Skills, upskilling efforts should be part of employees' performance assessment: panellists

Business Times

07-07-2025

[SINGAPORE] Performance assessments should take into account not just employees' work output, but also their skills and efforts to upskill, said panellists at the SkillsFuture Forum on Monday (Jul 7).
Providing opportunities for employees to upgrade could address the longstanding fear of employers – that employees would leave after being upskilled. But employees may come around to seeing the value of the company and stay on instead, they added.
Human resource (HR) practitioners have been discussing the idea of rewarding employees for skills-upgrading, said Ong Chin Yin, chief people officer at Grab.
The managing director at Cragar Industries, Joseph Wong, employees at the precision manufacturer are encouraged to submit proposals for training and upskilling opportunities, and apply what they learn in their jobs. These efforts are then considered in annual performance reviews.
It can be hard to motivate employees to undergo training, as they may already be 'firefighting' in their day-to-day work or have other commitments, he noted. It is therefore important to provide incentives.
Skills should be embedded in performance measures, said Sagar Goel, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
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At BCG, staff are evaluated partly on their competencies, he said. 'It shouldn't be just about business, operational KPIs (key performance indicators). How are you improving your skills?'
Held at Raffles City Convention Centre, the SkillsFuture Forum kicked off the 2025 edition of the annual SkillsFuture Festival. The forum, run on the theme 'Building Business Resilience and Enabling Career Growth through Skills Development', was moderated by The Straits Times' associate editor for newsroom strategy, Jeremy Au Yong.
Keeping talent
The panellists said that contrary to the fear of losing trained employees to other employers, the provision of training may itself help with retention.
BCG's Goel said: 'Why people choose to leave is because of the organisation, the people practices, the culture. If you are providing upskilling opportunities that are seen as meeting an emotional need, that is the reason people stay.'
Even if employees do leave, this could reflect positively on their original employer, said SkillsFuture Singapore chief executive Tan Kok Yam. If an employee spends many years with a company and can then command a higher salary elsewhere, the company should 'claim credit', he quipped.
'You are successful now, partly also because you spent five, 10 years with me. So this will be on my recruitment poster.'
Wong of Cragar Industries suggested that the loss from not training employees may be greater than the loss from their departures.
'If I'm going to have an employee that's not trained, not upskilled, (then) when I'm going to implement technology to stay relevant, and I don't have the people, what would the impact be?' he asked. 'What would the losses be?'
The precise return on investment (ROI) from training is less important when one considers the cost of not having trained staff, he added.
Goel acknowledged that many employers may not consider the ROI on training, because they see it as taking workers away from their jobs.
But if conducted at the workplace with the managers as trainers, training can be low-cost and have a higher ROI, he suggested.
The role of bosses
Though HR practitioners are usually given the responsibility of pushing for skills development, all other players – from management to individual employees – should have a part to play, said the panellists.
Ong from Grab suggested that HR people can start by asking their bosses 'smart questions', such as: 'Do you think we are maximising the skills available in the organisation?'
Such 'business-first questions' will prod management into considering how to make the best use of their employees' skills, she added.
Employers should tell their workers about the skills the company needs, said Wong. Employees need to know their company's direction, how they can align with this, and how it will shape their careers.
Goel proposed that employers work with employees to design training programmes and link these to their everyday, on-the-job needs.
Noting that there may be tension between the training needs of employees and the company, Tan stressed the need to arrive at 'some fundamental alignment'. Where such tensions exist, they could provide an opportunity for employees to take ownership of their own careers, said Ong.
Employees should figure out what they would like to pursue, then engage their managers on the issue.
Taking ownership
Employers can let employees take ownership by providing choice, Goel said.
Consultants at BCG are given a training budget, rather than being instructed to attend specific courses. They can discuss how to spend this with their line managers.
Upskilling is especially important because younger workers typically do not stay in each job as long, and also because technology is evolving and artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to take away the simplest jobs, said the panellists.
Cagar is trying to entice young workers to join the company, but progress on that front has been slow, said Wong. So it instead employs mature workers with transferable skills – even those from other industries – and trains them.
This helps the company 'buy time' to bring in younger talent. When they are found, the trained older workers are ready to serve as mentors.
Goel noted that AI may eliminate some jobs, but it will augment most.
Humans need to go back to human-centric skills, such as critical reasoning and figuring out problems to solve, he said. They are also capable of creativity, fresh insights and innovations.
Ong said: 'We might not need people who analyse data at the professional level anymore, but they need to know what the principles of analysis are, for example.'
Schools should not just impart knowledge as content, but ought to train their students to apply that knowledge in the workforce, she added. This can be done through work-study programmes and engaging practitioners to teach.