How companies can meet the booming demand for ESG employment

HR BRIEFING How companies can meet the booming demand for ESG employment

Firms must seek a sustainability leader with an ESG mindset and green courses for workers.

With a stricter employment pass application and the two-year work-from-home setup slowing down the productivity of Singaporeans, employers are met with yet another obstacle to hiring—filling in the company with employees to fill in sustainability roles. Expert Jaya Dass from human resource consultancy firm, Randstad, said there is “high interest” for ESG (environmental, social, and governance) roles in the labour market but skills mismatch and the companies, themselves, lack the proper training to ensure they are hiring the right talent.

Amidst the Singapore Green Plan 2030 that was launched in 2021, ESG jobs demand went up to 257% in the past three years, according to job portal Indeed. National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) LearningHub’s Special Report 2022 on Sustainability showed that seven in 10 employers eye hiring talent for sustainability roles in the next two years.

“It’s difficult for companies to evaluate the skills and capabilities of these candidates, especially if it’s their first hire in this space. If there is no history or framework to know what to look out for in a job applicant, the company may run the risk of making the wrong hire, which would further delay the strategy implementation,” Dass said in an interview with Singapore Business Review.

Targeting the youth

Dass said green courses will likely be of interest to the younger generation, who are known for their activism against the climate crisis.

The youth, who are more exposed to the internet, have a greater sense of accountability and responsibility for their climate actions because they are more educated through content on what is happening with climate change, added Dass.

Citing a recent Amundi-ESG Investor study, Dass said the proportion of ESG investors is higher amongst the younger respondents than Generation X and baby boomers. About eight in 10 (82%) of Gen Zs are ESG investors and 65% are young millennials compared to Generation X and baby boomers with 41%.

The education industry is pivoting to make sure students can cater to the kind of demand that happens in green-based jobs

Jaya Dass

Gabriel Nam

The youth have a greater sense of accountability and responsibility for their climate actions

“I think that younger investors tend to be more aware of and committed towards environmental and social topics - including sustainable investing. They want jobs in which they can contribute towards this cause in a meaningful and purposeful way,” she said.

Going in one direction

Dass emphasised the need for an internal sustainability team in firms that would align the company’s sustainable efforts with the country’s political initiatives.

An example of this is businesses producing coffee and how they look for raw products to push their ESG initiatives. If they are sourcing their raw goods from Africa, they are dependent on whether the African government is pushing for an environmental climate. If not, they will need to look for another country or region that is greener to support their production. Dass said it is also important in making sure the local workforce producing the coffee is implementing fair trade practices.

Another crucial factor for the success of the company’s ESG initiatives is the top management, Gabriel Nam, Partner at HR firm, Michael Page, told Singapore Business Review.

With ESG standards being a new area to some businesses, juggling the implementation of sustainability efforts with other business priorities could be a challenge, Nam warned. “There are extra layers of considerations on ESG when making business decisions, and senior stakeholders may need to get familiar with,” he told Singapore Business Review.

“This means that they may not be able to visualise the real and immediate benefits of doing ESG; hence, there is a need to get buy-in from internal employees to successfully implement ESG,” he added.

If the benefits of investing in ESG efforts are not immediate, there could be “ESG fatigue” in the short to medium term.

Where the government comes in

NTUC Learning Hub found in a study that employers need help in green skills training. 69% of employers are “somewhat open” to giving training to their employees on sustainability and 56% of business leaders polled need help to train their employees with relevant skills in sustainability.

As this happens, Dass encourages offering green courses that must also be in demand, not just for fresh talent but also for mid-level employees. Green courses must be inserted in other degrees. For example, finance degrees should also include courses about green financing.

“Education is pivoting to ensure that there is a steady output of ESG talent, and equipping students with the specialised skills they need to meet the rising demand for green jobs over the next three to five years,” Dass said.

For more on this story, go to https://sbr.com.sg/

Urbanisation will drive demand for integrated managed services

Surbana Jurong leverages in-house expertise to thrive in the market.

SJi3 Board Members L-R: Alfred Fox, Nicholas Soon, Jason Whitcombe, Eugene Seah, Teo Say Leng

As the real estate industry gears toward a more sustainable future, adopting the latest trends and business strategies in its operations is now a more apparent imperative. For Surbana Jurong Group, the anticipation of this shift enables it to build up its core capabilities.

