Distinguished Guests

This economic downturn has resulted in many companies facing difficulties and scrambling to survive the sharp drop in demand. Some downsize to reduce wage cost. Others cut back on training budget. PSB data shows a 36% decline in the training places committed over the first three quarters of this year compared with the same period last year. While cost-cutting is a necessary measure, a severe reduction in training is both undesirable and unwise.

In fact, even during a downturn, companies must seek to upgrade their employees and prepare for the upswing. We must look at training and re-training as a key strategy to boost competitiveness. The Hong Kong government has, for instance, over the last two years committed S$200 million to train and retrain the workforce. We are doing the same with the SRP to which Government has made an initial commitment of $120 m. We are making such investment in skill upgrading because as we move into the knowledge economy, knowledge and skills of a workforce will become the key competitive factors for success.

In the past, workers received most of their education prior to joining the labour force. In the knowledge economy of the future, workers will have to learn continuously throughout the working life. Workers must keep up with technological changes which can transform the nature of job. One example is the job of a bank teller. Traditionally, the bank teller’s role has been to perform a series of repetitive tasks, like counting cash and recording transactions. Auto-banking in the eighties changed the nature of a bank teller’s jobs.

Bank tellers have become comprehensive service providers. They advise bank customers on a wide range of financial services available at the bank. They have access to more information through the computer. Today’s bank teller is no longer just a front-line money counter but a first-stop resource person for the bank’s financial services. Entry qualifications for the job have, naturally, also been raised with an emphasis in the ability to operate computers.

Not only has technology created jobs that are demanding a more diverse range of skills, it is also making seemingly complex jobs disappear. A good example is the flight engineer. In the past, the flight engineer is responsible for the various technical aspects of the aircraft’s systems such as engines, air-conditioning and air pressure gauges. His job is to provide technical assistance for the pilot to fly the aircraft. Today, the newer range of aircraft come fitted with intelligent equipment that can detect, diagnose and correct anomalies in any of the aircraft’s engineering system. The new cockpits are designed to be ‘pilot friendly’. All buttons are now within easy reach of the pilot. In short, the new generation of planes no longer require a flight engineer. Technology has automated the job out of existence.

There must therefore be a holistic approach towards training and development. Our workforce will require a good balance of hard and soft skills. Hard skills are those that enable the worker to do his job more productively and contribute directly to the performance of the company. Soft skills are skills which will provide the foundation for workers to learn continually in the knowledge economy. This will bring about greater knowledge and skill absorption and enhance employability. The combination of both skills will equip Singaporeans with the capabilities to become a globally competitive workforce.

With rapid pace of change, job skills become outdated in a much shorter period of time. It has been estimated that 50% of what one has learnt in school becomes obsolete within five years. It has also become impossible for a working adult to rely solely on his employer to provide him with all the knowledge and skills needed for his career. A new imperative is for each one of us to have the capability to learn independently, so that we can easily pick up new technical or functional skills. To do so, we must have a set of strong basic skills, which the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) calls foundation skills for the workforce.

This set of foundation skills enables a person to acquire new skills quickly and integrate them with new technologies and processes. With organisation hierarchies becoming flatter, and with the increasing use of teams, foundation skills will enable a person, no matter what his job, to exercise greater autonomy, innovate, and make decisions that support the organisation’s goals. Some of these skills are not new to us in Singapore. Courses, including communication, literacy and problem solving are found in our national programmes such as BEST, WISE, FAST FORWARD, COSEC, and quality circles, which were all launched in the 1980s primarily for rank-and-file workers. So far, some 400,000 have been trained on these programmes.

As our economy becomes more knowledge-based, foundation skills are expected to become more critical than ever before. All levels of the workforce - from managers to supervisors and workers – need these skills. To accelerate the acquisition of these skills, we need an integrated approach, which covers all the critical skills in a single programme.

Today, I am pleased to launch Critical Enabling Skills Training or CREST, as a strategic response to the knowledge economy. CREST is a national training initiative that encompasses seven core skills. These seven skills form the basis for an organisation’s competitiveness and ensure the employability of our workforce. They are:

• Learning-to-learn,
• Literacy,
• Listening and oral communication,
• Problem-solving and creativity,
• Personal effectiveness,
• Group effectiveness, and
• Organisational effectiveness and leadership.

