Episode 52: How Singapore Uses Skills Data to Support Lifelong Learning (Interview with Wenshan Xu)
Welcome to episode two of series 11 of The Digital HR Leaders podcast.
According to the latest Future of Jobs report from The World Economic Forum, by 2025 50% of all employees will need to be re-skilled. Moreover also by 2025, the same research predicts that 97 million new jobs will emerge and 85 million will be displaced by a shift in labour between humans and machines. Most commentators believe that the pandemic has only accelerated this progress.
Skills is not just a challenge for organisations it is a challenge for entire countries and Singapore is setting a template that others could and perhaps should follow. The mission of SkillsFuture SG, or SSG for short, is to build a skills competitive Singapore and a nation of resilient and confident lifelong learners.
My guest today is Wenshan Xu, Deputy Director of The Skills Development Group at SSG. Wenshan describes the unit as an intelligence unit for skills and as you are about to hear, the work they are doing is as fascinating as it is important.
You can listen to this week’s episode below or by visiting the podcast website here.
In our conversation Wenshan and I discuss:
How SSG helps re-skill workers in sectors affected by Covid and then helps them transition to sectors that were hiring
How SSG works with employers, education providers and citizens to create a skills and learning ecosystem that meets the changing requirements of jobs in the country
How Wenshan’s team uses data, analytics and machine learning to understand the supply and demand of skills now and in the future
The skills taxonomy that they have developed, which encompasses 34 skills frameworks, 11,000 skills competencies and over a thousand job roles
How all this supports the vision for talent mobility in Singapore
This episode is a must listen for anyone interested or involved in skills, learning and workforce planning. So that is business leaders, CHROs and anyone in a people analytics or HR business partner role.
Support for this podcast is brought to you by orgvue . To learn more, visit https://www.orgvue.com/.
Interview Transcript
David Green: Today I am delighted to welcome Wenshan Xu, Deputy Director of The Skills Development Group at Skills Future Singapore, to The Digital HR Leaders podcast. Welcome to the show Wenshan, I know it is afternoon your time. Can you start by telling our listeners a little bit about your background and your role at Skills Future Singapore?
Wenshan Xu: Hi everyone and hi David, to all the listeners out there a very good afternoon from Singapore. My name is Wenshan, I am from The Skills Development Group in Skills Future Singapore, or SSG for short. Skills Future Singapore is the statutory board under the Ministry of Education.
So just a little bit about myself as a background. Before I joined SSG, I worked in The Ministry of Education and The Ministry of Manpower. So you will see that from the beginning of my career I had been looking into issues related to labour, so this is something that is very close to my heart. Subsequently in the later part of my career until now, I specialise in the domain subject of adult training and adult learning.
So this is actually something that is quite interesting and I realised that in the course of my career, in these three agencies, there is very close synergy of the work that SSG, MoE and MoM of what we do because at the end of the day it is all about jobs and skills and these are two areas that are very, very closely intertwined.
Now in the current division that I am in now, in The Skills Development Group, I have taken on a more specialised role. In the earlier part of my career, I looked at strategic planning, policy development and progress implementation. But today in my role I look at how to help SSG, as an organisation, enhance its capability in identifying skills and transmitting skills into programs and initiated the SSG implementation and roll out as well as how to measure skills in the workforce. So this is a very specialised topic but we call ourselves Skills Future, right? So certainly skills is an asset to the organisation and it is something that SSG would advocate. So this is my current job role. Currently I oversee four teams which belongs to one cluster in the Skills Development Group, so I look at policy, data, as well as research and development. So what the group does is that we will use data analytics, we talk to external partners to understand skills trends, how jobs are evolving, what kind of jobs are declining, what kind of jobs are created and then we produce this thing called a job skills insights.
So essentially what it means is, if you can imagine like a information kit on what are jobs and skills and then we work through our stakeholders and training providers to inform them about what are these insights so that they can develop programs related to the skills that the industry will require.
So this is in a nutshell what we do, we are like an intel unit of sorts for skills in SSG.
David Green: And you provide that vital connection between employers and the skills they need, and the training providers that help employees effectively, or people who could work to actually gain those skills, that employers and industry needs in Singapore.
Very interesting and something I think that every country should look at.
