With the workforce growing to be more digital, there is a growing need for employees to upgrade their skillsets according to the changing demands of the industries they are in.
As such, there will be a renewal of the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP) for Salesforce Platform Professionals, for three years until 2023. More mid-career professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) will highly benefit from this renewal as it will allow them to transition further into the latest tech roles.
They will better be able to adjust to the vast and rapidly growing information and communications technology (ICT) sector.
This programme is a partnership between Workforce Singapore (WSG), software firm Salesforce and trade association SGTech. An estimated 150 PMETs, as well as mid-career switches, are expected to benefit from this programme.
The partnership is also supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Economic Development Board (EDB).
The programme was first launched in September 2018, where it underwent a pilot run. It saw more than 40 participants. About 45 percent of the participants were mature workers and/or individuals who had been unemployed for more than six months and were being reskilled to uptake roles such as business analysts, solutions consultants and developers.
The programme followed a classroom structure, which also included an on-the-job training in companies which participants were placed in for over a period of six months. With the uptake of these new skills, graduates of this programme can expect to transition to roles or switch careers to industries such as finance, healthcare and technology.
There have also been other initiatives in Singapore for building on and boosting the tech skills of the workforce.
OpenGov had previously reported, back in August 2019, on the collaboration between the National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU) and SMRT on a new programme for SMRT employees.
The SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace programme was designed to provide training of digital skills to SMRT’s employees.
The programme was initiated by the NTWU-SMRT Company Training Committee (CTC), which was established in February 2019.
In the partnership of SMRT with NTUC LearningHub (NTUC LHUB), it will be providing the necessary training for SMRT’s employees.
This will aid them in knowing how to use the most current workplace technological tools to boost productivity and produce positive results.
Benefits of the Programme
Bus and rail workers will have a better understanding of key trends and technologies which will revolutionise the ways of the land transport industry and of their impact on the economy. It will also get them to always possess a future-ready attitude, where they will be involved in continuous learning.
They will be taught of the ways of using SMRT’s current work-related apps. Some of these apps include Workplace by Facebook. They will also be taught on how to implement Augmented Reality and/or Virtual Reality technology in their work.
Efforts Taken
Pilot classes were conducted for more than 40 SMRT workers on 24 July and 5 August 2019. They were given hands-on training on how to apply the use of mobile apps in the workplace.
The training emphasised that digital transformation is not a tedious process and that it can be achieved by all. These classes widen the digital knowledge of employees and aid them in staying abreast of the latest tech innovations and be constantly able to contribute to the company.
They will be conducting a review of these pilot classes before further implementing them to more employees within SMRT.
