Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng,
Secretary General NTUC Mr Ng Chee Meng
President SNEF Mr Tan Hee Teck
Vice Chairman / Honorary Treasurer Singapore Business Federation Mr Mark Lee
Distinguished Guests,
Welcome
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural Career Health Summit, jointly organised by Workforce Singapore and the Singapore Business Federation.
Business and Workforce Trends
We meet at a time when the rate of change in the business landscape is intense. When we first conceived this inaugural Summit, it was at the tail end of a very different US administration, and yet here we are today, in a very different environment, wrought with uncertainty in the economic environment, and amidst this uncertainty, the pressure to digitalise, automate and innovate has only grown stronger. As tech and AI can be both generative and disruptive, the time to refresh our workforce strategies and double-down on skills development is now. Further, demographic changes and evolving expectations of meaningful careers and jobs, requires us to take an “all-hands-on-deck" approach to building the career health of our entire workforce.
About the Inaugural Summit
That is why we are here today. This inaugural Career Health Summit brings together industry leaders, academia and professionals who believe that career health, like financial health, is essential to your business health.
At its core, Career Health is about supporting individuals assess and take active steps to grow – through learning, through career mobility, through development. It is about enabling businesses to open up new pathways to talent, build resilient teams, and drive long-term success.
Over the next two days, we’ll explore how businesses can do just that – by implementing new workforce structures, redesigned jobs, and career pathways, and equipping our people with the mindset and skills, to grow and thrive amid change.
You’ll hear from fellow business leaders and private sector partners who are leading the way in career health.
We’re especially honoured to welcome Professor Joseph Fuller from the Harvard Business School. As creator and co-leader of the two large projects at Harvard focused on the workforce, Professor Fuller’s research, including papers like “Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent” and “The Caring Company,” has helped businesses across the world better understand how workforce strategy can drive sustainable growth. His insights into skills mismatches, evolving employer-employee expectations, and workforce resilience makes him a leading voice in this space.
Making Career Health Your Business Priority
As it’s often said in planning, let’s begin with the end in mind. As the 1st speaker of the day, let me take the liberty to crystal gaze into the next two days, and attempt to sum up the key highlights we hope you will take away from this Summit.
First, the time for career health is now. Global economic uncertainties, rapid tech adoption and the continued need to build new skills is not going to wane. In this age of disruption, career health is business health. Workforce planning, skills and career development must be embedded into strategic business roadmaps and is integral in business transformation and innovation.
Second, people are at the heart of our business. Career health is not just for our top talent and high potentials, nor is it just focused on improving low performance. When we invest in the growth and mobility of all our people, we can build new and emerging skills whilst recognising the value of current skills, business experience and positive attributes and values. By enabling our people to better navigate different stages in their careers, we build the resilience and agility in our organisations. So, let’s move beyond job titles and academic qualifications and adopt skills-first talent management practices recognising the skills our people possess whilst we continue to develop new and emerging skills.
Third, let’s move from intention to action. Intention is important, but action is what creates change.
The government has put in place enablers and support to help businesses take that next step, and we are ready to work alongside with you whether it’s adopting skills-first hiring practices, redesigning jobs or introducing career guidance for your teams.
For example, Acronis, whom we have here today, has collaborated with us to deliver career guidance workshops for employees seeking professional growth and development and are equipping line managers with the ability to implement structured career planning in their teams. And we have many more partners working with us to support you. We have also developed the Career Health Playbook, created in partnership with Channel NewsAsia. This Playbook is not just a guide. It is a practical toolkit with bite-sized strategy cards, videos and real stories from local businesses.
So there is a wealth of Career Health tools and resources, and we hope today you will access or learn many of them.
Launch of Career Health SG initiative
To affirm the importance of career health, we are pleased that Minister Tan and our tripartite leaders Sec Gen and President SNEF are with us today to mark this important milestone as we officially launch Career Health SG, a national initiative led by the Ministry of Manpower and WSG, supported by SkillsFuture Singapore.
Closing
As I close, let me take the opportunity to thank our Summit partner SBF, all our industry partners and speakers who have made this event possible. And all of you who have taken the time to be here today. Your commitment to workforce transformation and in improving the career health of your workforce is truly heartening.
So we can’t future-proof jobs, but we can future-proof our people. Let us work together to build a dynamic and resilient workforce that is ready for tomorrow’s challenges.
Thank you, and I wish you all an inspiring, and a fruitful and insightful summit.