The future of SkillsFuture -- How can we make it a success?

The announcement of the SkillsFuture fund has led to much discussion. Right after it was announced, a few MPs raised in parliament an important aspect of SkillsFuture: how do we develop a culture of continuous learning and personal responsibility for one’s own career and future as the nation prepares for the uncertain future?

Will SkillsFuture produce a workforce that is highly sought-after, very employable, and able to keep on re-inventing itself for the dynamic and uncertain economy of the 21st century?

Notably, one of the MPs also raised an important point: previous funds for training and development to raise productivity had not gotten the desired results, so how do we ensure that SkillsFuture will achieve its goals, as well as be a wise investment for Singapore’s future?

The politicians asked if the initiative were to achieve its goals, how wide should the training options be? What kind of training programs will produce dynamic learners and a sought-after workforce?

I would like to add to the dialogue by raising a critical area that the initiative should cover if it is to be a wise investment for Singapore’s future. For SkillsFuture to work, I suggest that the fund be allowed for behavioural competencies enhancement programs.

Why? Because behavioural competencies are increasingly important in job selection criteria and performance appraisals, but not many people realise it. They don’t see it because its results cannot be captured in a certificate.

In studies conducted in the USA and the UK, employers stated that the most critical skills they want in an employee are behavioural competencies such as creativity, adaptability, able to handle diversity, being curious, always learning, and being able to collaborate across job functions or cultures.

In Singapore, when the Minister of Education spoke to the CEOs of MNCs, he was shocked when they told him they found Singapore employees lacking in desirable qualities like having the drive to succeed and the willingness to try new things. Notice that all the desirable qualities are behavioural competencies?

All employers know that hiring someone with the right certificate is easy, but finding someone with the right behavioural competencies is difficult. When hiring, management guru Jim Collins advices employers to give priority to those with the right values and the will to succeed over those who just have the right skills or experience.

So why are we focusing on helping everyone to have the right skills and certificates but not the right behavioural competencies?

From my numerous interactions with policy administrators on career resilience or upgrading programs, I understand that the rationale why training outcomes must be tangible is because this is an investment of taxpayer’s money, and hence accountability is an issue.

However, that is to approach the issue of human development and future economic growth from the wrong angle. This is because the human mindset is the heart of whether we will develop a national culture of self-empowerment and continuous learning or not.

To fund only programs that lead to a tangible outcome like certification is to miss the forest for the trees. If SkillsFuture is an investment, and investments are inherently risky and does not yield fruit in the near future, then are bureaucratic yardsticks that measure immediate outcomes the right measures to use to determine future gains?

To say that a training program should not come under SkillsFuture because its outcomes cannot be measured immediately on paper is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

This has always been the dilemma of Singapore’s education system – how do you quantify its real effects on a person’s life beyond the examinations? I am afraid SkillsFuture might fall into the same administrative pitfall as mainstream education.

The other reason why I believe SkillsFuture should tackle behavioural competencies is because Singaporeans lack one key mindset, which is the appreciation of the need to learn-unlearn-relearn. This is critical to forming a nation of continuous learners.

During my talks on career resilience for government agencies, inevitably, there will be participants who come up to me after the talk and say they agree with me that behaviour competencies like being able to learn-unlearn-relearn and to collaborate to generate value are important, but....

The ‘buts’ usually involve a boss, a company culture, or a national culture that does not appreciate these competencies, and hence they find it of no use to develop these behaviour competencies. In other words, they seem to see learning as a result of external stimulus rather than a self-directed goal.

I have to remind them that behavioural competencies are for their own careers and futures; they owe it to themselves to be successful. However, in the minds of some PMEs, a skill or a mindset should be developed only if someone on the outside e.g. a boss, will reward it.

Such a mindset will not survive the uncertainties of the 21st century economy because nobody can tell you what to learn. With such a mindset towards learning, SkillsFuture might fail because the intended recipients will not know how to use the fund to their advantage.

Thus, we may need to even teach them how and why they need to learn before they will become continuous learners.

But it is not just the employees who need to change their thinking towards learning and development. Employers need to change theirs too.

I gave a talk at the Rotary Club of Singapore a couple of years ago about being able to learn-unlearn-relearn as a key competency for success in the 21st century. A young PME raised his hand and asked if I thought that bosses should unlearn their old ways of treating employees and relearn how to engage their employees and raise productivity and morale.

I replied ‘Yes of course’. Bosses have to realise that training is not a distraction, but an investment and they should not stand in the way of their staff’s development.

To illustrate this point, I would like to share the story of David Marquet, a US submarine commander who was given command of the most poorly rated submarine in the entire US nuclear submarine fleet. Within a year, he made it the number one submarine in the navy!

How did he do it? Did he change his crew? No. Every single sailor he inherited remained. What Marquet did was to teach them how to think, how to contribute, how to learn, and how to take responsibility.

In other words, he taught them behavioural competencies. When Steven Covey visited the submarine Marquet commanded, he commented it was the most empowering organisation he has ever seen.

Subsequently, his crew produced more submarine commanders than any other ship’s crew. Clearly, the problem with the crew before was not one of technical competencies, but of leadership and behavioural competencies.

How do we ensure SkillsFuture, and Singapore, will succeed? We know that people’s actions are the results of their thoughts. Thus, we need to equip them with the behavioural competencies like being able to learn-unlearn-relearn, to always be curious, and to embrace risk and uncertainty, that keep them adding value beyond their technical competencies.

As American philosopher Eric Hoffer said, In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.