1. The Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) has partnered the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) to reach out to more human resource (HR) professionals and allow them to exchange best practices, learn from each other and collectively raise standards in the HR industry.

2. In their efforts to engage the HR community, an online sharing platform called the Singapore HR Community, HRSINCOM (http://www.hrsincom.org.sg) has been set up and will be managed by SHRI.  HR practitioners will also be able to keep abreast of best practices and tap onto the knowledge and experiences of other HR practitioners through initiatives such as the Communities of Practice (CoPs) and the Priority Conversations (PC).

The Singapore HR Community Portal
 

3. The Singapore HR Community (HRSINCOM), a vibrant HR online portal, has been established to allow like-minded HR professionals from diverse industries to share ideas, upgrade their knowledge and skills and value-add to their own organisations.  Currently, the portal has over 700 members and sees more than 100 new members every month from a wide variety of companies both large and small.  The target is to attract 2000 HR practitioners to participate in online discussions and sharing of knowledge and information.

4. The HRSINCOM features business- and HR-related articles where registered members are able to acquire new insights and learning experiences on exemplary and leading practices which include documentation and case-studies.

Communities of Practice (CoP)
 

5. The CoP is a platform and methodology that allows HR professionals from various industries, consultants and academia to engage each other and learn more about best human capital management practices on more specific issues.  To date, four CoPs have been formed to tackle areas of Ageing Workforce Management, Service Leadership, Employee Engagement and Leadership Development.  Each CoP is made up of HR practitioners from both the public and private sectors, who meet once a month to discuss case studies and come out with suggestions to address the issues and challenges faced.

6. Mdm Ho Geok Choo, President of SHRI said: “The outcome is to instil an enquiring mindset amongst CoP participants such that we nurture more robust practitioners and thinkers.  SHRI strives to imbue the HR community with a thinking culture through the Communities of Practices (CoPs) scheme, with the aim to develop Singapore’s vision of a world-class workforce.”

Priority Conversations
 

7. Another initiative to help uplift human capital practices standard and professionalism in Singapore is through the Priority Conversations.  The inaugural Priority Conversation session was held today at the Amara Hotel, where the Guest speaker Patrick Forsyth, author of “Managing in the Discomfort Zone”, spoke about facing unpleasant issues such as dealing with poor or unacceptable behaviour and performance at work, taking the right action and increasing the results in managing change and people.  More than 110 HR practitioners from over 90 companies have attended the session today.