Everyone will agree that an employee who receives the necessary training is better at doing his job. Talent development is therefore about training and equipping employees with the objective of increasing a company’s competitive advantage. In other words, it is building a company’s core assets to achieve business growth. Since the objective is for business growth, talent development is more than just training and equipping. Its scope encompasses recruitment and retention of talented employees.

In an era of rapid technological changes and immense competitive landscape, many companies, are facing challenges of attracting and retaining talent. Particularly for the manufacturing sector, there are shortages of talent that can facilitate companies’ transformation. For instance, to embark on Smart Manufacturing, the people needed to succeed in the job would require knowledge in manufacturing operation, business processes, digital technologies, prototyping and diagnosis. Such talents do not readily exist within the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing companies will have to either re-skill their existing employees or attract new talents from other sectors and equip them with manufacturing know-how.

It is important to note that beside salary, people also seek out opportunities where they can learn and grow in their skill-sets. Hence, companies need to build a culture that encourages talent development so that employees can develop themselves faster than they could elsewhere. Not only will it lead to higher retention of employees, it will in turn, create a self-reinforcing cycle as talent creates more opportunities for growth.

To help companies attract and retain talent, SMF Corporate Centre for Learning (SMF CCL) has been proactively collaborating with government agencies so that companies and individuals can build deep capabilities with heavily subsidized courses.
 

PCP

One of these initiatives is the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) to help professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMET) switch careers or retrain in new skills. Supported by WSG, SMF CCL administers two types of PCP namely PCP Broad-based (manufacturing) and PCP (overseas). The former is designed to help mid-career PMETs re-skill with the necessary competencies to embark on a career in the manufacturing sector. With PCP, talents from other industries with digital technologies knowledge can receive the necessary training in manufacturing business processes and operation and facilitate the transfer of digital knowledge into the manufacturing sector. The PCP (overseas), on the other hand, is designed to help mid-career PMETs re-skill and embark on a career that includes overseas assignments/roles. WSG provides 70% funding for the courses and up to 90% funding for the PMET’s salary.

P-Max

In collaboration with Workforce Singapore (WSG), SMF CCL helps local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to better recruit, train, manage and retain their newly-hired local professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs). P-Max is a place and train program and that aims to help newly-hired PMETs to better acclimatize to the new SME work environment and to achieve better PMET retention in SMEs. It will also enable SMEs to establish better communication channels between supervisors and staff and to adopt progressive HR practices for their newly hired PMETs. The programme consists of a 2-day workshop for newly-hired PMETs, a 1-day workshop for supervisors and/ or HR representatives from the respective SMEs and a 6-month post workshop progress review sessions with SMF. For this programme, WSG will fund 90% of the course fee and upon completion of the 6-month progress review and submission of P-Max report, a one-time Assistant Grant of $5000 will be disbursed to the SME.  Click here for more information.