Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Mid-career PMETs face unfair practices

It is now well accepted that a person may have to make mid-career changes, as his skills may be obsolete by the time he reaches the ages of 35 to 40. Some may wish to change careers for self-actualisation purposes or passion.

It is now well accepted that a person may have to make mid-career changes, as his skills may be obsolete by the time he reaches the ages of 35 to 40. Some may wish to change careers for self-actualisation purposes or passion.

Last week, in his final May Day message as labour chief, Mr Lim Swee Say said Singaporeans must stay relevant and upgrade their skills (“Swee Say warns of urgent need to build skills”; April 28).

That is part of the equation these days. In the Singapore Budget 2015, every Singaporean aged 25 and above receives S$500 under SkillsFuture for a start. Also, the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) gets mid-career personnel to go for career conversion programmes. And there is the Workforce Development Agency’s WorkPro grant employers can tap.

However, it takes two hands to clap if efforts are to bear fruit. While using incentives solves part of the problem, employers must change their mindset and abandon old hiring patterns.

In the public sector, for example, the Current Estimated Potential framework is adopted to groom fresh graduates for leadership positions.

Such a human resource (HR) framework has also been adopted by multinational corporations and the private sector when it comes to hiring decisions. Typically, the grooming process for senior positions takes 10 years under this framework.

If a mid-career professional, manager, executive or technician in his 30s were to apply for a job, say, in the public sector, the HR directors have the difficult decision of fitting him into the framework.

Would such a mid-career job applicant draw an entry-level salary? Would he invite stares or ridicule from colleagues if he were to start at entry level, yet draw a higher salary if his past experience were taken into account?

Ultimately, many HR directors would rather err on the conservative side and hire young graduates who fit their framework. Or if there is an over-reliance on S-Pass holders, workers may attend career conversion programmes to no avail.

It is frustrating, for instance, that foreigners who do not know Singapore’s Companies Act or Business Registration Act are doing bookkeeping services in small corporate secretarial firms when our business environment is all about high standards and accountability.

Let us turn our backs on discrimination against mid-career professionals. Let us uphold our founding fathers’ noble ideals and speak up for the unemployed. Let us also have more bite in the Employment Act to weed out such injustices.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.