Upskilling in a crisis

THERE'S that saying: Never let a good crisis go to waste. In Singapore, it appears many have taken this to heart, taking the time to sign up for fresh training and upskilling programmes.

Private education service providers reported a jump in interest in courses during the pandemic. And the courses in demand reflected current skills in demand at the workplace, especially digital-related skills, as the pandemic sped up the adoption of and wider use of digitalisation.

Learning is also not limited to the 4 walls of the campus or even to Singapore, as classes can be conducted in virtual space, either by Singapore-based or overseas trainers - the latter made possible by remote learning.

American education services provider General Assembly says it had seen a lot more firms accelerate their digital initiatives in the last 2 years, resulting in a demand for technology and digital talent, especially with South-east Asia's digital economy only growing larger by the day.

Founded in the United States, General Assembly operates physical campuses in 6 countries, including Singapore - its only in Asia. It offers training in fields that are in demand, including web development, data science and analysis, user experience design, digital marketing, and product management. Most popular courses at General Assembly are data science, software engineering, and user experience design.

Demand for data-related courses in line with job market gaps

In Singapore, Sima Saadat, its head of marketing for Asia-Pacific has seen a 15 per cent increase in interest in data courses so far this year, corresponding with the growth in demand for talent in the data field. In general, Saadat notes a 25 per cent higher interest in reskilling programmes offered by General Assembly since the start of the pandemic.

Its reskilling immersive programmes provide individuals with industry-relevant skills and career coaching to support them in their pivot to a role in a new field after graduation, it says. And it collaborates with the Infocomm and Media Development Authority of Singapore on building tech talent here under the Tech Immersion and Placement Programme (TIPP), which aims to convert non-infocomm tech professionals into professionals ready for the industry.

Singapore citizens and permanent residents who qualify for TIPP will receive a subsidy for the immersive programmes, which cost S$13,500 or S$14,500 at General Assembly, before subsidy.

General Assembly saw an increase in demand for modular, short formats as well. During the circuit breaker period and in the months that followed, General Assembly developed various community initiatives to support learning.

For example, it held an initiative called Free Fridays, where its most popular workshops were available for free every Friday. And it saw over 60,000 people across the Asia-Pacific attend these workshops between late April and July 2020. "This was so popular we decided to continue the campaign again this year. It is currently on-going,and we are seeing the same excitement from the community," says Saadat.

Singapore Management University's professional training arm SMU Academy also reported more people taking up its programmes to upskill. The academy had a 25.5 per cent jump year-on-year in sign-ups in 2020, and a nearly 30 per cent increase in enrolments between January and September this year compared to 2020. SMU Academy offers an array of interdisciplinary programmes that cover conventional disciplines and emerging skills for the future.

A spokesperson notes: "Courses in the area of data protection and analytics, digital marketing, environmental, social and governance, as well as sustainability have received great interest." Practitioner certificate in personal data protection, data analytics using Microsoft's Power BI and digital marketing - social media marketing are the academy's top 3 most popular courses.

The preparatory course developed by the Personal Data Protection Commission has generated high demand as all organisations, including sole proprietorships, are required to designate at least one person as Data Protection Officer. The Power BI data analytics programme meanwhile employs the Microsoft application to create smart data visualisation.

"Digital marketing skills are also tech-lite skills that can be picked up easily, given that it builds upon traditional marketing concepts and does not require specialised and advanced IT skill sets," the SMU Academy spokesperson notes.

Having to adhere to the prevailing safe management measures led to a significant increase in online learning, dual-mode learning and the launch of an asynchronous online certificate programme at SMU Academy. Asynchronous programmes allow participants to learn at their own pace and convenience, removing scheduling issues that make long-term programmes a problem for many working adults. With the flexibility provided by online learning during the pandemic, SMU Academy has expanded partnerships with corporations and industry expert instructors from the region and globally.

At NTUC LearningHub, the types of programmes that were in demand were also IT-related. The top courses include those in agile skills, data analytics, and user experience. The number of training places for infocomm technology courses surged 58 per cent year-on-year in 2020 at the social enterprise under the National Trades Union Congress.

NTUC LearningHub also surveyed 450 working professionals, comprising 150 business leaders and 300 full-time and part-time employees, in June and found that 68 per cent of them prefer the hybrid mode of attending courses in-person and remote learning.

