The environment the Singtel Group operates in is changing rapidly. To ensure our long-term sustainability, the Group restructured itself to be better aligned with our customers. We recognise that to successfully transform, we need to ensure our people are future-ready. Thus, maintaining a highly engaged workforce as well as one that is fully committed across our businesses globally is critical.

Our core values of Customer Focus, Challenger Spirit, Teamwork, Integrity and Personal Excellence have proven more important than ever, serving as the common foundation for over 21,000 of our people across geographies and businesses, including newly acquired companies.

Connect and Grow

We are committed to helping our employees “Connect and Grow” by building strong relationships among our people, and developing talent across the company. We deliver avenues for employees to “connect” with their passions, hone their talents and improve productivity and innovation – thereby empowering them to “grow” as individuals and as professionals.

We connect with them even before they join the Group. Besides offering various local scholarships, internships and attachments across the Group, we partner our regional mobile associates to provide full tertiary scholarships at top local universities to students in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, under the Singtel Group Undergraduate Scholarship Programme.

Our approach to learning and development takes into account the diverse nature of our workforce – an increasingly global pool of talent across multiple generations and organisational levels. We appreciate that, beyond building critical domain capabilities, our people should be able to operate effectively across different geographies, cultures and businesses.

We harness technology in our efforts to accelerate knowledge transfer and promote a culture of continuous learning and sharing. An example of this is Singtel ESPRESSO, our enterprise social network which allows staff to share ideas and documents across the Singtel Group.

Our annual employee engagement survey guides ongoing actions to ensure our people remain engaged and feel enabled and energised to take on the challenges ahead.

Grooming Talent and Leaders

The Group’s transformation hinges on having a strong pipeline of talent.

Talent management at Singtel is an integrated and continuous process, from attracting the right talent to developing and retaining them. We focus on developing competencies that support our business agenda by identifying talent at all levels of the organisation, in both general management and functional leadership tracks. We adopt the approach that an individual is responsible for his or her own personal development, while business leaders are responsible for developing talent for their team and the organisation as a whole.

Our Group-wide executive development programmes and other leadership programmes, along with targeted development interventions and a rigorous succession planning process, ensure a robust pipeline for critical roles across the organisation. As we continue to expand into new areas of business and geographies, the ability to operate effectively across diverse cultures is a vital leadership attribute. Experience outside their home country is essential for our key talent.

Aligning Performance

In Singtel’s high-performance culture, the success of our business and people are directly related. Employees understand the company’s strategic direction and the part they play in contributing to our vision and mission. Corporate strategies are translated into actionable objectives and cascaded throughout the organisation.

We adopt a meritocratic approach, where employees are rewarded according to both team and individual performance and their embodiment of our core values. Managers are measured on and rewarded for not only the achievement of business results, but also how well they engage, lead and develop their teams. Incentives are designed to motivate continued excellence while ensuring ongoing relevance to evolving business and market contexts.

Employee Relations and Wellbeing

We remain uncompromising on ensuring a safe, healthy work environment and fostering solid employee relations.

Supporting health and wellbeing – physical, mental and social – is a key component of our people management strategy. We actively promote employee wellness through a series of activities, such as talks, health screenings and professional counselling services. We also encourage employees to take control of their own health.

Health clubs and gymnasiums are available onsite across various locations, while healthy food options are made available at all staff cafeterias. Family-friendly policies, including flexible work and leave arrangements, are also offered, as are onsite childcare facilities at some locations.

We foster a proactive and collaborative partnership with employees directly, as well as through the Union of Telecoms Employees of Singapore. Our Employment Partnership Agreement in Australia, a collective agreement made directly between Optus and employees since 1994, was renewed in late 2012 for another three years.