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Redesigning job roles to embrace digitalisation helps workers retain their jobs, and companies retain valuable staff.
By now, it’s widely acknowledged that companies must embrace transformation to stay relevant in the long term.
With the Singapore economy undergoing changes due to trends in artificial intelligence (AI),
climate change and an ageing population, the message has only become louder.
However, transformation is easier said than done.
While 97 per cent of companies in the Asia-Pacific are taking some steps towards reinvention, two-thirds of their CEOs reported reallocating only 20 per cent or less of financial and human resources from year to year for reinvention, according to PwC’s 27th Annual Global CEO-Asia Pacific Survey 2024.
Certainly, there’s a willingness among business leaders to make the transition. But for many
companies, the struggle is to get started and navigate this unprecedented shift.
And because of the slow progress in transformation, labour productivity remains one of the key workforce challenges faced by Singapore’s economy and companies.
Through the National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) engagement with companies, we have observed that key issues include outdated and manual processes that are inefficient and time-consuming, skills mismatches between workers and demand, and underutilisation of technology, among others.
In a climate of retrenchments, business transformation is a much-needed, non-negotiable step for companies to survive and to help their employees remain and thrive in their jobs.
If the workforce remains relevant, the business will, too.
It’s important to understand that a significant part of business transformation involves job
“redesign”.
Job redesign, or the redefinition of job roles, involves altering tasks and responsibilities within an organisation. It can take various forms such as task enrichment, job enlargement, job rotation and flexible work arrangements.
This strategic process can increase productivity while creating opportunities for upskilling and reskilling, ensuring that the workforce remains relevant in the face of workplace trends.
In PwC’s survey, 26 per cent of Asia-Pacific CEOs predict a reduction in headcount due to
generative AI. While these advances are expected to enhance productivity and drive growth,
they will have a short-term impact on workers and their livelihoods.
Based on NTUC’s annual Economic Sentiments survey of nearly 2,000 respondents, 3 per cent of workers have already experienced a negative impact due to AI, and 15 per cent are worried
they will lose their jobs. Of these, two-thirds are PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians).
This underscores the need for digitalisation as an important plank of companies’ and workforce transformation efforts. Digitalisation, extending beyond AI, encompasses diverse technologies and strategies aimed at enhancing productivity, efficiency and competitiveness.
By embracing digitalisation with their workers, companies can modernise operations, streamline processes and foster innovation. This not only enables a more agile and resilient business model, but also has tangible benefits for workers and their families.
Digitalisation also opens doors to new job opportunities, skills development and career
advancement, empowering companies and workers to thrive together in the digital economy.
Lending a hand on transformation
Companies grappling with transformation must know that they are not alone in this.
NTUC endeavours to partner companies to help them transform with the Company Training
Committees (CTC) initiative.
Developed in 2019, CTC is a platform where management, worker and union representatives come together to identify and drive areas for business transformation, tapping tools in NTUC’s Training and Placement (T&P) Ecosystem to implement transformation plans.
In 2022, the Government injected $100 million to provide CTC grants for companies so they can execute those plans.
A significant part of what CTC does is help enterprises identify new business opportunities and develop new products and services. CTC also helps companies and unions identify jobs and skills that trends like digital transformation are likely to disrupt.
Trade unions, through the CTC platform, can work with companies to obtain the skills and
career profile of their workers, and relay the information to the NTUC T&P Ecosystem for a
needs analysis.
For example, food and beverage company Chang Cheng Group worked with the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union and the NTUC Industry Training and Transformation (IT&T) team to identify key areas needed to support its productivity and transformation plans amid Covid-19.
One of the areas identified was the redesigning of traditional roles, such as chefs and kitchen helpers, into “food technicians” responsible for ensuring food quality and operating on-site machinery.
As a result, Chang Cheng Group upskilled over 70 of its lower-wage and mature workers to take on new job roles, resulting in higher productivity and wages.
Hydroflux, a local wholesale retailer for water filtration systems, partnered the Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers’ Union and IT&T to implement a Customer Life Cycle Management system. This followed the identification of areas for business growth, focusing on managing customer databases and automating backend administrative processes.
As a result, 38 workers who embraced the digitalised system were able to prioritise higher-valueroles in leadership, post-sales service or product maintenance, leading to higher productivity, wages and career development.
These examples illustrate how companies collaborate with NTUC to upskill, redeploy or retain workers. Companies must recognise that resorting to retrenchment as a survival strategy is shortsighted and counterproductive as they lose one of their means of survival – workers with skills and experience.
Instead, investing in digitalisation and upskilling workers can pave the way for long-term
sustainability and prosperity.
I hope more companies see the value of engaging CTCs in order to transform their businesses, and save jobs and create new ones for workers.
With a smoother transformation, our businesses and workers will be better equipped to
Weather economic storms and continue to contribute to Singapore’s prosperity.
This commentary was first published on
The Straits Times on 18 June 2024.
