A view from Singapore
The article covers the evolving employment and talent acquisition landscape in Singapore amidst global economic challenges post-COVID-19. The Singaporean economy, expected to grow modestly, faces complexities due to potential recessions and global economic issues. The SWITCH 2023 conference provided insights into these trends, focusing on how industries and businesses are adapting their hiring strategies.
Nilay Khandelwal, Managing Director of Michael Page in Singapore, notes a cautious approach in hiring due to economic uncertainties and the Israel-Hamas conflict. Businesses are becoming more selective in recruitment, prioritizing profitability. Despite these challenges, certain sectors like technology, FMCG, and healthcare continue to thrive. In tech, areas like data science and cybersecurity remain in high demand. Yeo Puay Lim from Glints observes an increase in hiring for roles that directly contribute to revenue, such as sales and marketing, reflecting a shift towards profitability-focused strategies.
The pandemic has significantly altered the global work landscape, affecting employee loyalty and openness to new opportunities. A survey by Michael Page showed a dramatic increase in people willing to explore new job options, indicating a shift in mindset. Remote work, normalized by the pandemic, has expanded the talent pool for businesses and offered more flexibility for employees. However, Yeo Puay Lim of Glints points out that remote work can also negatively impact employee engagement, potentially affecting organizational performance and innovation. This new work paradigm presents both opportunities and challenges for employers and employees alike.
In Singapore, where the economy is projected to grow between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent this year, the global economic landscape adds further complexi
The rise of hybrid work arrangements and fractional hiring
As the world enters a post-pandemic environment, Puay Lim shares that he sees both job candidates and employers seeking for greater engagement in the workplace, contributing to the rise of hybrid working arrangements and co-location.
It’s actually a growing trend. The job landscape is not entirely swinging back to the pre-pandemic norms of a 100 per cent work-from-office setup. Instead, we see this shift towards this concept of ‘remote but not quite remote’ working arrangement.
– Yeo Puay Lim, Commercial Director, Glints
To tap into global talent pools while retaining employee engagement, companies are now looking to set up “specific sites” across cities like London, Jakarta or even Bali, rather than employing a geographically dispersed workforce.
“These “specific sites” permit the possibility of hybrid work, allowing companies to extend the option of flexibility, but also creating the possibility of returning to the shared site, perhaps two or three times a week to build engagement,” adds Puay Lim.
Another growing trend in the job landscape is the rise of fractional hiring. Employees with a fractional contract provide their expertise across diverse fields to companies on a project-by-project basis.
These employees typically offer highly specialised services and skills, and often work for multiple clients simultaneously.
For instance, mums who have not worked for a long period of time due to kids and other commitments but have amazing work experience can now be hired for impactful roles through fractional hiring contracts.
Fractional hiring is very much different than a part-time role or a consultant because we hire someone with specific expertise in a field, such as a Chief Marketing Officer, to complete a specific project in a specific amount of time.
– Samir Khadepaun, Founder and CEO, Wizly
According to Samir, fractional hiring is currently a huge trend across the United States and Europe. These employees offer a flexible, cost-effective option to businesses who need special expertise, but lack the resources to afford full-time staff.
The global talent pool is a “double-edged sword”
Ultimately, these concepts — “remote but not fully remote” working arrangements and fractional hiring — point towards the rise of a global talent pool.
However, this global talent pool can also prove to be a “double-edged sword”, according to Albert Liew, Managing Director, Singapore and IndoChina, as it creates increased competition for jobseekers.
Candidates now have a lot more choices, and I’m not just talking about choices that you see in Singapore. Jobseekers can now tap into opportunities based in various other countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, but this also means that employers have more options as well, which means that you would truly need to stand out as a candidate to be hired.
On the flip side, [jobseekers] are only as faithful as their options. With plenty of opportunities across borders, companies will then face problems when it comes to retention and engagement.
– Albert Liew, Managing Director, Singapore and IndoChina, BIPO
The future of work
The hiring landscape is set for more disruptive changes in the near future with the rise of AI. With external tools like ChatGPT, Samir views that companies can achieve growth and success at much faster rates by allowing companies to identify “the right job functions” and hire the “right employees” from the outset.
“AI tools like ChatGPT can help in the prediction of what kind of job functions can work better for your company, and identify candidates who are suitable for these roles. This can save companies tonnes of time — wrong job descriptions lead to the wrong hire, leading to a waste of resources and time,” he explains.
Aside from this, AI can also be a useful tool for upskilling employees. For instance, these tools can be used to identify the employees that require upskilling and recommend the right topics to bolster them with industry-specific knowledge based on their performance at a company.
The impacts of AI also extend beyond the realms of HR into the operational aspects of a company.
Today, a company valued at US$100 million would have between 250 and 400 employees, depending on the industry. However, Samir predicts that this number can easily be cut down by 30 to 40 per cent in the coming years with the integration of AI.
While there are many ways to utilise AI tools to gain an advantage in the hiring landscape whether as a business or as an employee, a concerning trend that Nilay has observed across the region is the use of these tools to create artificial CVs that mirror the job description of an open role.
By using generative AI to create these CVs, an individual can look like the perfect hire, but only on paper. In reality, though, the individual is a mismatch and it creates difficulty for [recruitment firms like Michael Page] to identify suitable candidates for their clients.
– Nilay Khandelwal, Managing Director, Singapore, Michael Page
On the flip side, companies that deploy generative AI tools in their hiring processes might make biased assessments when it comes to selecting the right candidate to fill roles within the company.
AI systems learn to make decisions based on training data, which can include biased human decisions. As a result, these biases can creep into algorithms across areas such as race, gender or disability status.
Tech giant Amazon faced a similar issue five years ago, when it discovered that the AI tool it developed to sort through mass applications penalised resumes that indicated women or women-related terms.
Apart from bias, the tendency of these AI tools to produce or “hallucinate” fake information can be a problem when it comes to HR functions such as payroll generation, according to Albert. “These technologies are not really viable solutions in the hiring landscape — ChatGPT can probably only guide employers 80 per cent of the way,” he says.
Despite these risks associated with AI, it’s important to remember that the technology is still in its early stages. AI is set to create a new generation of work trends and disrupt the hiring landscape, hence, it’s vital for both jobseekers and companies to stay up-to-date with these trends to harness its benefits.
Featured Image Credit: Vulcan Post
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