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Forging Access to Global Talents for Businesses
Ministry of Manpower
Singapore

The Problem

Due to its small size and lack of natural resources, Singapore has to constantly focus on maintaining economic competitiveness and moving industry and services up the value-chain. In these circumstances, having manpower in the right numbers and with the right skills to meet business needs is deemed necessary.

In the last few years, the flow of human capital across the world has accelerated as the world becomes flatter. Singapore sees itself as having a role to play in facilitating this flow of global talents, especially from the West to the East. Singapore thus, aspires to be a global hub for talents and a gateway for such talents to enter into emerging economies like China, India and the ASEAN nations. This not only augment the small pool of talents we have but add to the cultural vibrancy of Singapore. However, the number of foreign professionals coming to Singapore to work had stagnated in the early 2000s, at about 50,000.

Prior to 2003 Singapore approached the entry of foreign talents with this paradigms: that the Government knows best and had a rigid, one-size-fits-all scheme for entry of skilled foreign talents. Under that scheme, Employment Passes (EPs) were issued mainly to professionals and managers, typically degree-holders, from other countries. There was no avenue within our work pass framework to accommodate the diverse spectrum of other skilled manpower who were necessary for different and new types of business enterprises.

Finally, even when businesses were able to find a suitable overseas candidate to fill a job vacancy, they faced an onerous, opaque and lengthy process when they applied for an EP for the candidate The Ministry’s mindset then was that each application could potentially be fraudulent and thus had to be laboriously checked by a team of processing officers manually. Applications had to be completed from scratch each time, and submitted together with copies of documents for verification. Processing time took up to 2 months as it depended heavily on the ability of the processing officers to complete the assessment of each of the 20,000 – 25,000 applications submitted each month. As the details of the complex evaluation criteria for EP were not made public, employers had little certainty of whether the submitted application would eventually be approved. Furthermore, when applications were rejected, no reasons were given. This upset the business community as they not only had no certainty on whether their applications would be approved but they would have wasted unnecessary resources to source for potential candidates not knowing what the processing criteria were. This lack of transparency led to much frustration among employers.

More than 100,000 businesses employers were increasingly feeding back to Government that both the workpass framework and processing system needed to be transformed to make them more responsive to market needs and transparent.

There was an urgent need for the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to revamp its work pass framework ,and the administrative process for handling applications for professional work passes. A review was done and completed end 2007.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Between 2004-2008, the number of top foreign talents has increased sharply from 80,000 to more than 144,000 which constituted more than 80% increase during the 4-year span. This period also saw Singapore’s economy growing at 7% per year and the emergence of new growth industries like biosciences, interactive media which helped put our economy on a stronger footing for the next phase of our economic transformation. Domestically, the economy created record numbers of jobs, many fo which are in new growth areas. The total labour force grew from 2.34m to 2.75m during the same period. There is also a greater and richer diversity of global talents in Singapore, many of whom use Singapore as a gateway into emerging markets in Asia. This transformation has cemented Singapore’s role as a global hub and magnet for the flow of global talents and Singapore has won international recognition for its work in this area.

According to the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), Singapore was rated the most competitive labour force among 55 economies, topping the following scoreboards:

1) Attracting and retaining talent as a high priority in companies
2) Employment growth
3) Immigration laws perceived to be least restrictive
4) Encourages business development.

Singapore also ranked highly in the following scoreboards:
1) Attraction of foreign high-skilled people to the country’s business environment
2) Availability of international experienced senior managers
3) Labour force growth

The transformation of our Work Pass Framework led to the creation of a diverse spectrum of work passes that cater to the many different needs of businesses as well as foreign professionals.

With the revamped Employment Pass system, (ACER – Autoprocessing Cum EPOL Redevelopment), Singapore now ranks as the world’s fastest in application processing time for foreign professionals and skilled workers (30 minutes to 1 week, compared with the previous 3-5 weeks). Companies enjoy greater convenience in application submission, greater certainty about the application outcome, faster turnaround time, and all in all a better overall customer experience. Our customers also appreciate the greater transparency with the innovative use of EP/S Pass Self Assessment Tool (SAT) which allows applicants to determine the likelihood of them getting an EP or S Pass before submitting an application.

