Talent Centric
a topic, it’s not regarded as prominent or urgent.
“Across Singapore, Malaysia and China
particularly, there are also increasingly strong
nationalistic policies which create extra pressure
around solving talent acquisition problems for
our clients,” he adds.
Candidate behaviour is equally variable: “For
example, with candidates in Australia, the way
we engage is highly mobile-enabled or digital.
However, in India and Indonesia, where the
telecoms infrastructure isn’t strong, some
processes are less sophisticated.”
To ensure Alexander Mann Solutions can
predict and keep up with market trends, it
deploys a 750-strong workforce across the
APAC region.
“It’s about ensuring we’re in the right place
ahead of time to capture all that,” says Baker.
“We’re highly distributed across all those
locations, and rely strongly on collecting in-
country information and data points from our
people to keep our finger on the pulse.
“We’re 93% localised in APAC; the other
7% comprises internationally experienced
leadership through whom we bring practices
from other regions to develop our proposition.”
CATALYST 2017:
a collaboration platform
When? 9 November 2017
Where? Singapore
Catalyst events are a
global innovation platform
that Alexander Mann
Solutions provides to our
industry peers. We’re
engaging and facilitating
external content:
sharing and challenging
the most interesting,
the bravest, the most
impactful innovation in
talent acquisition and
management that we see
anywhere in the world.
We look to companies
synonymous with
innovation and prepared
to share where they’re
putting their dollars
and efforts to innovate;
this year’s contributors
include Google, Amazon,
Merrill Lynch and Appen
(see interview, p50). It’s
not just presentations,
it’s workshops,
brainstorming, testing,
data collection.
We’re saying
“share your ideas, your
innovation dreams and
realities of where you
are on your journey, and
engage with a highly
relevant audience to gain
insights that will shape
how you execute these”.
The request on the
audience side is to
bring your whole self,
because you need to
contribute. This is not an
information platform, it’s
a collaboration platform.
Caleb Baker
Entrepreneurial spirit
Australia-born Baker has, himself, been based
in Singapore since 2003 and brings 20 years’
experience in talent acquisition and management
to his Alexander Mann Solutions role, which he
took up in January 2015. Along with this brand
equity, he can offer a background in psychometric
assessment. “My whole career has essentially been
around people and performance,” he says.
Despite this, the shape-shifting nature of APAC’s
recruitment market keeps him on his toes. “Since I
arrived in Singapore I’ve been trying to stay slightly
ahead of things because it moves very fast,” he attests.
This creates an environment of entrepreneurship
from which mature markets can learn.
“We rely strongly on collecting
in-country information and
data points from our people to
keep our finger on the pulse”
“My observation is that because of the
complexity and competitive nature of the Asia
market, specifically China and India, their ability
to innovate and change at pace is impressive.
In the digital and social media space they have
put themselves almost ahead of mature markets.
Five years ago, use of tech and social media in
talent acquisition was hard to find in China, but
today I regard China as one of the countries at
the forefront of using these platforms to engage
in onboarding talent into organisations. They have
leap-frogged from unsophisticated to leading.”
While innovation can, in part, be attributed to
salary inflation and a need for efficiency, Baker
observes an inherent spirit of entrepreneurialism.
“In almost all the Asia markets, by culture, they are
highly entrepreneurial people,” he says. “In China,
over 50% of the population work for themselves. They
have a mindset that drives entrepreneurism; I think
that’s part of why and how they’ve been more agile.”
This spirit will be integral to ongoing success in a
competitive global market, as Baker explains:
“The ultimate talent challenge for China, Hong
Kong and Singapore is making the shift to upgrade
their economies to be at services and value-added
level, as opposed to manufacturing level. The whole
talent equation is changing rapidly. That ties into
education systems, the use of international talent
and the whole workforce construct. And that’s the
opportunity, but there are no easy answers.”
Issue 2 - 2017
47