Career and life advice from Singapore’s top HR officer

In journalism, one of the tips taught and learnt for the conduct of a “good” interview is to ask open-ended questions, ask for specific examples, and never to assume an answer. 

One lesson that this writer picked up while speaking with the Public Service Division (PSD)’s Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO), Low Peck Kem, was to be prepared for a “reverse interview”. 

Low asks: “If you asked yourself 15 years ago ‘where do you see yourself today’, what would James have said?”, to which this writer responds along the lines that his 13-year-old self wouldn't be sure.  

Low follows up, asking this writer to picture himself 15 years down the line, as a 43-year-old; whether he has built and invested in himself to get closer to where he wants to be? 

This thought exercise is one of the tools in Low’s training kit for the leadership programmes she conducts for the HR community within Singapore public service to best support officers in their daily tasks. 

As the nation’s largest employer, PSD has oversight over 154,000 officers, across 16 ministries, and more than 50 statutory boards, in areas of workforce transformation, leadership coaching, and career development. 

“That's how I would usually advise people, because sometimes people just focus on immediate goals like promotion and income.  

“While five-year plans are useful, I would say look a bit further. Time flies and with the rate at which things change, you better plan for it. If you don't, it will never happen. You may have to tweak it, but at least you know where your North Star is,” she says. 

Escalated expectations 

According to Low, the allure of a public service career is the opportunity for meaningful work that improves the lives of residents and business in Singapore. 

Moreover, this work can be done at a scale and level that is hard to find elsewhere. 

Singapore's civil service ranked world's best in an Oxford University study as reported by GovInsider, as well as similar rankings by other institutions. 

However, increased standards come with increased citizen expectations on the quality and efficiency of public services. 

Low references the old process for passport renewals where applicants had to travel to a physical office and queue in line.  

The same process today is all conducted online, including uploading images and making payments. 

“It's not good enough if you are not doing it efficiently, because it does not meet your customers' expectations.  

“As customers' expectations rise, we also have to up our game and how we use technology to make it an integrated and holistic experience for our citizens and our businesses that deal with us,” Low says. 

This evolution of public service is what drives Low today, she shares, noting that HR’s focus is increasingly shifting from one of regulation to employee development. 

With technology taking the place of conventional HR processes like leave applications, HR professionals have more time for higher value tasks, says Low. 

“I’ve got about 3,400 HR professionals within the public service and my job is to professionalise HR as a profession. How do I make sure that my HR practitioners have the skills to be ready for the future? What kinds of services will people need from HR?” she says. 

HR as the trendsetter 

For Low, it is important for senior HR leaders to stay on top of all these changes, as well as to understand the business challenges faced within their ministry or department. 

In Singapore’s context, these macro challenges include grappling with demographic and economic issues like low fertility rates, ageing populations, and changing career and life ambitions. 

Today, HR leaders are not only expected to engage employers well, but also to improve efficiency with a “high-tech yet high touch” approach. 

“The key role that we expect our HR leaders to be in a position where they can advise the senior leaders of the organisation on their agency's workforce transformation,” she says. 

Gone are the days where HR professionals merely negotiated across stakeholders on budgets and headcounts. 

To Low, HR innovation is about creating additional value for the workforce, like new talent pipelines, expanding career pathways, or creating breeding grounds for solutions. 

Some of her milestone programmes for HR officers including the HR foundation, HR middle managers, and HR leadership programme, that reinforced PSD’s mission of developing talent for the public service. 

The HR Professional Development Programme (HR PDP) managed by PSD, for instance, uplifts HR capabilities through structured training, while building agility and mobility into the workforce through job rotations in the public sector. 

Targeted at mid-careerists and HR practitioners seeking a career in public service HR, their diverse experiences and views are an asset for them to best innovate on HR practices, she says. 

With the adoption of large-language models and generative AI (Gen AI) tools, Low adds that data analytics will be a key tool for HR professionals to translate data into actionable insights for an agency.  

Meaningful work 

Beyond development, Low encourages workers in Singapore at large to look at one’s professional career as a series of “mini-marathons” rather than a “sprint”. 

She says that physical health, financial security, mental capacity, and social wellbeing are some intangibles that should be considered for the employee’s productive longevity in a workforce. 

For this writer who in the earlier thought exercise mentioned to Low about writing as a larger goal, she suggested short career breaks of six months to pursue external goals to ensure that these intangibles are kept in balance.    

“Don't wait until you are 70 years old and you're going to die off, then you do all those things.  

“If you think about 50 years, it is a hundred six-month periods; one per cent of your career lifespan to invest in your physical, mental wellbeing, so that you are in a better shape when you reach 70,” she says.