There was also a marked improvement in our Customer Satisfaction Survey scores over the last few years. MOM has achieved positive ratings by 90% of its customers surveyed for being effective in facilitating access to foreign manpower so as to complement and enhance the skills profile of our workforce. 83% of customers indicated at least 5 and above satisfaction ratings with ACER as compared to 60% 3 years ago. Employers have also voiced their appreciation for the simplified application process. They can now better focus on more strategic issues and outsource the application process to employment agencies.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The Ministry achieved success in the strategies due to its engagement with key stakeholders such as government agencies, businesses, business associations, unions, and potential job seeker through overseas universities and associations.

From numerous employers and other private sector partners, MOM obtained information on employment and hiring trends, jobs in demand and skills required, and manpower shortages. The Ministry also engaged the union to keep track of local workers’ sentiments on the ground and likely reactions toward admission of larger numbers of foreign skilled workers. MOM’s close relationship with our industry partners, and Singapore’s’ strong tripartism network of employers-unions-government, ensured that the feedback received was frank, forthright and actionable.

MOM has reviewed its workpass framework and processing system to introduce greater transparency, responsiveness and accountability into the system. Feedback from Singaporean employers, foreign talents and business groups has shown that the new framework and processing system has made a fundamental change on businesses for the better. During this period, thousands of employers were consulted on how we can improve the system and the process of extensive consultation has led to a new framework and processing system that is infinitely more employer and business centric and as a result, has led to a greater of acceptance and understanding not only of the way the new framework/system works but also some of the constraints the Government is facing.

To better understand the manpower landscape and future requirements, MOM engaged economic agencies, like the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), SPRING Singapore and Singapore Tourism Board, to have them share development plans for the various industries and obtain their future manpower projections. This understanding is critical to help us better craft the work pass framework and criteria that is relevant to the industries.

In developing the IT solution (ACER), Hewlett Packard (Singapore) was appointed as MOM’s IT partner. To ensure EPOL presents itself effectively as an integrated portal for businesses, MOM also had to engage several government agencies to seamlessly access data from their systems and to ensure smooth integration of all the systems. This included the Immigration and Checkpoint Authorities (ICA), Central Provident Fund (CPF), the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and Home-Security agencies. This arrangement has removed the hassle of making multiple trips to government agencies for our customers.

To ensure stringent control of applications from professionals, MOM engaged various professional vetting authorities, like the Singapore Medical Council for doctors, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Board for Chinese physicians, and SPRING Singapore for evaluating the feasibility of business plans submitted by any aspiring foreign entrepreneurs.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Based on the feedback from the numerous stakeholders, the following gaps were surfaced:

1) No scheme to take in mid-level specialist manpower
2) No opportunity for foreign entrepreneurs for business development in Singapore
3) Limited prospects for global talents in terms of career advancement as they are tied to one employer
4) No opportunity for young graduates to experience working in Singapore

Hence, the Ministry took a two-pronged approach to close these gaps through:

a) Transforming the Work Pass Framework to better meet employers’ needs for foreign talents and widen options for potential job seekers

In response to industry feedback, a new work pass category was introduced in July 2004. The S Pass was created to meet businesses’ needs for mid-level skilled manpower (executives, specialised workers and technicians), which was a gap in the former work pass framework. Since its introduction, the number of S Pass holders has increased almost five-fold from end 2004 to end 2007, a testament to the need for such specialised manpower amid strong economic growth.

To move away from the traditional qualifications-based assessment system, a compensatory points system was used for assessing S Pass applicants. This takes into account multiple criteria including salary, education qualifications, skills, work experience and occupation, which gives a more holistic assessment of the applicant’s eligibility.

