Human Resource Development In Singapore Case Study

As one of the most vibrant nations of Asia, Singapore is recognised for its dynamic and innovative human capital development initiatives, making it one of the more advanced developing nations. (Osman-Gani & Chan, 2009) Human resource development (HRD) is designed by organisations to provide its employees with “the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet the current and future job demands”. (Werner & DeSimone, 2012) One of the trends that prominently affects the adaptation of human resources (HR) is the steady increase in the aging workforce population. The trend of an aging workforce, a declining birth rate and earlier retirement have created skills shortage, such as loss of older employees through retirement and difficulties in recruiting

(Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices, 2010, pp. 9) With the influence of historical, economic, social and cultural events, each of the generations are distinguished by the different behaviours, attitudes and work values. Disparities in thinking and organisation strife are inevitable if any generational groups fail to recognise and accept the unique differences in characteristics of each group and to embrace the similarities. (Tay, 2010) Hence, when managed ineffectively, there would be an increasing diversity in the workforce, acutely affecting the overall performance due to negative stereotypes, misperceptions and misunderstandings. This would also impact the training and development as it would bring about a rise in lower morale, dysfunctional team dynamics and high turnover rates. Human resources should place emphasis on motivating employees and encouraging employees to learn new skill sets that complement the needs of the business environment in order to mitigate the existing skill gap in the labour

Individuals tend to form and learn stereotypical norms of the social environment, thus, when employees see themselves and others as belonging to different groups, they would tend to favour their own group. (Heitzlhofer, 2009) While dealing with an inter-generational group of employees, human resources should use this as an opportunity for retention and inter-generational transfer of know-how and skills (Streb, Voelpel & Leibold, 2008) Generational conflicts are unavoidable as individuals have different views in approaches of work and life balance. There are clashes and tensions between the older and younger employees, creating negative stereotypes. It is noted that more frequently than not, the older generation may perceive the younger generation as entitled, tech-obsessed or too fervent to challenge norms, while younger generation may see the previous generation as being old-fashioned and difficult to train. (Higginbottom,