Preventive care can be hard to persuade folks to get on board for, whether it’s for physical health, or career health. But there’s no escaping its benefits – and that’s why employees and employers alike have to get on board the Career Health SG initiative.
That pretty much sums up the key point made by Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng during the inaugural Career Health Summit 2025. Held at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, the event was attended by more than 500 business leaders and human resources practitioners.
Speaking at the launch of Career Health SG, a new national initiative that will support workers in accessing training and on-the-job learning opportunities, Minister Tan said: “Before we get into the serious stuff, let me start with a confession.”
“I am a medical doctor by training, and the hardest part of being a doctor was not treating illnesses; it was convincing people to make lifestyle modifications and behavioural changes, such as exercising more, eating healthier, going for regular checkups.”
“Especially in my early years as a family physician, when I didn’t look the part,” he quipped.
Minister Tan went on to say that when the Ministry of Manpower came up with the concept of Career Heath — and how the Singapore government can help our workers and employers preserve productive careers — his first initial reaction was that it would be a “colossal task”.
“But what other options do we have? We have nudged an entire couple of generations to stay healthier, evidenced by the fact that our lifespans have continued to improve. With a longer healthier lifespan, our economic productivity and ability to stay in the workforce should also continue to extend contemporaneously.”
Minister Tan shared how over time, he realised that staying healthy takes regular, intentional effort — a bit of reflection, some planning, and lots of small, consistent action.
He concluded his anecdote by saying: “I want to humbly suggest to you that we cannot afford to wait until problems arise. If we want our people and businesses to thrive, we need to be proactive and pre-emptive about career health and the entire journey that comes with it.”
How Career Health SG works for both workers and employers
For Employers
- Companies can tap on initiatives, such as WSG’s Career Conversion Programme to reskill mid-career workers into growth job roles, and the SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC), to offset up to 90% of out-of-pocket expenses incurred for sending them on SkillsFuture-supported programmes and courses.
- They can also consider joining the NTUC. Members have an entire slew of events under their Company Training Committees that will be available for companies and employers.
- MOM and SSG have partnered major job portals like JobStreet and FastJobs to help employers find the right candidates for their vacancies easier and faster.
- By linking Government-verified employment and skills data via the Careers & Skills Passport with these portals, they can hire with greater speed and confidence. This is in addition to WSG’s MyCareersFuture, a national job portal that currently enables employers to better assess candidates’ job fit.
- Later in 2025, there will also be more resources launched to help employers assess the skills readiness of their workforce, identify suitable training interventions, as well as opportunities for job redesign to optimise the skills of their employees.
For workers
- Workers can visit the portal to explore the wide suite of available career-related programmes.
- Workers can connect with career coaches under WSG’s Polaris to chart their career journeys or pursue a substantive skills reboot by tapping on resources like SSG’s SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme.
During the launch of the initiative, Workforce Singapore (WSG) chief executive Dilys Boey shared with The Straits Times that the Career Health SG initiative goes beyond merely aggregating existing schemes via the Career Health SG website.
Its goal is to drive a cultural shift, where employers transform their business operations and workforce, and workers take ownership of their careers.
She added that new digital tools will also be launched under the Career Health SG banner in the near future, including one that helps employers take stock of the skills their workers possess.
Mark Lee, vice-chairman and honorary treasurer of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), added at the Career Health Summit: “SBF is proud to collaborate with the government to drive a national shift from workforce planning as a back-office function, to career health as a boardroom strategy.”
“Because business resilience isn’t built through policies alone — it’s by investing in people from the ground up. When talent development and retention go hand in hand, businesses benefit from higher productivity as employees stay and grow with the business.”
He added: “Losing key talent always sets businesses back!”
Moving from awareness to action in building Career Health
Minister Tan admitted that the movement was still gathering momentum, as not many employers know how to act on it.
According to a MOM survey, only 53% of respondents said they were clear on how to go about investing in career health, and only 23% conducted workforce development planning.
He shared three tips on how to move from awareness to action:
1. Assess your workforce
What is your stock of human capital? What are the skills gaps in your workforce? Which roles might be disrupted or augmented by technology?
2. Chart a plan
How do you raise the value of your human capital, and unlock its value for your business? Are you engaging in strategic workforce planning? Are you developing an employee investment plan?
3. Execute
Put your plan into action. Build career progression pathways and opportunities for your employees. Adopt skills-first approaches to manage and source for hidden talent that you may be overlooking today.
“Assess, Chart, Execute — ‘A’, ‘C’, ‘E’ — are the three steps to ‘ACE’ your talent strategy,” Minister Tan said.
“I cap it by adding an ‘R’ right at the beginning, because when you ‘ACE’ your talent strategy, you will find it immensely Rewarding. When you put it together, it becomes a very sustainable, yet globally competitive RACE!”
