HR Challenges in 2011

Singapore’s employment market in 2011 will experience a Shortage of Skilled Specialised resource, candidate’s mobility and social media will be the issues most HR will be experiencing.

Skills shortages

Singapore’s jobs market is now healthy with levels of movement across different levels of management and administration fluidity, with our current strong economy and new companies coming on line it is time to look beyond the handy “carrot” of compensation and benefits would do for you.

A diminishing pool of talent in many specialist areas is the biggest threat to growth, which is why the ability to overcome skills shortages, particularly in the Banking, Engineering, Marine and IT industries, will become the defining characteristic of the employment market in 2011.

The pressure in transferring/ hiring resource from other parts of the world is the catalyst for many of the other issues we expect to dominate in 2011, like salary inflation, increase in counter offers and recruiting from overseas.”

The current employment issues for 2011 will be:

1. Skills shortages

A strong financial hub and Shenton Way filled with good quantity of qualified banking professionals. This professional group of people will be expect an increase of calls from headhunters representing rival companies in the Asian markets. It is time for employers to assess and rethink what they can offer in order to attract and retain their talents.

The IT industry will be booming in the next 18 months. With more companies from the US and Euro setting up their Regional Headquarters and outsourcing their Data Centres needs in Asia which further saturated the market talent pool; software engineering personnel will be very difficult to find.

There will be various strategies implied to overcome the skills shortage in 2011; and every success will saturate the candidate market further, which will have consequences for all employers looking on unorthodox ways and programs to recruit.

2.Salary Inflation

Salary expectations of employees are rising along with a strong economy and a strong employment market. Employers may respond to the growing increase in shortage of skills with a greater willingness to review salaries and employ foreign resources. Headhunting will be adding to salary inflation.
The professional talents with skills in demand will expect a healthy salary increase in 2011.
Otherwise, they will enter the jobs market.

3. Counter offer
Employers will have to do better to retain their talent in the face of a talent shortage market.
A successful counter offer involves more than just money – employers need to address the underlying issues of why their employee decided to look for a new job in the first place and usually is the environment, clear communications in career path planning and the fringe benefits that played the part in their options to leave. However, there will be chances of that new employee you just hired would back out at the last minute after inking the offer letter.

4. Recruiting from overseas
Employers will need to rely on recruiting foreign resource for their increasing list of skills in demand, especially in the IT industries for networks and call centres. However, there remains a lot of reluctance about this particular strategy for helping to overcome skills shortages. Employers will need to re-work their budget and plans by another 20% increase in spending to overcome their problems

5. Prevention

A slow increasing number of skilled Singaporeans are heading overseas for work following improvements to the international markets.
China, Australia and Europe in particular is a clear attraction.


Employers in Singapore need to start looking beyond just salary and benefits to retain their staff, A solid career development plans and a conducive workplace environment is key too.
As the employers in that part of the world are using attractive bonus program, family health and life insurance, transportation reimbursements, stock options and personal well-being benefits program to attract talents
It is time to get more creative when it comes to workforce retention in order to hold onto key management staff


6. Growing influences of Linkedin and Facebook
The use of social media will be become more mainstream in 2011.
Savvy employers will use social media to cross-reference candidates’ or attract potential employees.
Furthermore, a lot of employers are using this media to freely advocate about their attractive corporate environment when recruiting.
Hence, in 2011 it will be not just job seekers that need to ensure their online profile remains professional and constantly update with latest happenings, but all employers too.