Once your business establishes itself in one market, your next step as an entrepreneur is to think about expanding your business into new markets. This is important for the survival of your business especially when you hail from a country with a small market. Governments around the world are also realising the importance of supporting businesses in expanding internationally, as evident from the SME Export Marketing Fund (EMF) in Hong Kong and the International Partnership Fund in Singapore.

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The SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace initiative was launched by the Minister for Education, Ong Ye Kung on 5 October 2017. The programme aims to train over 100,000 Singaporeans over the next three years in basic digital skills to help them adapt to a changing workplace.

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Competencies are the skills, knowledge and personal characteristics that contribute to superior performance. A well-developed competency framework can achieve alignment and integration of business strategies:

 

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In September, Ministry of Manpower (MOM) announced the introduction of a new Work Pass (WP) card with a QR code and a free mobile application called the SGWorkPass. The app enables employers, pass holders and any other stakeholders to check the status of work passes with their smartphones. This is more reliable as the date of expiry printed on a work pass may not reflect the most up to date status for various reasons, e.g. cancellation due to resignation or restructuring.

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Incentive plans are becoming an increasingly popular tool to drive employee performance. A well-designed plan can help to accelerate business growth as well as achieve talent attraction and retention. Today we explore 5 key features of a good incentive plan.

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Ignoring Cultural Fit Can Be Costly

All organisations will definitely benefit from an awareness and benefits of the role of cultural fit in the recruitment and selection process. The challenge lies in knowing how to strike the delicate balance between probing further to ascertain a candidate's likelihood to succeed in that organisation's culture and recognising there is sufficient 'evidence' of a good cultural alignment. 

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In our previous post, we talked a bit about how inter-generational diversity and more specifically, certain stereotypes placed on the Millennial generation. How then, do we bridge this gap between the generations, such that we can harness our diversity to reach a better level of understanding and cohesiveness?

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From 1 July, employers are to offer re-employment up to the age of 67.  This applies to Singapore citizens or Singapore permanent residents who have served their current employer for at least 3 years before turning 62, turn 65 on or after 1 July 2017, have satisfactory work performance and are medically fit to continue working.   

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Many businesses think they are doing a good job of bringing newly hired executives like Jacobsen into the fold when they actually aren’t. Nearly all large companies are competent at the administrative basics of signing leaders up, but that level of onboarding does little to prevent the problems that can arise when these people start working with new colleagues and grappling with unfamiliar cultural norms and expectations. Companies vary widely when it comes to how much effort they put into integration, with major consequences in terms of time to performance, derailment (through termination or resignation), and talent retention.

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If you want to create a successful business, you have to do more than win your share of customers or control costs—you have to break the rules and overturn the received wisdom about how things work.

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Founded 25 years ago by eight partners, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, rewrote the playbook in financial services. While many of its peers were stumbling and retrenching in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, BlackRock was charting a course for growth. Its revenue, profits, and stock price all performed consistently during that tumultuous period.

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The NWC Guidelines cover the period from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018 and applies to all employees – management, executives, professionals and rank-and-file employees, unionised and non- unionised companies in both public and private sectors, workers who have been re- employed.

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A staple of modern-day business, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can make or break a business. When you choose to buy (or be bought by) a partner company, this can and should lead to an outcome where the whole is more than sum of the parts. Unfortunately, if the merger does not go well, the opposite can happen. Both sides can, and unfortunately sometimes do, drag each other down through infighting and miscommunication. Today, we are going to look at the important role of cultural intelligence in successful M&As.

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If you are a business leader seeking that extra competitive edge in a global market, stronger capitalization, or significant customer acquisition to grow your company, you may be considering a merger or acquisition (M&A). Just last year alone (2016), 800 M&A transactions worth SGD$125 billion were recorded in Singapore [1].

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Besides having more people competing for fewer jobs, globalization and advancement in technology have also put downward pressure on wages, making it harder for young graduates to find a job that meets their salary expectation. Young people will need to be agile, adaptable and be prepared to put in the effort and time to understand emerging trends. After they’ve landed a job, they should also continue to develop the skills needed to create a difference in the organizations they are a part of. 

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We came across an article recently published by HBR, titled 'Uber Is Finally Realizing HR Isn’t Just for Recruiting'. This is a good read, and a timely reminder that the experience, insights and knowledge of capable HR leaders do make a difference to the performance and 'health' of an organisation.

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Too busy to catch up with the full 2017 Budget Statement? Here are 9 key excerpts of the 2017 Budget that may be relevant to you as an SME

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Organisational culture is one of the latest buzzwords in the human resource industry. Unlike the usual fads that come and go, this is backed by research which shows that  culture does indeed play a significant role in any organisation, and that it would be wise to take culture into consideration in  strategic business planning and decisions. Let’s look into some ways a strong corporate culture can drive business goals and achieve success for your organisation.

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