Winning Secrets: ManpowerGroup Singapore’s roadmap to providing meaningful and sustainable employment

With ManpowerGroup being crowned gold winners for three categories at the Asia Recruitment Awards Singapore, 2020 virtual awards ceremony, Priya Veeriah digs further on the team's winning formula. 

Linda Teo, Country Manager at ManpowerGroup Singapore shares how the team defines success not by profit but by being able to provide meaningful and sustainable employment for all. She also highlights the evolution of candidates’ preferences, D&I in the workplace, and the importance of thought leadership within the team.

These are the awards brought home by the team: 

1. Recruitment Agency of the Year (Over 50 employees) - Gold for ManpowerGroup Singapore
2. Best Recruitment Portal by a Recruitment Solution Provider - Gold for Manpower Singapore
3. Best Specialist Recruitment Agency - Gold for Experis Singapore

Q How has your organisation’s recruitment strategy for your clients evolved in recent times? How does this agenda fit into the bigger HR priorities, and do you work closely with clients to deliver this?

Clients’ manpower needs are constantly evolving. As workforce solutions providers, it is crucial that we stay ahead of workforce trends and advise our clients on these future manpower needs.

Quantitative data is key in helping our clients make informed decisions on their workforce strategy. We have invested in data analytics tools that provide relevant data insights on the latest talent and skills trends, which we share with our clients. We have also further streamlined our recruiting process with more advanced technology to decrease the time and cost per hire.

People are at the heart of everything that we do. With the ongoing talent shortage, finite talent pool and shortening skill cycles, talent will be the key competitive differentiator for organisations. Besides matching talent to available opportunities, we also focus on helping our candidates understand their strengths and upskill themselves so that they are better prepared for the future of work.

Q What are the key business drivers that impact the talent acquisition function in Singapore?

While cost efficiency remains a top priority for many clients, they are assessing agencies using a growing list of criteria that includes global footprint, technology roadmap, corporate social responsibility efforts and business ethics.

Candidates’ preferences are evolving too. Although salary remains one of the top factors for candidates when considering a job, there has been an increasing emphasis on the employer brand, growth prospects, candidate experience and brand purpose.

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace plays an important role in talent management and employee engagement. With more employees seeing the need to bring their authentic self to work, a robust D&I programme is crucial to help employers better manage the diverse needs of their talent pool. In recognition of this, we have collaborated with VMLY&R, a marketing agency to launch #PridePass, a jobs portal where LGBTQ inclusive employers can reach out to LGBTQ individuals with their opportunities at no cost.

Q No execution is free from unexpected hurdles. In what shape or form did you experience challenges, and how did you overcome them when implementing your strategy for clients?

COVID-19 has definitely thrown us a curve ball and has affected the way we operate. Physical face-to-face interviews have been greatly reduced due to COVID-19 restrictions. The challenge became more evident when we had to conduct a time-critical mass recruitment exercise during the Circuit Breaker and the target candidate demographic were not very familiar with online conferencing tools. We had to change our outreach and interview methods to ensure we fulfil our client’s required headcount.

Prior to COVID-19, we had implemented a new cloud-based technology which helped us to streamline our CRM, applicant tracking and operations. The technology adoption has definitely facilitated our transition to working from home during Circuit Breaker.

Q On to the most important part – results! How did you measure the ROI of your milestones, and what are you most proud of?

This year, ManpowerGroup Singapore celebrates its 25th year in Singapore, which alone is a huge milestone. While our size and revenue have grown over the years and these tangible numbers provide concrete evidence of our success, our joy comes from being able to contribute to the growth of our local talent pool.

To help the talent independently assess and map out their professional development, we have free proprietary assessment tools such as Learnability Quotient and DigiQuotient. In addition, we produced thought leadership papers that provide actionable insights on developing women leadership so as to bridge the gender gaps at work.

Q What is one way your organisation stands out from other recruitment solution providers when it comes to attracting talent in the competitive landscape?

Success to us is not just about profits, but also about providing meaningful and sustainable employment for all. That’s why we invest our resources in helping employers and HR practitioners make better workforce decisions by sharing our insights freely via our thought leadership and industry outreach events.

Furthermore, we dedicate our efforts to our candidate engagement, which goes beyond the usual transactional nature. We provide free access to our career resources for all candidates to help them adapt to the future of work while also building up a pool of trained candidates.

We also do not hesitate to do what is right. Besides our strong business ethics, we ensure that every talent has a level playing field where they are hired based on merit and are not discriminated for being who they are.

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