Given the tight labour market, employers need to find ways to mitigate issues surrounding the lack of talent – through developing staff internally and promoting from within.
In a Manpower Ministry report released earlier this year, it was highlighted that the labour market remained tight in Singapore. The situation stayed largely unchanged – there was still a glut of vacancies in the service and sales industry, and positions that were unfilled for more than half a year and hard to fill by locals bore the same status. The tight labour market has been an issue for employers for the past few years – but there are several ways they can address this.
The Challenges
One of the biggest challenges that arose out of a tight labour market is the difficulty of hiring qualified talents for executive positions. It is hard to find a top-level executive possessing these traits: good leadership, good management habits and ability to work well and effectively in a team. Most times, organisations have to resort to the time-tested method of traditional head-hunting in order to fill their open positions.
And after the process of attracting and hiring a person with the right skills are done with comes the next daunting stage – the training of a new employee. On top of this, employers face the daunting task of retaining their talent, a tough feat considering the multitude of opportunities to which talented individuals are attracted in the tight labour market.
Have a Plan for Employees
This is why it is important for HR professionals to have a good plan for their existing pool of employees. Good HR plans include those that incorporate training and development programmes for staff. By encouraging staff to continually upgrade themselves and expand their skillsets, they would be in a better position to take over their colleague’s duties should said colleague leave the company and until the empty position gets filled again (which might take a while, given the tight labour market).
However, HR professionals should remember that there has to be some sort of ‘reward’ in place of the extra work an employee takes on, should the above situation happen. For instance, through the implementation of more annual leave benefits or a performance bonus.
Use Technologies and Social Media
The tracking of staff performance is also crucial when it comes to gauging productivity levels. This labour-intensive task is made easier with an Applicant Tracking System, through which HR departments can keep their fingers on the pulse of employee performance as well as identify areas for improvement.
One reason that Singapore's talent shortage poses challenges could be due to the lack of knowledge about how to maximise their recruiting tools' capabilities. Despite the proliferation of career portals, recruit sections on print publications and even social media platforms, HR professionals are unsure of how to make the most out of them. This in turn leads to poor ROI.
It is thus important for HR professionals to learn how to list job postings on the right media channels. For instance, a job opening for a Service position might generate results when it is advertised on the newspapers, while one for a Creative position will reach jobseekers via the Facebook page of an organisation. To fill managerial positions, HR professionals should tap on LinkedIn because a good percentage of managers are LinkedIn members.
Given the challenges arising from a tight labour market, employers need to find ways to mitigate the issues – such as developing staff internally and promoting from within. This also boosts motivation levels because staff feel empowered by your trust in them to take on expanded roles, and saves your time spent on having to train an entirely new and unfamiliar employee.