So maybe you could tell us a little bit about the goals and mission of SSG?
Wenshan Xu: Well I would say that the mission of SSG is to build a skills competitive Singapore and a nation of resilient and confident lifelong learners. I think that when we talk about the goals and the mission it is probably easier for me to just use the context we are in today, which is the Covid situation, to just explain what we do. I think a very important and urgent task that we have at hand in Singapore, I guess it resonates across governments around the world as well, is how we can help workers who are affected in sectors that are facing a Covid situation right now. Sectors like tourism, air transport, F&B, how do we help such workers who were affected re-skill themselves, acquire the skill sets they need to transit to another sector that is hiring. So getting people into jobs and finding the relevant skills to go for those jobs is a key mission of ours. But I will say that this is also something that we are doing immediately, it is the key issue at hand, but at the same time because we are building a nation of lifelong learners and a skills competitive Singapore we also need to ensure that we prepare Singaporeans well in the post pandemic future. So that requires us to look ahead to understand what are the trends that are out there. One of the resources we use like the most recent World Economic Forum Report, it states that employers are increasingly looking out for job role skills. There is a growing job role in the area of AI, machine learning, data analytics, robotics, etc and so these are technical skills that are very important, they are growing, but at the same time we do see the employers are not just looking at workers with such emerging, specialised technical skills, they are also now looking for workers which have what we call, critical core skills. So these are horizontal skills that are in the areas where for example, critical thinking, learning agility, resilience, being able to adapt to different cultures, being able to talk to people across different cultures because the world is just getting more globalised and more virtual. So I think what we need to do is to equip our workforce to prepare for jobs of the future, we need to enhance both technical skills as well as critical core skills and this is what we aim to do to prepare our workers for the future and to take up jobs in the future.
David Green: Yeah. I think it is interesting that you have made the reference obviously to Covid and a number of commentators, Satya Nadella has said that the pandemic has effectively accelerated us through two years of digital transformation in two months. We had Michael Arena, from Amazon, on the podcast a few weeks ago and he was saying that he believes the pandemic has accelerated the future of work by five to 10 years. And actually if you think the importance of skills already was huge, it was one of the big topics when you go and speak to business leaders, to HR leaders around what is top of mind, their biggest concerns, skills was there and if anything, as you said, it is even more important now in the pandemic. Also it is not just the hard technical skills but it is the softer skills as well. What is great about what you have explained is the way that the government in Singapore has taken a long-term view and I think that, without getting into politics, I think a lot of governments around the world are only focused on the next three to five years whereas in Singapore, obviously it is a much longer view being taken. So actually I think for those of us that aren't in Singapore, it would be really helpful to get a little bit of context about how the government collaborates with employers, with citizens and training providers, I think that would be a great place to start. And can you tell us a little bit about that and how your team is structured to work in a more coordinated way?
Wenshan Xu: Actually, this is a very good question and actually a very important question as well because SSG does not operate alone in the skills ecosystem and suddenly we have to work with many stakeholders for us to achieve our goal. And actually our goal is also a whole government one and the same for the nation. So there are three groups of stakeholders that we work with, the first group is what we call the government agencies, industry players and employers. So what do we work with them on? So basically for this group of stakeholders, we work with them to understand what are the skills trends and demands? What is it that the market would require out there? So they are in a way understanding what skills they need. So that is number one goal for all the stakeholders we work with.
The second group of stakeholders we work with are training providers, so in a way they are the supplier of skills. So we work with them to actually develop training programs and courses so that they can then transmit such skills and those programs to the end beneficiaries. And so this nicely takes me into the third group of stakeholders that we work with who are the end beneficiary, so in this case it is the individual citizens, as well as individual enterprises that our programs are meant to benefit and are meant to help them upgrade themselves with the right skills. So these are the three groups of stakeholders that we meet, in a nutshell, but now I guess I can go on to elaborate a little bit more on how we work with each of the groups of stakeholders that I talked a little bit about earlier. So in the skills development group that I belong in we actually have a team of our colleagues that are called job skills analyst. So they work with the first group of the stakeholders which is the government agencies in charge of the sector, the industry players, like the trade associations and the enterprises, to get to understand. So maybe before I say this, I think it is important for us to take a step back and to understand about skills and jobs. In order for us to be able to identify skills, it is super important for us to understand about jobs first because at the end of the day it is the job that creates the demand for the skills. So my team of colleagues, job skills analysts, they will talk with the stakeholders to understand how the sector is evolving. So what kind of a business models are changing? What kind of strategies are companies looking at? So this is the business strategy side of the house and I think it is important as a starting conversation first, because you need to know the skills that are declining and also the skills that are evolving. So the conversation then goes on to their understanding and record down the list of the skills sets needed.
