HR COMPETENCIES STRATEGIC HR MINISTRY OF MANPOWER SINGAPORE HUMAN CAPITAL SUMMIT
Singapore - Singapore business leaders believe their HR professionals have the potential to add greater value to the business but they are still a distance away from becoming a good business partner.
The first nationally commissioned study by Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has revealed that Singapore HR practitioners can add value on the business bottom-line by as much as up to 12%, compared to their global counterparts. But only if they harness their HR competencies effectively, the survey by The RBL Group, a leadership and human resource consultancy firm, said. Hence, local HR practitioners are still rated lower than their global peers in all the competencies by their business leaders.
While the difference is "not significant", it does indicate that senior leaders here expect their HR function to contribute even more to the business than anywhere else in the world. That's even though they are already "most adept at building relationships". Low Peck Kem, MOM's director of people matters department and project director of national HR capability building unit, explains it's because some HR practitioners still do not understand the business enough to provide HR value for business growth.
Low adds that "enlightened" senior business leaders who see the value of HR within their organisations can help their HR colleagues to be even more strategic. Help them with "strategic human capital management", understanding the business and even in planning for the business' long term manpower needs, she suggests.
However, Caroline Lim, global head of human resources and corporate affairs for PSA International believes there is no one-size-fits-all development plan for HR practitioners to acquire all the HR competencies deemed as important by their business leaders. "What's important is for the HR practitioner to apply it [the competency] in the right way."
Initiatives the government is rolling out to help local HR practitioners raise their game both in adding greater business value are fourfold. First, HR professionals can now take up workforce skills qualifications in leadership, people management and human resources management. "The objective is taking a look at the competency levels - where the gaps are and how do we reach the gaps," Low says. "It has been intentionally developed to be modular bite-sized so it's easy for [HR] practitioners to fill those gaps."
Senior HR directors who already have the right competency levels can further enhance their business knowledge with executive education which are anchored with top business schools, says Low, but ‘Asianised' for local context. The first week-long executive programme with London Business School is scheduled to start in November. Global thought leaders will also be brought in to Singapore to facilitate exchange of international HR ideas and practices and provide strategic human capital management advice which will hopefully help stimulate HR transformation.
Lastly, there is a HR capability package to help SMEs "that can't quite afford their own HR department" meet the basic legislative compliance level, says Low. Once SMEs can achieve that, they can start looking at manpower objectives such as fair employment practices, flexible wage schemes and SPUR funding. The full research findings from the HR Competency Study will be shared at the Singapore Human Capital Summit 2009.
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