SINGAPORE - Discrimination against hiring older workers, overly fussy job-hopping employees and top Singaporean talent unwilling to go abroad to gain vital experience.
These are some of the issues and human resource bugbears among firms here that have come to the attention of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC), which its new chief Victor Mills aims to tackle.
Mr Mills, 55, who became acting chief executive in April, was speaking to the media yesterday at a briefing to mark the launch of the chamber's new logo and corporate identity.
The image overhaul signals SICC's renewed focus on becoming more visible and initiating "thought leadership debates", in particular about manpower issues, said Mr Mills.
The ongoing talent shortage is "central to businesses", and is "what business leaders talk about when they get together and have a beer", he added.
The chamber represents about 700 companies here: half of them multinationals and the other half small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Originally from Northern Ireland, Mr Mills became a Singapore citizen in 2012. He highlighted some examples of the human resource issues that members have raised concerns about.
First, "the development of a workforce that has entitlement problems and a degree of over-fussiness" has led to rapid staff turnover at some companies, which can harm both individuals' prospects and businesses' long-term sustainability.
The chamber sent out a survey about improving employee mindsets to members last month, and also intends to seek the views of tertiary students - prospective employees - on this topic.
Another major issue is employer discrimination against older job-seekers despite Singapore's manpower shortage - which seems "illogical" from a business perspective, he said. "We all know our workforce is ageing... so why are we not using our human resources optimally?"
Finally, tighter restrictions on foreign manpower mean that firms must now make full use of their Singaporean talent - which sometimes entails overseas postings for promising employees before they are promoted to top jobs back home.
However, many Singaporeans take themselves out of the running for these senior positions because they are unwilling to work abroad, said Mr Mills.
Their concerns range from the need to care for ageing family members to how their children will cope upon returning to the Singapore education system.
The chamber hopes to generate discussions "with a broad range of stakeholders" on possible solutions to these issues.
Mr Mills said business chambers face challenges similar to those for many companies - including talent retention in the secretariat and getting their messages out to members.
"It's easy for businesses to overlook a message from their chamber... We want to use every conceivable avenue and type of technology to reach out to more people," he said.
This article was first published on June 13, 2014.
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