So it is basically from understanding jobs and sectors, they are evolving to what skills that needs to come in to allow the workers to be able to go on to such such jobs and this is essentially the first type of conversation that we have with the first group of stakeholders we work with.
So what we do is that once we have the understanding of jobs and skills we will transmit this information down into job skills insights and we will then dissimulate the information through our training providers, we have a network of training providers that we work with. So in the Singapore ecosystem today there are three groups of training providers.
The first group is the private training providers, so this is actually the very traditional group of providers that SSG have been working with for a super long time. The second group is I would say in a way, a newish player to the market and to our ecosystem, They are our Institutes of Higher Learning. So in a Singapore context, they are our Polytechnic’s, our Institute of Technical Education and our Universities. Why I say they are new is because SSG was formed about five years ago, it was another organisation and it was restructured to become Skills Future Singapore and came under the part of The Ministry of Education. So when that happened five years ago, The Institutes of Higher Education became naturally another partner that we worked with. So they are now working with us to actually conduct training for adult learners, so that is the second group of training providers.
The third group is also a new group that we start to engage with them quite closely since the start of last year, this group is enterprises. So these are employers who will conduct training either for their own workforce or for the sector at large. So these three groups of training providers we work with to develop a program and we do that through information and providing them information sessions on job skills and insights. We also support them through our funding, but at the same time, we are also a regulator. So we also ensure that they meet good standards such as we have a rigour organisation and a cost approval process that we have put in place so that we fund the right courses with the right skill set, as well as ensuring that the organisation is of quality.
So there is the elaboration on what we do with the second group of stakeholders, who are the training providers.
David Green: Yes and I guess the third group is citizens, it is the people that live in Singapore?
Wenshan Xu: Correct, the third group is the citizens and the people who live in Singapore. So basically what you can see is that in the first two groups, SSG is like a facilitator. What we do is we are trying to draw the link between skills demand as well as skills supply. So we are like a facilitator, we bring two groups of stakeholders together in the ecosystem but we do more, we actually reach out and create the extra function as well. So we reach out to the end beneficiaries, who are the individual citizens. This is also something that really is very important because the individuals need to know what are the training programs that are out there and what are the appropriate training programs to go for. Many times on the ground, they really might not know, so just putting information online is not enough. What we do is that we are growing a network of, we call it skills ambassadors, so these are like trained professionals on the ground. They will reach out to the individuals to understand for example, someone who is interested to transit to another job, someone who is interested to remain relevant in their current job, to help them to understand what skillsets are needed and then also recommend the appropriate training programs to go for.
Yeah so that is something that we have done, but on top of that for Singapore context, we also empowered the individual citizens. What do we mean by empowering? Because we believe that every citizen needs to be empowered to check his or her learning journey and that power must be in the hands of that particular individual, so we actually provide each individual with this thing called Skills Future Credit, so it is a certain amount of credit that is given to the individual and the individual can use this credit to subsidise the cost of training. So that is putting the power of training into the hands of the individual.
We also use this same strategy and approach towards engaging individual enterprises as well.
So this is in a nutshell, an elaboration of what we do.
David Green: It is great because it kind of promotes that culture of continuous learning, which as we know is so important. There has been lots of research, by the likes of IBM, on the half-life of skills is diminishing quite significantly. I am sure you have found in your research when you are looking at the skills that comprise jobs, that a lot of those skills are becoming redundant because they are being automated, but then new skills are required within those jobs as well. I guess that is where sometimes the gap can be creative with what people currently have as skills versus what they need to have as skills both now and increasingly in the future.
So now I know we are going to talk about one of my favourite parts now, which is the data and analytics that supports this. So let's dive into the work that you are doing to understand the spread of skills across Singapore, as well as the job availability today and in the future. How are you using data, analytics and AI, even, to make sense of the marketplace?