During the circuit breaker in 2020, the training provider offered workers up to 200 free online courses. Over 100,000 learners had signed up by December 2020.

"We found that more than half of them had never signed up for an online course before the circuit breaker and signing up for our online learning platform," an NTUC LearningHub spokesperson tells BT.

SkillsFuture Singapore says popular areas of training are food and beverage, information and communications technology, and security and investigation for which Singaporeans have used their SkillsFuture credit.

Reinforcing rice bowls

While acquiring new skills is a positive change, the impact and outcomes may not be immediate. One wonders whether upskilling will see workers through a recession by reinforcing their rice bowls, or get job-seekers a position.

General Assembly's Saadat says: "In Singapore, over 96 per cent of our graduates who work closely with our career coaches land a job within 6 months of graduation."

The school's career coaches, she says, offer personalised support to help the graduates in getting employed. Also, it works with employers to let them know about the pipeline of talent that the school has to offer.

She says its graduates secured jobs at top companies across sectors, including Accenture, DBS, DHL, Google, GovTech, OCBC Bank, PropertyGuru, Shopee, Sephora, and Zalora.

Teng Ming Xuan graduated in mid-2020 with a major in life sciences and a minor in aquatic ecology from the National University of Singapore, when the job market took a huge hit as the pandemic started to unfold and its impact was being felt.

The 24-year-old says: "It definitely affected my job search then, especially since I was in such a specific or niche industry. That is also the reason why I took up a traineeship while looking for full-time opportunities."

She worked as a trainee in a farm under the SGUnited Traineeships programme, but was also looking for full-time employment - to no avail. Meanwhile, she took up free courses online and delved deeper into user experience (UX) design. She exited the traineeship early as she felt that there was not much that she could acquire in hard skills because most of the chemical formulations for hydroponics were confidential and not made available to her.

This year, she took up a 3-month full-time immersive course on UX design with TIPP subsidy, after deciding to take the chance to make a career switch.

Teng is currently a UX designer at a spatial-based solution company, a position she landed after one month of job hunting upon completion of the UX design programme. The job market has improved by then, and there is certainly stronger demand for UX designers.

Upskilling, as Teng believes, was helpful to securing a job. "I would say that attending and completing a recognised course helped, both in terms of picking up the necessary skills, as well as having a reliable certificate to 'prove' that I have a certain level of understanding.

"I do think that it is one of the key factors which enabled me to land a job in this industry. While picking up skills on your own shows initiative and passion, it takes quite a period of time to accumulate the skills and project experience to showcase said skills."

Employment outcomes

According to Workforce Singapore, almost 16,000 trainees had been on the SGUnited Traineeships and the Mid-Career Pathways Programme - Company Attachments (SGUP-CA) as at end-August, since the programmes rolled out in June 2020 and August 2020 respectively.

A Workforce Singapore spokesperson notes that more than 30 per cent had completed their traineeships or attachments, while the rest were either undergoing their traineeships or had exited early from the programmes, as at end-August. The most frequently cited reason for early exits was that they had found employment.

She says close to 8 in 10 respondents in post-programme surveys indicated that they have secured employment with their host organisation or found employment elsewhere. More than 7,200 host organisations had participated in the programme, a threefold increase in the number of participating host organisations compared to a year ago.

SGTech - an association for the technology industry in Singapore which helps to facilitate talent inflow into tech enterprises - notes that 81 per cent of all respondents in a survey planned to increase their tech positions in 2021 in spite of the pandemic. However, the talent crunch remains due to skills gaps in the local workforce and reduced inflow of global talent.

Since 2018, SGTech has made over 800 placements, almost half of whom are mature professionals, managers and executives. It notes that big tech firms are playing an important role in supporting skills development for the local workforce.

Google, for instance, launched Skills Ignition SG - A Grow With Google Programme in July 2020 to help Singaporeans boost their employability and provide vital industry experience in digital marketing and cloud technology amid a challenging labour market.

Since its launch, more than 2,600 trainees have gone through the programme, spending time with 38 host companies, including Google. The company noted 90 per cent of those trainees felt the programme has allowed them to gain the right skills to succeed in the digital economy, while 88 per cent felt better equipped to develop and grow their careers.

Google has added 600 more placements in the digital marketing track this year, increasing the total size of the cohort to 3,600. It will be adding a third track, focused on developing talent in data engineering and machine learning - open to 100 trainees.