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DIRECTORY OF SINGAPORE PROCESS & CHEMICALS INDUSTRIES 2021/2022
Skills Training target achieved
Another area where ASPRI has been most active is skills training. In the Association’s financial year April 2020 to March 2021, ASPRI-IPI’s IPI-Connect app registered more than 30,000 unique trainees clocking a total of 199,720 e-training hours.
The IPI Connect app has been very popular. On 9 June 2020, IPI connect ranked #1 in Top Free apps – Trending ( business category), and #4 in Top Free apps – Trending, on Google’s Android playstore.
Mr Quek said that with the latest year’s training numbers, “ASPRI-IPI has achieved the previously set target of more than one million cumulated training hours since moving into ASPRI Integrated Training Centre in September 2016”.
He said that to proactively show its support for the training needs of the industry, ASPRI-IPI will introduce six more e-courses and other deep skilling courses by the end of 2021.
Members are already enjoying the use of a new Learning Management System (LMS) with enhanced features such as payment gateway and bulk online registration to support the demand for online learning.
ManpowerConnect supports members’ recruitment efforts
Besides workers training, ASPRI had in 2020 developed a ManpowerConnect portal that helps facilitate member companies in hiring PCM Work Permit holders from other companies with the agreement of their current employers.
ASPRI had partnered with MOM in a temporary online scheme to help facilitate the matching of PCM Work Permit holders (WPH) within the sector. Employers can use the ManpowerConnect portal developed by ASPRI- IPI to post their intention to release workers to other companies.
It was initially meant to provide online support for companies to hire WPH from other companies with the agreement of their current employers during the “no-consent” window from the 40th to 21st day before the expiry of their contracts.
In April 2021, the system was expanded to support member companies’ recruitment of local workers. It provides a listing of available candidates with details including past work industry experience, qualifications, skillsets and expected salary.
The portal allows companies to acquire the needed workers more quickly and at the same
time help save on search time and recruitment expenses.
Furthermore, some members have given feedback that the Covid updates issued by ASPRI on its website for members were most useful, as they helped to keep them abreast of what was actually happening in the flurry of changes in response to evolving Covid infection situations.
ASPRI will continue to commit its resources and efforts to help members overcome the challenges in their transformation efforts, especially at a time when the process sector is still wrestling with the impact of the pandemic.
ASPRI’s cooperation with other industry stakeholders bear fruit
Most important among its efforts is the continuing proactive engagement with the government and industry stakeholders to address the evolving concerns of its members, especially manpower shortage and deployment issues since the Circuit Breaker in April-May 2020.
The government has been most responsive. For instance in July 2020, ASPRI worked with the Association of Singapore Marine Industry (ASMI) to conduct an online survey to determine if their members would have difficulty deploying enough workers for Restart of operations after August. The survey found that their workers would still be confined in the dormitories at least for another two months, which meant the companies would be suffering more losses.
The two associations jointly wrote to the Minister for Manpower to highlight the the plight of their members and appealed for an extension of the 100% FWL waiver and $750 FWL rebate until their workers could be deployed for actual work,
The MOM responded on 1 August saying that those in the construction, marine and process sectors, whose workers were still unable
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