Wenshan Xu: This is actually a very complicated question, it is a good question, I will do my best to try to explain.
David Green: Oh we get a lot of analysts listening, so you can get a bit technical if you want to be technical.
Wenshan Xu: Okay, great thanks. Let's say that using big data analysis, machine learning algorithms and AI to understand jobs and skills. It is actually a pretty new journey for SSG that we are embarking on but we have previously had thoughts about this and the future and the potential that it can bring. So why have we embarked on this journey. I talk about how we have traditionally engaged the various stakeholders, it is going well and fine, but why we do this is because when we engage with our stakeholders and we are sharing them on the job skills insights, they were giving us very good feedback. Essentially we want to do better in terms of the insights that we are sharing. So we want to be more responsive and timely towards understanding and monitoring what are the changes in the jobs and skills that are out there. So we also want to be comprehensive as far as possible, we want to incorporate data on jobs and skills that is from a wider database than what we have today. Secondly, we also want to be relevant towards their needs because you also realise that as well as being timely, responsive and being comprehensive about our data, we need to be relevant. And why I say this is because, as I mentioned, there are different groups of stakeholders that we work with, that we engage the enterprises, the training providers, the individual citizens and each of them actually have different needs because they come from different perspectives. So how do we shape our job skills insights so that it remains relevant towards their own needs and something that is customisable, for example.
So that is when we decided that, we can do something more beyond traditional methods of engaging stakeholders, beyond our traditional methods of bringing all these insights back and trying to write something down in some tables or dashboard or charts and then send it to them. We need to do something more and we need to be super efficient about doing that. So, that was the reason why I think we started with this agenda we have now. But I think before I talk a little bit more about that. Let’s take everyone a step back and talk about this product we have developed in SSG together with different stakeholders, since the year 2015. It is important for me to mention about this because it acts as a seed data for us to actually do the big data analysis.
David Green: And this is your skills framework, I believe?
Wenshan Xu: Correct. Yeah,the skills framework and this is the stepping point because we need something to start with before we do that analysis, before we can do machine learning, or AI. So the proposal for our skills framework was something that we developed in the year 2015. This is a framework that is presented on a sectoral basis and we have 34 skills frameworks, one for each sector.
So what is the skills framework? It is meant for us to facilitate skills recognition because we realised that we need a common language of skills for a sector, that resonates with all the stakeholders. And so in the skills framework, you can imagine it like a five year blueprint for the sector.
So it covers jobs and skills, it looks at what is the industry for the sector on the five year horizon and it looks at what are the emerging jobs and what are the skills that are required for a person to perform in this job. It also states what training programs that a person can go for.
So this is a product that we have developed thus far. Just to elaborate what this can be used for, for example someone who is interested in the healthcare sector, the person can actually take a reference and take a look at the healthcare skills framework. If let's say he or she wants to be a nurse, but is new to the sector, in the skills framework, you can look at the nursing track and then have a look at what is the function of a nurse? What is the job function of a nurse? What does a nurse do on a daily basis? And understand the skills need of what is required to perform this job and then go for the training program. So this is just an illustration of how the skills framework is applied.
We have completed development of all of the skills frameworks last year, so we have been trying to talk to the end stakeholders, like employers, to adopt a skills framework. But I think increasingly as we do our sensing and understanding of how jobs are evolving, we see that jobs and skills are increasingly cross-sectoral. You did a podcast with Grab, right? So Grab is a company in Singapore, previously maybe many years ago, it started out as a point to point transportation service. But over the years it has diversified it is now in to food delivery, grocery delivery, it is also a local provider of financial services as well. So if you look at Grab as a company, to me it is cross-sectoral, so something that the skills framework being at a sectoral level means we can comprehensively cater to do business models that are evolving across sector. So this is when we decided at the beginning of this year, we want to actually be able to look at, still at a sectoral level, jobs and skills that cut across the whole economy and we want to use big data to do this. We want to be more efficient using machine learning and AI algorithms to help us do the data analysis for job roles that cut across more than one sector and across the whole economy. So that is where we said, okay, what we did was we took the four skills framework and we actually put them all together into one gigantic job skills repository, and into a machine readable format. So that was important to start with the skills framework because it is what we call the seed data of how we do this in the first place. So, so we put them in. Basically what we did was we put all the skills frameworks into a job skills depository, we now we have a depository of 11,000 skills and about a thousand job roles. But we can’t have them just swimming and floating around this repository, we need to make a structure and a sense of it. So that was when we actually applied a machine learning technique, we called this the Neural Network Analysis. This is actually a form of machine algorithms that helps to cluster data together and then make them readable.