Following consultations with industry and government agencies, MOM also drew up a Strategic Skills List (SSL) for skills with strong industry demand in the coming years. Added considerations are given to EP/S Pass applicants with such skills.

A slew of special schemes were thereafter introduced to make it more attractive for foreign talents to come to Singapore to work. This includes the EntrePass, Personalised Employment Pass and Work Holiday Programme.


b) Building a World-Class Processing System

A comprehensive and thorough process and systems review was conducted. In line with the move away from a ‘gate-keeping’ mindset, the upfront provision of documents was replaced by reliance on declarations which enabled applications to be processed efficiently by the system. This liberalisation is balanced by targeted checks on approved cases with doubtful profiles. Separately, random audits of approved cases are also carried out, in which the full supporting documents are requested and thoroughly screened. The Business Compliance Group was set up, and a risk management system put in place, supported by back-end business intelligence systems to detect suspicious business and employee profiles and verify fraudulent applications. This was to ensure that the new liberalised approach does not compromise the integrity of the process.

To support these changes, a revamped employment pass system was put in place to allow convenient submission of EP and S pass applications, and automate the processing of applications. This cut down processing time drastically, and improved the customer experience. A key feature introduced, the EP/ S Pass SAT allows potential applicants and employers to determine the chances of success for their applications instantaneously, providing greater transparency and thus instilling greater confidence and certainty in the process.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In carrying out the strategies, a bold timeline was implemented to introduce new pass types by December 2007. Separately, a team was tasked to build a world-class processing system that achieves responsiveness and transparency.

a) Transformation of Work Pass Framework

In addition to the S Pass introduced in 2004, the following passes and schemes were introduced to better meet the needs of businesses and foreign professionals.

The EntrePass Scheme was introduced in October 2003 for foreign entrepreneurs who wish to start and operate their businesses in Singapore. Such applications are assessed based on their business plans in collaboration with other government authorities, with MOM.being the single customer interface

In 2005, the Employment Pass Eligibility Certificate (EPEC) was offered to allow graduates and professionals from recognised universities up to one year stay in Singapore to search for employment.

The Personalised Employment Pass (PEP),introduced in January 2007 allows foreign professionals a more flexible work stint in Singapore. Unlike mainstream EP, the PEP is tied to the individual instead of an employer to recognise top talent for its inherent worth, and facilitate their contributions here as long as possible, even if they need to change jobs.

In May 2007, the Strategic Skills List (SSL) was developed to more accurately reflect industry skills requirements. The SSL is regularly updated to take into account broader labour market trends and information.

The Work Holiday Programme (WHP), introduced in December 2007, allows university-level students and graduates from various locations to experience working and living in Singapore for up to 6 months. For foreigners who enter Singapore to perform certain activities for short durations, the need to seek approval to work has been done away from 2008. Accountability under this Work Pass Exempt activities is maintained with the implementation of a convenient online notification system for which these foreigners would inform MOM before performing their work.

b) Building a World Class Processing System

In 2002, the Ministry had launched a basic Employment Pass system, which had limited capabilities. At that time, less than 20% of applications were submitted online as the system was not user-friendly. A comprehensive process review of the EP system was undertaken from 2005 to 2007. ACER was launched with much anticipation to all employers in March 2008

To market ACER, briefing sessions were held and direct mailers sent out to inform and educate businesses about ACER and its capabilities.. These included a forum with more than 3000 employers to seek their inputs and feedback before the launch of the system. Hands-on clinics were also run to familiarise businesses with use of the system, Today, more than 80% of EP/S pass applications are submitted online.

