It's actually quite sadding to hear such events happening in office.
What's more, felt so distant when more and more folks and friends left ANL to seek better and greener pastures.
Why can't ANL learn to retent it's good talents?
Read On:
S'pore firm's lessons in talent retention
Jasmine Yin and Gracia Chiang
jasmine@mediacorp.com.sg
It does not set targets for its staff.
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Neither does it like shopping around much for talent, preferring instead to hire only for junior positions and to move its existing staff — half of whom have less than three years of experience — to take on more senior positions within the organisation.
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This is no mean feat, given that Singapore-based firm Olam International, which transacts multi-billion-dollar deals in agricultural raw materials, has 300 managers spread across 52 countries.
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"We don't have a target-setting exercise. We'll give you whatever you ask for in terms of resources. What we expect from you is a certain bottom line from these resources. You (have to) work like an entrepreneur," its human resources (HR) vice-president Joydeep Bose said.
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For its efforts in retaining talent — an increasingly difficult task for companies — Olam has been nominated in the "Best Retention Strategies" category at the HRM Awards 2007 to be held tonight.
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It is the sole local firm to be nominated in the category, alongside multi-nationals such as Barclays Capital Global Services, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
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Local firms fared better in the "Best Mature Workforce Practices" category.
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Save for McDonald's, the remaining four nominees are either homegrown private or government-linked companies, including Dairy Farm, SembCorp Environmental Management, SingHealth and Alexandra Hospital.
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At SingHealth, 70 per cent of its 350-strong retiring workforce has stayed on beyond the retirement age of 62 years old. Eighteen per cent of its 14,000 employees are aged over 50.
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New jobs were created for mature workers, such as the Singapore General Hospital's Patient Relations Ambassadors, who interact with patients and obtain their feedback. And equipment like hoists to transport patients and magnifiers for easier reading of medicine bottle labels were purchased to ease the workload for these employees.
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SingHealth's group HR director Geraldine Lee said: "What we're doing more is preparing people for re-employment beyond retirement. The healthcare sector really has people with good skills and these skills can be transferable through a lifetime. It's a waste if we do not tap their skills."