What we did was we used this Neural Network Analysis to then find a meaningful way to cluster the 11,000 skills together into meaningful skills clusters. We had different layers of the clustering, in the top most cluster there is about nine levels and then it goes on down the levels.
This product is now what we call the Skills Taxonomy. We use job skills data in the skills framework, meshing it together and then putting it into clusters of skills across the whole economy. So this was the techincal part that I wanted to explain.
David Green: It is impressive work.
Wenshan Xu: Oh, well we are doing our best. Actually I imagine it is something that is quite interesting to share as this work is being done by a data team they oversee that. We have a team of data analysts who are involved with the data and of course we do partner with other tech solutions that help us with the needs of this function as well. But something that I guess is we all are learning together because my colleagues who are data analysts, they are actually learning data science now and applying it at the same time to the work they are doing.
So it is really learning and applying the data.
David Green: Learning on the job, basically.
Wenshan Xu: Yes, I think they are pretty excited about it because I think there is a really resonates with SSG’s mission and what we do. They are trying to re-skill our officers to become analysts and data scientists. We provide them training and at the same time inside of the organisation within the function they work on and I think they are pretty happy to work on a tangible product. I just wanted to shed a bit of light about how we organise ourselves to do this additional piece of work.
I spoke about the skills taxonomy and how we developed that. So what is so special about skills taxonomy is now we are able to conduct data analysis that cuts across the whole economy, not just from a sectoral basis because now we cluster it all together and now all the skills are together in one big repository. So this is important to us because one important work that we do is to try to understand the skills progression of our Singaporean workforce over time and we do this on a macro level. Once we understand, for example, what are the top skills clusters Singaporeans are in we can then actually monitor that over time to see whether these skills clusters that Singaporeans are in does it commensurate with the demand from employers that are out there. Also looking at what are the macro shifts and how we can use that to inform our broad base policy making and intervention. So, I would say we would not be able to do that without machine learning and without the skills taxonomythat we had done in the first place.
Another interesting project that we also working on now is called the job skills adjacency. As I mentioned a little bit earlier about the Covid situation, so there are people who are affected in their current job and we want to help them to transit to another sector. So because now we are able to understand skills similarities across clusters if you could imagine, for example, cabin crews are now affected today in this situation as people can’t fly. Now cabin crew they have a skill set in customer service, right? So we can say, one of the jobs that belongs to this requires customer service as a common skill-set, but it is in a sector that is hiring. So we can look and see that actually healthcare, for example, patient care is quite close to customer service and so therefore it is part of a similar cluster of skills and this is then a potential job for someone who may be affected like cabin crew can actually transit to because of that similarity. That is also possible because now of the skill taxonomy we came out with, the adjacency outgoing terms and using machine learning, for all the data people out there, so using this as part of our strategy to understand similarities between work functions and skills of two different jobs and with a degree of similarity find a recommendation for people to transit.
David Green: That adjacency is so important, because then you can understand how long potentially it is going to take an individual to acquire the additional skills that they need and then you can actually start to match people with roles that they are more suitable for based on the skills that they have already got and as you said, the propensity to learn the additional skills they need because of it.
So certainly we are working with companies that are doing that, you are obviously doing it on a whole country level, which is quite staggering, it is really impressive work. And I guess what this helps you do is with that long-term planning as well, you can start looking at supply and demand. Looking at demographics that you have got around people retiring from work in Singapore, so people leaving the workplace. With that I guess you can start to understand big decisions that governments can make around, potentially around immigration or education and stuff like that as well. So really, really impressive. I guess what this does as well, potentially, particularly the example you gave around the adjacency earlier, it helps talent be more mobile. So what I would really be interested to understand is, what is your vision in Singapore for talent mobility across the country?
