, they continue to develop capabilities of their local workforce via skills transfer related to Predictive Data Analytics and Maintenance through the Internet of Elevators and Escalator (IOEE) Systems which connects all parties involved with the necessary information in real-time. They started this initiative since February 2018, and engaged foreign specialists, to share the knowledge and skillsets to their workers. To date, they have trained over 65 local employees.
Talent Development
To maintain 80% of key positions to be succeeded by locals, they focused on succession planning, talent pipeline and developmental pathways for key leadership, technical and functional positions. Apart from existing efforts to develop their people, they would also place employees on mentoring, leadership and technical development programmes such as:
- Schindler Career Development Program - provides career and leadership development through a 6-year global job rotation.
- Young Leader Program - provides regional exposure through overseas leadership training and project work.
- Accelerated 2-year Schindler Apprenticeship and Field Engineers development program – to develop a pool of local technicians and engineers and placement of promising new hires.
Profile Stories:
(a) Mr Yeo Wei Liang, Service engineer, Major Projects
Mr Yeo Wei Liang, Service Engineer, Major Projects was one of employees who had benefited from the company’s human capital development efforts.
He graduated from the National University in Mechanical Engineering in 2016 and began his career as a trainee in the 2-year, Field Engineer Development Program (FEDP) which involved cross training in various operational departments. With each rotation, he was trained on the job and earned the lift technician certifications. After graduating from the programme, he was appointed to lead a group of lift technicians, and through the process and interaction with external and internal customers, it had helped to improve his management skills.
Apart from that, he was involved in the company’s skills transfer initiative, and was selected to be the pioneer batch of engineers to be trained in installing and testing their cloud connected elevators and escalators. With the data and analytics gathered, they were able to take predictive maintenance actions on the equipment to avoid foreseeable breakdowns. Through this, the usage of artificial intelligence had helped to complement his competency along with other field technicians, enabling them to be more effective in troubleshooting and resolving issues during maintenance. This had often resulted in avoiding stoppages all together.
“With Schindler’s commitment to people development, I am in good position to grow with the organisation, and am confident of my technical capabilities, being able to apply what I learnt from my training. Looking back on the past year, my team’s capabilities and my leadership skills had also grown. I’m proud that while my team can resolve issues independently, we can work as one unit to ensure reliable service is delivered to the customer.
(b) Mr Muhammad Azmi Bin Bulat, Senior Chief Engineer, Existing Installation
50-year-old Mr Muhammad Azmi Bin Bulat, Senior Chief Engineer, Existing Installation Schindler Lift Singapore, was one of their long-serving employees who had also benefited.
He began his career as a lift technician with Schindler Lifts Singapore in 1991, and rose 5 ranks to become a fully certified Lift Engineer, Existing installations in 2010. Thereafter, over the next 5 years, Mr Azmi continued to juggle between part time evening diploma studies in Supervisory Management (sponsored by the organisation), and his roles as a Senior Field Engineer and Schindler accredited technical trainer in the Technical Department. After completion of his studies, he was selected to head the Existing Installation Technical Team and promoted to Chief Engineer. He was also involved in grooming the younger apprentices and engineers, and was recently promoted to Senior Chief Engineer on 1st April 2019.
Due to his excellent and consistent performance, he received numerous accolades and awards in Schindler and Jardine Schindler Group in Asia.
“I’m a proud employee of Schindler. With Schindler’s commitment to maintaining a good work culture and people development, I have been able to grow tremendously as an individual, developing my self-discipline, critical and rational thinking and leadership skills. Throughout my career, the numerous investments in my training and work opportunities has equipped me much knowledge, skills and experiences, enabling me to conduct myself professionally, delivering results and solutions to our customers.”
Creating better-valued jobs for local ‘Crew’: YOTEL Singapore Orchard Road
YOTEL Singapore Orchard Road is a vibrant and new player in the local hospitality industry, which was launched in 2017. It believes in providing a hotel experience that is seamless, intuitive with extraordinary value for their customers, through innovative technology, design and their people.
Living by their mantra “Constant And Never-ending Innovation”, they are always looking out for ways to improve their operations, create better-valued jobs and develop the careers of their employees – known as their ‘Crew’ – one of their key assets in their organisation.
With the use of technology and innovation, they were able to reduce the mundane work performed by their employees, redesign their jobs and enhance their exposure to different areas of work. This provides them opportunities to upskill and maximise their potential, while delivering value-added service to their customers.
Some of their initiatives included:
(1) Roll-out of robots (YOSHI and YOLANDA) to handle guest requests for amenities and services
- It is the usual practice in the hospitality industry to have separate units in the housekeeping department. Through the adoption of technology and reinvented policy, they were able to merge the functions, and expose their staff to different work scope, enhancing their knowledge and expertise.
(2) Set-up of self-service kiosks for registration, collection of keys, check-out, etc.
- With the kiosks, it relieves their front office staff (“Mission Control”) from mundane, repetitive work such as issuance of keys, check-in services. They can focus on service delivery with more interaction with their guests such as concierge services, assistance in passport verification, elevating the customers’ experience at the hotel.
Other development initiatives include:
- Multiskilling of their Crew to cover different job functions, enabling them to transit into managerial positions.
- Providing overseas assignments to Europe and exposure to operations of other YOTEL hotels, with key takeaways from the trips being shared and adopted in local operations.
- Developing cluster positions to expand work scope (e.g. roles to support both YOTEL Singapore Orchard Road, and the new YOTELAir Changi Airport.)
Profile Story:
55-year-old Cabin Crew, Mr Ruslan Bin Ahmad, who had joined the hotel since they started was one of the employees who had benefitted from the hotel’s innovation initiatives. The hotel recognised his potential and wanted to develop him and expand his role. With the adoption of the robots to assist in guest request, they were able to merge 3 functions (Linen, Uniform, Runner) in the housekeeping unit into 1, which he took charge. In the process, he was able to learn new skills and expand his knowledge on different functions, further contributing to the organisation.
“With our robots Yoshi & Yolanda, helping us to deliver our guest room amenities, I am able to be able to expand my work scope, take on a more senior role - to be in charge of the uniform room and manage our laundry operator as well as be in charge linen inventory and deployment of linen,” said Mr Ruslan.