This includes facilities management technicians, data scientists and security forces to help clients draw intelligence from asset monitoring – from energy usage, health and safety indicators as well as machine learningbased tools that better predict and manage operational issues.

At the same time, one of Surbana Jurong’s core beliefs is that effective managed services are key to a sustainable future. Its facilities management, smart city solutions and security services teams are helping clients manage their assets more efficiently and sustainably for the long term. These teams are enabled by a deep understanding of operating environments, risks and opportunities underpinning asset performance.

Surbana Jurong’s Group Director for Managed Services Jason Whitcombe believes that today and in the near future, digitalisation is going to play an even bigger role in how the company helps its clients with their assets. He mentioned that digitalisation promises greater efficiency, lower cost, and more convenience.

“It gives us the opportunity to look at optimising operations for our clients that helps manage cost, in addition, we can benchmark their portfolio or their building against others to see how they compare,” he said.

Whitcombe added that common data environments and platforms like Surbana Jurong’s “24K”, allows industry players to create a single environment for tracking all operational aspects of FM and/or Security, unlike in the past wherein the data being generated was siloed. These insights help Surbana Jurong understand where to best deploy its resources as the data collecting offers more transparency and is often real-time. Moreover, in helping clients optimise their assets, efficiency and costs, the company turns to the integration of services. Whilst such an occurrence is nothing new, it has gone through quite an evolution as managed services are bundled together more and more as clients looks to work with fewer suppliers and at the same time outsource more activity.

Whitcombe mentioned that the company is very fortunate that it has the key services clients are looking for under a single banner.

“That allows us to integrate and optimise our solution for our customers. Plus, it gives the customer an opportunity to outsource potentially more to us. And, we can make more decisions on their behalf,” he said.

He added that the key driver enabling integration is technology. This is something that Surbana Jurong has invested in aggressively over the last few years.

Surbana Jurong acquired S3 Innovate this year, a data-driven technology consultancy to form a new entity, SJI3, focused on providing digital and software engineering expertise in the built environment industry.

Surbana Jurong has built a digital platform or Common Data Environment (CDE) as well as several apps that can be plugged in, these include asset monitoring, energy management as well as a digital facilities management app that can be accessed remotely by SJ engineers and technicians. Through the digital platform, Surbana Jurong can undertake more predictive work. This means it can begin to move away from the typical planned maintenance and activities, and be smarter with how things are being done and how much money is spent. Whitcombe noted that there is a real commercial advantage to this.

“Fundamentally, we’re moving to much more data-driven solutions for our clients, and relying less on the traditional sort of planned methodology,” he said. Expanding Surbana Jurong’s footprint Whitcombe explained that the company had made big plans prior to the pandemic in terms of market expansion, especially in the area of managed services. However, the global crisis meant that the company had to put such plans on hold.

“Even though we are pivoting towards technology-driven solutions, to try to enter an overseas market and grow organically is very challenging,” he said. He added that whilst such is the case, there are a couple of attractive markets that the company can grow further. Amongst these markets is Australia, which Whitcombe noted to be a ‘very mature’ market when it comes to managed services, and where the company has a strong footprint with its infrastructure and urban business.

“Australia presents a great opportunity for us in Managed Services because we are already market leaders in the front-end plan and design area. We want to build on that and we have a great management team there, which really helps,” he said.

Whitcombe emphasised, however, that the company is looking at overseas expansion on a per-country basis. “We’ll do what we think makes the most sense for our business and our clients, ideally we want to go where we can develop synergies with existing SJ group companies,” he said.

The next wave of growth Surbana Jurong sees a real opportunity for growth in bringing some of its business units together to offer end-to-end solutions, especially for large complex projects. Whitcombe noted that the company has all the in-house tools and talent required to thrive in the market, and that is a clear advantage and opportunity for them.

Whilst he also acknowledged that the real estate industry is somewhat a late bloomer with technology, he said that digitalisation is expected to be a core part of the business along the way. He expressed his confidence in the future of managed services as it has been around for a long time as a means to lower cost and drive efficiency.

“Cities are expected to continue to grow over the coming decades; that’s likely to have a positive impact on the demand for managed services. On top of that, you’ve also got a lot more pressure now on governments and developers to produce and operate smart and sustainable buildings and communities,” Whitcombe said.