Wenshan Xu: Good question. I think talent mobility is a very broad term, but i think it sums up to having the right people with the right skills at the right time and doing the right things. So all this is not simple at all but it is a HR mission too, right? Let's talk about what is mobility and what is talent. There are two kinds of thoughts about what talent is, I think to some people talent is being the top performer in the organisation, so that's talent, but actually in my perspective, everybody is a talent because everybody has that strength and that right skill set. And as I mentioned, just from my perspective, putting people with that talent and with that skill set in the right place at the right time. So I think talent mobility is not just for a specific segment of people, but actually it should be for the whole society and for everybody.
I think that is in a way it resonates in my heart in that sense, but also I think that is something that SSG wants to do because we don’t want to let anybody get left behind, we want to be as inclusive as possible. So something that is truly important we want to let, whether you are a self-employed person, whether you are a professional, whether you are, in Singapore we call it a rank and file, which is like a non-professional, we want them to be able to remain relevant in their profession, be able to advance in their careers, reach their full potential to skills recognition and skills mastery, so that is important to us.
I think importantly also is as we talk about having a nation of lifelong learners you still have to remember that learning is not something that is front loaded, so learning is lifelong. I think in today's situation especially, when the skill cycle is very short and job roles are changing so fast with technology we must remember that there are multiple pathways to career and training as well, so essentially we have to continuously look out for what are the skills that is required in our work and to equip ourselves. So the power of learning is truly in our hands.
I will also say that talent mobility is also the responsibility, not just of the individual, but also the employers themselves. So essentially, employers be it small, medium enterprises, I think it is important that employers do place emphasis on training for that workforce.
There are some employers, not all employers out there, but maybe there are some who may think that training is a very costly investment in their workers and maybe they may be constantly, hey, I invested in my worker but then they would just leave the company.
I think if we believe in talent mobility and knowing as good employers what comes around goes around, so essentially I think if employers may make some investments with their workforce and yes some workers may move out of the company, but eventually if they think that you are a good employer, who has spent time to invest in them, who has good learning and development strategies and workforce strategies in place, we take care of them, they will ultimately return back to your company or they will want to work with your company. And when they do so they have already been around the rest of the system, they come back to you with enhancement and they come to you with more experience of what is happening out there.
So today true talent mobility situation, I think what comes around, goes around and I think this is important especially for employers to consider an investment in the workforce strategy. So this is the second part of that to me.
I think when we talk about talent mobility across Singapore I will say that because of increasing globalisation, talent mobility itself is not just across Singapore, it is not just across the country, but it is also across the world. So I guess when Singaporeans or individuals, when they think about mobility, I think they are also considering jobs or opportunities that are outside of their own country, because talent mobility now takes on a cross border dimension to this. So this is I would say another point that I wanted to raise and for us to consider now, the world is our oyster, it is getting smaller. Talent mobility no longer needs the constraint now to do jobs in your own country, consider jobs that are available elsewhere and can you compete with a global workforce.
David Green: I am going to ask you a question in a bit about virtual and hybrid working, which I think is very much related to your last point there. It is interesting that continuous learning isn't just around individuals, as you said, it is about organisations understanding the importance of that as well and I think that obviously what you are doing is bringing data to that, to support organisational effort around continuous learning, re-skilling and up-skilling their people. I think that you made an important point that some organisations feel about if we train people, they will just leave. But actually if you start to link learning and skills with culture, the organisation, opportunity to grow within the organisation by enabling mobility and actually helping people develop careers, then obviously it actually can probably act as a great tool to retain your best people. So, I think it is really interesting what you are doing.
So I want to pick you up a little bit on the virtual and hybrid working, obviously with Covid, some people have suddenly been working pretty much virtually since March, I have not done any travel. We are recording this at the end of November, so let's say it has been nine months. It has been easy for me for what I do, but for lots of people it hasn’t, they have not worked virtually before. So we are asking all of our guests on the show in the series, this particular question. What do you think HR leaders can do to help prepare their organisations for a future where there will likely be an increase in remote and hybrid working?
Wenshan Xu: Like you, it has been the same here. Since April this year, Singapore started a circuit breakder and we all started working from home. So I have also been at home from April to now and I have not travelled. So I think that this situation, although in Singapore it has gotten better, but I think that it has created such a situation that much of individual's everyday life has changed.
