Empowering local talent and embracing diversity

SINGAPORE has come a long way in cultivating world-class talent. Since its independence, it has nurtured and developed a highly educated and skilled workforce, earning recognition as one of the world’s most talent-competitive nations.

In order to maintain its global competitiveness and drive innovation, the city-state needs to continue attracting and retaining top professionals from all over the world. Having the right people and skills can, after all, make or break an economy.

As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong reiterated in his Budget 2024 speech in February, Singapore is committed to enhancing the local workforce and encourages employers to build on a strong “Singaporean core” with additional talent. While focusing on developing its local human capital and enabling local talent to thrive, the nation must also welcome highly skilled individuals from abroad into nascent areas and sectors where it is developing capabilities and expertise.

The Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS), which came into effect in September 2023, is an important step in this direction.

Promoting greater predictability and fair consideration

COMPASS is used to assess Employment Pass (EP) applications for non-local candidates, and clearly outlines the eligibility criteria for both employers and employees.

It also provides certainty and transparency for businesses navigating Singapore’s immigration system. By assessing attributes from both individuals and employers using a points system to score factors such as diversity, qualifications and support for local employment, COMPASS manages the quality of foreign manpower while seeking to assuage concerns about fair treatment for local employees.

This approach aims to ensure that foreign talent complements rather than competes with Singapore’s local workforce, while enabling employers to recruit high-quality professionals.

Rather uniquely, clear guardrails have been put in place to prevent the over-representation of any one foreign nationality within a company. For example, companies score better in their EP applications when they have a high concentration of local employees and hire employees from a range of geographies.

As required by the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), COMPASS also mandates that companies demonstrate that they have considered Singaporean candidates before offering positions to employees from overseas. That is, employers seeking to hire foreign professionals are required to advertise job vacancies on the online platform MyCareersFuture before submitting a work pass application. This helps to ensure that foreign talent is brought in only when necessary to fill skills gaps.

Focusing on high achievers

As part of continued efforts to strengthen its human capital, Singapore strives to fortify its position as a global hub for talent by attracting top-tier professionals through initiatives such as the Overseas Networks and Expertise Pass (ONE Pass).

The ONE Pass complements COMPASS by catering to high achievers across various fields, including business, arts and academia. This personalised visa is available to individuals earning a monthly salary of at least S$30,000 or those who have made outstanding achievements in sports, arts and culture, or academia and research.

Apart from helping to ensure that Singapore can attract top talent, ONE Pass aims to facilitate knowledge transfer to the local workforce and create opportunities for Singaporeans to learn and grow.

Strengthening talent development and adaptability

As highlighted in the Budget, the Singapore government continues to encourage individuals to upgrade themselves and ensure that their skills and knowledge are relevant amid the changing economy.

Initiatives detailed in the Budget to support these efforts include support for mid-career employees through the new SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, which aids their upskilling or reskilling efforts by buffering them against potential challenges from financial commitments.

Companies, too, play a crucial role in supporting their employees’ professional development through training and mentorship initiatives. With the rapid advancement in transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence and the increased demand for digital proficiency, addressing skills gaps and ensuring adaptability among the workforce has never been more important.

Upskilling and re-skilling employees to adapt to the future of work is the way to go for the long term; however, in the interim, the COMPASS framework enables employers to supplement their talent pool and remain competitive.

Improving the clarity of guidelines

Singapore has made significant strides in its immigration policy with the introduction of COMPASS, by enhancing clarity, transparency and predictability for businesses and employees. However, there remains room for improvement, particularly in providing clearer guidelines for the framework’s salary criteria.

At present, only a fixed monthly salary and any fixed allowances are considered for the qualifying salary requirements of a work pass application. Yet, the world of work is changing, and so too are compensation structures.

While fixed salaries remain essential, many organisations now focus on holistic workforce value propositions that consider the “whole person” in a bid to attract the right talent, and in the face of changing expectations from employees.

These approaches provide bespoke offerings that align to what employees or potential employees actually value, which can be more than just cash. Apart from traditional financial benefits, offerings could include more substantial non-financial elements such as health, well-being and lifestyle benefits as well as more flexibility for employees to determine the offerings that suit them best.

The landscape of employers in Singapore is also evolving, with many new, early stage and entrepreneurial ventures emerging. Compensation structures within these organisations can vary from their more established peers – often with lower fixed salaries and a higher use of equity compensation in order to manage capital and align and motivate employees – but all of which add to making market comparisons difficult.

With organisations experimenting with innovative approaches to reward offerings, the government could therefore consider adjusting the salary criteria to reflect these alternative forms of compensation, and consulting with organisations to understand their workforce needs and talent retention strategies.

Embracing immigration for collective success

Room for improvement aside, COMPASS points Singapore in the right direction towards augmenting its domestic workforce with top global talent. It showcases how the government harnesses immigration as an opportunity for growth, learning, and innovation.

As the global economy evolves rapidly, Singapore is keeping closely in step by tweaking its immigration framework to foster diversity and facilitate skills transfer, even as it invests in strengthening its local talent pool.

Rather than a threat to local talent, immigration should be viewed as complementary to a resilient and adaptable Singapore core, which will enable the country to secure its position as a hub for the world’s best and brightest.

The writers are from Deloitte Singapore. Sandip Bhandal is a partner, and Simon Chapman is director, Global Employer Services, at the firm.