To mitigate the risks associated with reducing checks at the point of application, the Business Compliance Group was formed in Nov 06, to identify potential areas of fraud, and put in place mechanisms for detecting and verifying fraudulent applications from job seekers as well as businesses. The Group grew from a small team of 3 to 20 in Dec 08.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Assuring our Local Workforce
It was anticipated that the Singaporean public would react negatively to any initiative to allow mid-level foreign skilled workers into Singapore. They would perceive that their jobs and livelihood and that of their children would be adversely impacted. Considerable efforts were expended in allaying these fears through dialogue sessions with unions, and public reassurances from the political leadership on the need to allow entry of these workers, to augment the local manpower pool, help local businesses and boost economic growth

Simplifying our Evaluation Methodology
As speed is identified as a key competitive advantage for businesses in this war for talent, it can only be achieved by having our applications processed by an IT system, vis a vis manual assessment. However our Employment Pass evaluation methodology and rules were complex and not easy to automate. Much work was done in mapping out the business rules and converting them into a points system, so that they could be interpreted and decided by the system. ACER had to translate more than 8,000 complex business logic into a rules engine and the project team worked tirelessly to put the system through more than 10,000 different test scenarios. This ensured that quality is not compromised and every decision remains accurate and consistent.

Need for Transparency
Due to the sensitivity of our EP and S Pass criteria, a complete disclosure of assessment factors is not viable as it would inevitably undermine the work pass framework. However, this was overcome innovatively through the introduction of EP/S Pass Self-Assessment Tool, which calculates the likelihood of an application being approved, based on the applicant’s salary, educational qualifications, occupation and work experience. . The online tool provides users with a preliminary indication of outcome, thus giving would-be employers and employees greater certainty and confidence in the application process. The portal sees 900 hits daily (more than half from overseas) and has helped reduce our rejection rates by 20%.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
To better address the manpower needs of businesses, the various departments within MOM devoted considerable resources and collaborated on the initiative over the past few years – with the Manpower Planning and Policy Division driving the understanding of Singapore’s manpower landscape and requirements, the Foreign Workforce Policy Department looking at specific policies involving foreign professionals and skilled workers (including the nuts and bolts of the work pass framework), the International Manpower Division (with CS offices around the world) promoting Singapore to the world as a choice work destination, the Work Pass Division administering the work pass Framework from application to cancellation of work passes, and the Information Systems and Technology department advising with development of ACER.

To reach out to global manpower, MOM, through our Contact Singapore (CS) offices located strategically around the world like London, Boston, Chennai and Shanghai, engaged universities and their alumni/student organisations, and professional associations in the target locations. In 2008, a strategic alliance was also forged with EDB to leverage on the resources of both organisations. These Contact Singapore offices and established networks represent key resources to further enhance our environment sensing capabilities, better promote Singapore as a choice work destination and build a sustainable platform for Singapore-based organisations to tap on global manpower. Apart from having its presence felt in top universities around the world, CS has also become even more active in organising promotional events, including job matching.

On the IT system front, the development of ACER and EP/S Pass SAT took almost 3 years and cost around S$5 million.The core components of employment pass system architecture, such as the web-hosting services, rules engine, messaging systems, load balancers and database servers ensure that it is built for scalability, volume and robustness.At the peak of the project, it took 30 officers from MOM and our vendors to work full time on the system. The annual recurrent cost of running the systems is $300,000.

Communication to businesses and about the changes in framework, new schemes and the capabilities of the systems were on-going, extensive and resource-intensive. These efforts helped to ensure success of the initiative.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Institutionally, a “Flexible and Responsive Labour Market” forms one of the key business outcomes of MOM, and is aligned to not only the MOM, but also the whole-of- Government’s key strategic outcome of building a “Globally Competitive Workforce”. Thus efforts to meet businesses’ manpower needs through review of the policy framework, outreach to foreign skilled workers, and review of processing efficiency will remain one of MOM’s and the Singapore Government’s priority areas. We can expect that resources and efforts will continue to be allocated to this area in the years ahead, despite the current economic downturn.

