Designing Singaporeans’ Resilience Task-by-Task

PI: Mr Poon King Wang (LKYCIC, SUTD)
Team: Mr Darion Hotan, Ms Radha Vinod, Mr Galvyn Goh, Ms Candy Mak Yu Shan (LKYCIC, SUTD)

Older and highly skilled Singaporeans who have fallen off the career ladder need help to re-enter the workforce at levels commensurate with their expertise and experience, especially as Singaporeans work longer. Also, PMEs who are training to pivot to new sectors need help to increase their odds of being hired as companies prefer experienced hires. We believe that the Multivitamin Strategy—a new way of designing career experiences for individuals using AI and human insight—can improve mobility and career resilience for these workers by diversifying their pathways based on shared tasks. As opposed to conventional methods of job transitioning/job search, the Multivitamin Strategy uses tasks because jobs are disrupted task-by-task, and not skill-by-skill.

We piloted the Multivitamin Strategy with a few segments, namely:

• Skilled but semi-stuck mid-career workers, including gig workers
• Aviation workers
• An events company
• Workers with disabilities

We sought to examine and test how to better help Singaporean workers break silos between sectors/professions, create a versatile cross-sector workforce, and ensure highly skilled Singaporeans continue to make full use of their experiences and expertise while also contributing to the growth and resilience of the sectors that these Singaporeans work in.

What the pilot accomplished:

• Validation of the task-based Multivitamin Strategy by workers and companies
• Establishment of a SkillsFuture-funded CET workshop under SUTD Academy to help mid-career workers at scale, titled “Building Job Immunity Using the Multivitamin Strategy”
• Attracting of additional interest from new partners, including organisations and workers from the tech, non-profit, social service and education space

With that, the team will take the framework further to refine a new career experience design framework, roles and processes for more workers, including vulnerable ones, under a Future-Ready Knowledge Partnership. These will be integrated with tools and research from other Future of Work projects to build up a more robust body of work, namely:

• A Guide to Job Redesign in the Age of AI
• Battling Ageism
• Career Journey Maps (a self-reflective tool)
• Career Quest Cards (a self-reflective tool)
• Open Loop Careers
• Tasks-Skills Stack, Strategies and Transitions
• Transition Maps (AI-powered)
• Well-Being Matrix

We would like to acknowledge SIM People Development Fund for funding the project, and the individuals and organisations for their partnership and involvement, including:

• Aloysius Arlando, former CEO ex-SingEx and current Chairman, Asia, CloserStillMedia Pte Ltd
• Clarion Events
• GGV Capital
• Grab
• NTUC Freelancers and Self-Employed Unit
• NTUC Strategy Team
• Scoot Union
• ThunderQuote