CREST will provide workers with the foundation for lifelong learning to enable them to continuously acquire the knowledge and skills to ensure their employability. With CREST, workers will be in a better position to contribute to the productivity and competitiveness of an organisation. They will command a premium in the job market. At the same time, CREST offers to employers a training programme that enables them to build a competitive workforce that will learn, think and innovate for the company’s success. CREST is a catalyst that enables organisations to maintain flexibility so that they can rebuild themselves quickly to meet new economic and technological changes.

The CREST Initiative by PSB supports the Ministry of Manpower’s mission of developing and nurturing the talent potential of every worker in Singapore. It is consistent with our efforts to develop our workforce to enhance Singapore’s competitiveness.

CREST is unique in two ways. Firstly, its delivery is unique. The programme contents are not prescribed, allowing course providers to develop courses to meet the different needs of every segment of the workforce. Only the performance standards and the outcomes are specified. With this novel approach, CREST programmes always remain responsive to changes in technology, knowledge and skills in the market place. The second unique feature is its three-pronged training approach, which motivates a person to learn by doing, thinking and applying the knowledge and skills. This approach prepares the person to function more effectively in the knowledge economy.

It is PSB’s target to train half the workforce in the CREST programme over the next five years. To support the CREST Initiative, the PSB, through the Skills Development Fund, will fund 80% of course fees. Some $200 million is expected to be committed over the next five years on CREST.

It is my pleasure now to announce this year’s National Training Award winners in recognition of their outstanding commitment to worker’s training. These winning companies have placed a high premium on developing the full potential of their workforce. They have rightly earned the honour of joining the distinguished league of 33 companies, which have won the Award since its inception in 1988.

I am pleased to announce Seagate Technology International (Drive Operations) as the winner in the Manufacturing Sector category. Seagate is commended for its strong corporate training philosophy. It is a company that builds people before it builds drives. Training is an intrinsic part of every Seagate employee’s working life, from the general manager to the operator.

This year, for the first time, we have two winners in the Service Sector category – Raffles Hotel and Singapore Airlines. Raffles Hotel is commended for its excellent and successful integration of training with business operations. This is the result of a strong training tradition built over the years, a tradition which has instilled in each of its employees, a sense of ownership of service standards in the Hotel. Its people training effort has helped Raffles Hotel maintained a position amongst the top hotels of the world.

For SIA, this is second time that the airline has won the National Training Award. It first won the award in 1990. SIA is commended for its world-class training system supported by exemplary management commitment. The friendly and efficient crew that is the trademark of SIA, did not come by chance. The company puts in the most rigorous training system to ensure that every staff provides a standard of service that everyone talks about.

The winner in this year’s SME category award is Small Wonder Childcare & Development Centre Pte Ltd. The company has adopted an innovative approach to staff development. Recognising that it is difficult for small companies to develop their own training programmes, Small Wonder formed a group, the Learning Vision Group, to cater to the training needs of its three centres. This allowed the company to enjoy economy of scale and lower training cost as it tapped the pool of experienced trainers within the group and conducted training on a group basis. This innovative approach provides an excellent model for other SMEs to emulate. Let me congratulate all the winners of the 1998 National Training Award and wish them every success.

In conclusion, Singapore needs a thinking workforce, with both hard and soft skills. Our workers must be able to adapt to changes and keen to upgrade and be re-trained. The new CREST initiative will help us to develop this innovative workforce to give Singapore an added advantage in the face of global competition. A person equipped with the seven CREST foundation skills will have a head start in any job.

The government, on its part, will continue to invest heavily in the continuing education and training in order to ensure that we have a world-class workforce. Employers must accept that their competitive edge will depend on the quality of their people and hence take steps to train them for the future. Workers, in turn, should be willing to take on this challenge of continuously upgrading their skills and knowledge to remain employable. As Alvin Toffler puts it, "the illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and re-learn."

Thank you.