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2024 Human Resources Recruitment Trends in Singapore

AI RECRUITMENT AND TIGHT BUDGET; EMERGING HUMAN RESOURCES TRENDS FOR SINGAPORE IN 2024

In a year headlined by local and international challenges affecting the economic outlook, businesses are exercising caution pertaining to growth and expansion. Spurred by a need to ensure operational continuity in a sustainable manner, leaders are revisiting recruitment and talent strategies in search of alternative solutions that enable their Human Resources teams to not just survive, but thrive.

We have discussed at length the challenges accountancy, finance and technology teams face when it comes to balancing budgets while securing essential talent to satisfy changing business requirements. But with a shifting eye on current trends, we found it pertinent to explore how teams closest to sourcing, hiring and managing employees currently fare in 2024.

For a better understanding of talent trends affecting Human Resources here in Singapore, we spoke to Priscilla Fong, Manager at Hays Singapore with further insights on this evolving function from our Hays Asia Salary Guide.

HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTIONS ARE GETTING LESSER
OFFSHORING REPRESENTS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES CANDIDATES
AI IN RECRUITMENT IS STILL BUDDING
GAPS TO IMPLEMENTING AI IN HR
THE MOST IN-DEMAND ROLES IN HUMAN RESOURCES FOR SINGAPORE IN 2024

HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTIONS ARE GETTING LEANER

Many specialisms today face cutbacks amidsts wider concern about the economic climate and human resources teams are no exception. 54% of human resources professionals across Asia expressed a lack of optimism for the economy today, slightly higher than the average of 51%.

"Economic downturns have prompted businesses to scale back hiring amid financial challenges" said Priscilla. "Candidates will need to adopt a more strategic approach in their job search, emphasising skills and adaptability."

As teams grow leaner, generalists capable of performing multiple functions will be favoured over specialists. During this period, we are likely to see greater integration between human resources and administrative roles.

Human resource professionals are adjusting their career plans accordingly, with 49% deciding to stay in the same role at their current organisation, instead of seeking new opportunities. Jobseekers looking to explore will need to be strategic in their outlook, emphasising skills and adaptability in a shifting market.

While these restrictions seem likely to impact how human resources teams approach talent management in Singapore, HR leaders remain confident in their ability to plug any gaps needed to ensure talent pipelines remain robust and functioning in their organisation. 61% of respondents were confident or very confident in recruiting candidates with the skills needed to meet organisation's needs, higher than the 57% of average for other industries.

OFFSHORING REPRESENTS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES CANDIDATES

Amidst this pessimism, there is a silver lining: offshoring. Far from being the only market experiencing austerity measures, some businesses in Hong Kong have resorted to offshoring various human resources functions in a bid to reign in escalating costs.

Popular human resources functions for offshoring include payroll processing, recruitment, and training. These roles create more than direct job opportunities for candidates in Singapore. They also provide a platform for cultural exchange that enhances understanding of a new market and exposes candidates to a more global business environment.

AI IN RECRUITMENT IS STILL BUDDING

While many are keen to harness the power of Generative AI in the workforce, this technology has not yet been picked up heavily for recruitment in Singapore. 21% of employers in Singapore surveyed currently use AI minimally throughout the recruitment process, while 23% are only looking to explore it in the coming year. 45% have no plans to use AI in their recruitment processes yet.

Usage to date has mostly been for a mix of automation and optimisation of various tasks. 37% of respondents use it for resume screening and shortlisting, 33% use it for candidate asssessment and ranking, while 26% use it to perform predictive analysis for candidate fit.

Additionally, while 77% of human resources personnel support the use of AI tools to help them perform their tasks at work, only 44% of them believe their organisations have embraced AI sufficiently to stay relevant in the future.

THERE ARE STILL GAPS TO IMPLEMENTING AI IN HR WIDELY

Understanding the barriers HR teams in Singapore have with AI adoption is essential to formulating next steps. Only 39% of HR respondents in Singapore felt they were sufficiently equipped or had a sense of how to acquire the required AI skills to succeed in their role in the next three to five years. 20% of respondents were unsure, while 41% disagreed or strongly disagreed with that notion.

Sentiments when it came to future upskilling were encouraging, however. 63% of HR professionals were confident that their employer would support them in developing the necessary skills for their role. HR leaders will want to explore pathways to upskilling to ensure that these expectations are met, especially if their organisations plan on introducing AI tools to their workforce.

When polled about the primary challenges faced when implementing AI, the top five factors that surfaced were as follows:

35% of human resources respondents were concerned about budget constraints
31% cited difficulty integrating AI with existing HR systems and processes
31% mentioned concerns about ensuring fairness and mitigating bias in AL algorithms

Establishing security measures, transparent data handling practices, and long-term cost savings and efficiencies of AI would be pertinent to its implementation in recruitment. Adequate IT support and infrastructure will be crucial for HR teams to adopt AI in recruitment successfully.

We also wanted to discern which concerns stood out more for non-HR professionals compared to their HR colleagues to map out sentiments from both candidates and leaders who rely on HR to select quality candidates from interest pools.

The survey showed that more non-HR professionals were concerned about the lack of human touch and personalisation with AI recruitment tools, understanding and interpreting AI-generated candidate data, and ensuring fairness and mitigating bias in AI algorithms.

Careful considerations will need to be applied toward retaining human elements in the recruitment process. Providing managers with training and access to AI recruitment tools will allow them to experience selections firsthand, giving them leeway to interpret and understand selections for more informed decision-making. These also underscore a need to finetune AI systems with ongoing monitoring for bias to ensure fairness in the recruitment process.

As AI education grows more widespread among the populace, concerns regarding the ethical usage of AI tools in recruitment, especially for determining candidate employability, have naturally risen. 45% of HR professionals in Singapore believe organisations should disallow the use of AI tools until there are sufficient regulations and ethical safeguards in place, while 19% remain unsure.

Businesses in Singapore are more prepared than their peers in Asia when it comes to AI policies. Only 30% of HR professionals acknowledged that their organisation or leader had issued an AI tool usage policy or provided guidelines on AI usage and restrictions for work. Addressing these concerns will be crucial to foster trust in hiring processes.

THE MOST IN-DEMAND ROLES IN HUMAN RESOURCES FOR SINGAPORE IN 2024

These are the top five most in-demand positions in HR for Singapore in 2024:

Talent Management/OD/Change Management
Human Resources Business Partner
Human Resources Analyst
Compensation & Benefits Manager
Human Resources Manager

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