Are you running your business like an easy sprint or a tiring marathon?
With limited resources and so much to do, it is not uncommon for teams to lose sight of their original goals when they first initiated the project. Nothing is more demoralising than reaching the end of a quarter or year with no clue or consensus on whether your results indicate a success or a failure.
Read MoreOnce 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read More‘Performance appraisal’ - words which bring unease not just to employees but to managers. Many managers find it challenging to provide feedback to employees whose performance have not been up to their expectations. Having these difficult conversations need not be as challenging as one would think, and could help improve performance as well as your working relationships with your team, if done well. At the same time, performing employees should not be neglected as well. It is just as important to recognise their contributions and reinforce positive behaviour.
Read MoreCompetencies 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.
Read MoreIncentive 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.
Read MoreIgnoring 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.
Read MoreIn 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?
Read MoreFrom 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.
Read MoreMany 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.
Read MoreIf 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.
Read MoreFounded 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreWorking for a startup can be the most exciting, educational experience of your lifetime. While employment at a startup can be risky, the plethora of benefits that accompany life at a startup is too enticing for many prospective employees to ignore. Below are the top 10 reasons why you should work for a startup.
Read MoreIf 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].
Read MoreBesides 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.
Read MoreRecently, we granted Yuan Xiu from The UrbanWire, a lifestyle magazine produced by final-year Online Journalism students of the School of Film & Media Studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, an interview on the job prospects of young people amidst the slowing economy.
Read MoreWe 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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