I think that remote and hybrid working has become a new normal and I think even after the pandemic I think it is going to stay basically. So I think that hybrid and remote working will continue to stay as a norm for most of the workforce, even after the pandemic. I think it is here to stay and will remain a part of work arrangements that we have to do. So, we certainly need to consider how HR can enable remote and hybrid working for sustainability, so that is really important. I think a few areas that HR can consider.
The first area is for HR to be able to communicate to their business unit and to their employees, the need to shift from a physical working together, working space, to having a remote and hybrid working arrangement. So that is important, but also for HR to ensure that the function of the business is not disrupted. So HR functions need to deliver with minimal destruction.
Secondly I think that because it is a new form of working arrangements, certainly for us as employees or even as managers, we need to understand how do we communicate with teams that will be virtual. So HR can provide those guides of best practices on to line managers who are remotely managing their workforce on how to better engage their employees online. So that is important. So for example, from a SSG perspective, learning and development training used to be physically face to face, but how do we do L and D now when things are virtual? So how do we still continue to not just engage our employees, but at the same time give them that space to learn more effectively, even if it is a virtual setting.
So again, this is a point that HR could consider in operating in such a unique circumstances that is here to stay. And I think the touch point is something that HR could consider now as working with businesses themselves, I think that automation and the use of technology is just going to increase tremendously and this is probably going to affect business models and how jobs are being redesigned. So as HR maybe it is important for us to work with the business side of the house, to understand the changes in the business strategy and how work force strategy can come in to compliment. I will just share a 4B approach that we talk about in SSG. So what is 4B? Well it is Buy, Build, Borrow, Bot. As businesses are now looking at increasing automation or the use of a technology, knowing when to buy, buy means when to recruit fresh talent from the external labour market. Knowing when to build, what kind of capabilities do we want to build your SSG workforce with?
Of course you can’t keep buying so how do you build and enhance the skills of our existing workforce? Borrow is where considering perhaps as part of your value chain as businesses, knowing what kind of partners do you want to partner with so that you can borrow their capabilities to enhance your business model offering.
Bot is knowing when to consider business processes that can be automated.
As HR what do you do with a workforce that is affected because of automation that takes place? I will say the 4B approach of how business operations is going to change and how HR can support the business changes.
Maybe I will leave HR with some questions to think about. Firstly, what are some of the key challenges of remote and hybrid work and how prepared are you as HR, to cope with such challenges?
Secondly, what are some of the possible new roles foreseeable for HR professionals because of the enhanced use of technology and automation? So as HR, what kind of skills will be required for you to help your company make remote and hybrid working more mainstream and effective?
The third question is that with technology how can HR technology be incorporated to facilitate how we work? So, that is the three questions and all of this is part of my response.
David Green: And those listening we will actually post those questions in the article that promotes this episode so you can actually maybe comment on some of the answers. So maybe we can then provide those for you too Wenshan, because I think it would be interesting to see what people say. I suspect we will be seeing a lot of the build and the bot in the aftermath of Covid. I think a lot of people in organisations maybe won't have as much freedom to hire as they have done pre pandemic. I think we will see a lot of building, which is good and we are already seeing that. I think that the bot process is going to be accelerated a little bit by Covid, it already has been accelerated in many respects and I think the borrow bit is very interesting, because it is almost where we start to look outside traditional models that companies have followed for a number of years. Obviously there are platforms that help support them to do that as well. All I can say Wenshan is it is absolutely fantastic what you provided. I think if there are people responsible for education and skills in countries listening to this, then I think there is lots to learn. I think there is lots to learn from actual individual companies on the approach that you have taken as well.
Unfortunately we have come to the end. So I was going to ask you one more question, it is a really easy one, you will be pleased to know. Firstly, thank you for being a guest on the show Wenshan, I have really enjoyed the conversation. Can you let listeners know how they can stay in touch with you and follow you on social media, if you do social media.
Wenshan Xu: Thanks David and thanks everyone for listening. You can stay in touch with me through LinkedIn. So that is my professional self on social media. I hope that today's discussion and session has been really helpful and fruitful for those that are listening in. Thank you.