Source : Straits Times – 30 Sep 2009
SINGAPORE is setting up a hub for talent development and is seeking business schools, institutions and corporations to form a cluster at one-north, at Buona Vista, to help achieve this goal.
The initiative – called Singapore Link – unveiled by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday is aimed at anchoring Singapore as the regional centre for developing talent and leadership training.
Link, short for Leadership Initiative for building Networks and Knowledge, wants to attract big-name business schools, companies and ‘corporate universities’ to work together on talent development in an Asian context.
Corporate universities refer to multinationals like Citigroup, GE and UBS which have their own corporate schools to train employees for management roles.
The Economic Development Board (EDB), which is driving the Singapore Link initiative, said the Link ‘campus’ – the pool of institutions involved – will be run in a similar way to Biopolis.
Speaking at the two-day Singapore Human Capital Summit, Mr Lee said that ‘this clustering will strengthen the links between research, management and training’. It will also encourage corporations and academia to work together on real world challenges and help in the speedy adoption of best practices, he added.
EDB said the clustering effect will enhance the opportunities for all players to work together more effectively and efficiently. This means sharing of facilities, research and other resources.
Mr Lee also announced that Link will house a new Human Capital Leadership Institute, set up by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Singapore Management University (SMU).
The institute will conduct pan-Asian research on human resource challenges and offer the best training programmes on leadership and management to local and foreign participants.
One such course, which starts next year, is the Singapore Business Leaders Programme; it targets senior executives expected to take on regional or global responsibilities.
More details will be released at a later date, said MOM yesterday.
Insead Asia Pacific region executive director Maziar Sabet said that the global business school is looking forward to playing a role in the Link initiative, and sees it as complementing Insead’s own leadership programmes.
‘We’re the only business school that committed to a campus here in recognition of Singapore’s unique position as a knowledge and leadership hub,’ he said.
Insead’s campus is located at Buona Vista, near one-north.
Singapore Human Resources Institute executive director David Ang said it was ‘timely that there is an aggregation of HR players’ to share ideas. ‘While this will obviously benefit the large corporates, SMEs will also benefit from the sharing of good HR practices and resources.’
Mr Lee acknowledged that ‘for a small country like Singapore, acquiring and nurturing human talent is a matter of survival’ and that the country has to be an attractive home for talent.
‘Without much of anything else, we rely on human ingenuity and effort to build our economy and society,’ he added.
Mr Lee outlined the characteristics of Singapore’s approach to human capital and talent.
Firstly, that human capital and talent can be nurtured, and this could be from diverse fields. ‘Singapore needs not just engineers and accountants, but also painters and poets, dancers and fashion designers. Together they make ours a more interesting, cool and vibrant city,’ he said.
Also, the way to bring out the best in people is to create a conducive and stimulating environment for them to pursue their interests, said Mr Lee.
In return, they must feel a sense of responsibility to the community and give back to society, he told an 800-strong audience at the conference held at the Raffles City Convention Centre.
Mr Lee noted that Singapore, at the crossroads of Asia, is well-positioned to be a regional hub for research on talent management practices in Asia.
‘If we can help Asian economies to gain talent and grow, we ourselves will in turn grow with them,’ he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment