Singtel, announced on Thursday that it will invest $20 million a year and create a new learning academy to further enhance training efforts for its employees.
Singapore’s largest telco, which employs 12,000 people, is doubling down on employee training as new technologies disrupt the telecommunication industry.
The company announced this during the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on company training committee (CTC) with the Union of Telecoms Employees of Singapore (UTES).
Singtel first signed an MOU with CTC in 2019 and the current MOU was to renew the agreement.
With its $20 million annual investment, Singtel will design and enhance its people development programmes by, for example, “inculcating the right mind-set to drive innovation and pivot to address disruption, building an inclusive workplace culture, and developing leadership excellence”, the company said in a statement.
Through the company’s new learning academy, Singtel 8George, employees would be able to learn at their preferred time and on their own terms, in person and on the go, virtually, the statement added.
The MOU will allow Singtel to work together with UTES to identify skills gaps, co-create relevant training programmes and encourage employees to take up these training opportunities.
Top priority
Singtel Group Chief Executive Officer, Yuen Kuan Moon, said one of the company’s top priorities was building an “agile, digital and future-ready workforce.
“This is important because we want to empower all our people to achieve their full potential in the digital economy, and to support our efforts to evolve from a telco to a ‘techco’,” he said.
Over the past three years, Singtel had invested $45 million to develop new training programmes to train employees on emerging technologies and sponsored more than 60 employees for part-time courses.
It also launched its Singtel Professional Conversion Accelerator programme which has equipped close to 1,500 employees in 5G and other in-demand tech skills.
To date, more than 2,500 Singtel employees have benefited from these training programmes, which drove an annual 15 percent increase in learning places and learning hours per employee between 2019 and 2022, the company said.