For our IT solutions – EP/S Pass SAT and ACER, our initiatives have brought about so much convenience to businesses and employment agencies, that it has become integrated into their recruitment processes. Furthermore, we are always on the look out for more technologies to enhance customer experience. This includes being able to log in using SingPass (a common, unique password that provides access to many other Government online systems) rather than a separate ID and password for secured and seamless access to ACER; having multiple modes of payment like inter-bank GIRO, credit cards, and quick application outcome ensure that customers will continue to use ACER. It also boasts of user-friendly features like SMS-Alerts that alerts applicants expeditiously on application outcome without their need to log into ACER. ACER will continue to be upgraded to include other services such as information on rejection reasons for unsuccessful applications. MOM received 2 prestigious awards for ACER in 2008 – the National Infocomm Award (Merit) and Government Technology Awards (GTA) as testaments to the system’s innovativeness and effectiveness.

Singapore’s work pass framework and administrative processes have demonstrated their relevancy for business needs and responsiveness to the labour market and have generated much interest amongst like-minded countries. The ministry has hosted numerous delegations of senior labour officials from rapidly- developing economies like the United Arab of Emirates, Qatar and Brunei which were keen to better understand and learn about Singapore’s approach to admission of foreign professionals and workers.

Finally, in the development of this initiative, MOM had ensured that relevant stakeholders were engaged early and throughout the process. This ensured that they too benefited from the process, and minimised any likelihood of problems or conflicts arising later. More importantly, it has strengthened our partnership with the stakeholders and ensured continued co-operation on this and any other similar initiatives in the future.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
MOM underwent a fundamental shift from a “government knows best” attitude to one that is more attuned to business needs through continual consultation and engagement. Both in policy and operational development, we learnt to be more open to views and perspectives that businesses have to offer. The S pass was introduced based on inputs from business. Another example was the review of the assessment methodology used for EPs, which relied mainly on educational qualifications and salary. Taking into account industry views, we expanded the criteria to include working experience and occupation for assessment of S pass.

Prior to this initiative, the mindset of MOM in processing work passes had been one of “gate-keeping” - to be 100% sure that an applicant met the criteria before approval was given. This approach required businesses to submit copies of documents to support all details in the application, and thorough checking and re-checking of each application against supporting documents to verify the information. It led to inconvenience for businesses and delays in application processing, and counter-productive to MOM’s aim of facilitating a flexible and responsive labour market. We needed a radical change in approach where we could be more targeted in checking applications upfront to focus on potentially problematic applications, and rely on post-approval audits for most cases. MOM’s processes and systems, and staff’s mindset, had to be re-focused on assessment, management and mitigation of the associated risks. The new approach allowed us to shorten processing time and considerably reduce the hassle of application submission for businesses. Today, we continue to build up our capacity to detect and deter fraudulent cases.

Rising to the challenge of facilitating businesses to meet their manpower needs expeditiously, the MOM team set itself a number of stretch targets, one of which was to reduce processing time from 3-5 weeks to 1 week. This, despite the fact that many government agencies are involved in assessing a work pass application. The stretch target forced the team to think out of the box, and re-evaluate every rule and step in the process to ensure that they were necessary and relevant. These painstaking efforts were eventually rewarded as processing time for EP and S passes was reduced to as short as 30 minutes for straightforward cases to a maximum of 1 week for cases involving selected professions which require inputs from another government agency. To meet another stretch target, ACER was designed to be responsive to business and economic needs. Hence changes to policies, assessment criteria and processes can be implemented in as little as 1 week.

A final critical success factor was the high degree of co-operation and collaboration on the initiative, within the different divisions in MOM and across various government agencies, businesses, employer associations and unions. Through the combined efforts and ideas of the various parties, businesses today are well equipped to meet their manpower needs through tapping on foreign professionals and skilled workers, contributing to their viability and ultimately, to Singapore’s viability as an economy and a nation.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Ministry of Manpower
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Chin Hwei Wong
Title:   Head, Applications  
Telephone/ Fax:   63171041
Institution's / Project's Website:   63171860
E-mail:   wong_chin_hwei@mom.gov.sg  
Address:   18 Havelock Road, #06-01
Postal Code:   059764
City:   Singapore
State/Province:  
Country:   Singapore

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