12/22/2006
what FT said of local talents
What Faruq Shadhili(foreign talent) said of Singapore talents
1. Foreign companies are eager to raise the CPF contributions for employees.
2. Most foreign companies would like to put a local to take charge, BUT...
3. Singaporeans(with MBAs) are industrious and can be entrusted to carry out routine management duties,...do it by the book, ...lack the independent mind to take matters to the next level. In short, unthinking but hardworking, good as production line operators.
4. Singapore talents are egoistic and worked for their personal interests instead of company's long term interests.
5. Singaporean talents 'had the gall' to disagree with European directors just to look good to his local subordinates. Would unthinking and mindless Singaporeans dare to disagree with their bosses, just my view.
6. The first contradiction to 5, local talents would cut salary of staff to please foreign bosses. I thought they would talk back?
7. Local talents would fly first class but cut cost of other departments. I only knew of one such talents that appeared in the big news that travelled first class. And this practice is rampant here according to Faruq.
8. Local talents think that foreign bosses are daft.
9. Curry favours is commonplace and employees got rewarded for that.
10. Local talents hired employees and demanded that they speak mandarin which actually is unnecessary. And foreign bosses disagreed but got along to please local talents.
11. Local talents demand workers to have proper qualifications. Foreign talents can perform without proper qualifications. Faruq quoted an example of an O level engineers training new aeronautical engineers. Phew, which part of the world could this happened? And Faruq commented the CEO of the airline for doing just that. I will fire the CEO first.
12. He concluded that not all Singaporean bosses are that shallow. So many must be shallow.
Before any shallow Singaporean bosses reading this article and start to sack all the local talents and replace them with foreign talents, and before they start to hire O level 'engineers' to train qualified aeronautical engineers, they better examine this concept of foreign talent is better than local talent before they be called silly and shallow by foreign talents in their employ.
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7 comments:
i like and often read the many matters discussed and debated in this blog. on this particular one i wish to say that what FS said of local talents is credible.
my wife had worked with foreign bosses throughout her employment in a company. For the first time a local employee took over the helm, he started scheming to find ways to remove her but would not agree to a retrenchment saying that it would benefit her too much, getting a sum of money. Fortunately, or shall i say very fortunately, the company decided to have another foreign boss take charge. My wife then got her retrenchment benefit, a decision the foreign boss dare to make.
hi anonymous,
what you said is a fair statement. it reflected a specific case. and there will be many specific cases for or against ft or local talents. what we should avoid is to generalise a specific instance and claim that all are like this.
i too have worked with many local talents and agreed some were pure assholes. but there are good ones as well. and i have screwed up fts as well when they could not perform.
my general view is not to go over board on such issues and behave like children going ga ga over fts. it is funny and surprising that worldly wise men can also go ga ga.
No, i dont think anyone would go ga ga over fts. In the first place i am not in favor of inviting fts here to fill jobs and depriving lts really. but i tend to feel many of our lts just lack that temperament of a cosmopolite (essentially for leadership positions) and, inured to kiasuism moralized here,lts are also moulded to become obsessive over their self interest. that's the shortcoming.
agree with you anonymous.
over the years we have cultivated a sick culture of self preservation. and there is this inbreeding that once you are in, you are home and you can menace anyone under your charge.
that is how inbreeding of elite starts off and eventually remove itself from the people.
also we have this lack of citizen volunteerism that will stand up to fight institutionalised mafias. and worst, these institutionalised mafias are the real thugs as we have seen here a few days ago.
they think they can use all kinds of low down tactics to harass and bully the people, even in a blog like this.
for fts who are reading this, please do not think that i am anti fts. i am just speaking out as a citizen who thinks citizen first. put yourself as a citizen and you will look at the world differently. and i don't think any ft will one to become a citizen if they know that once they become a citizen, their fate will be like ours.
no one will give away their inheritance and invite outsiders here to boss around with them and call them silly and shallow.
only stupid singaporeans will do that and think it is the right thing to do.
What this FT said is quite true.
Especially on qualifications.
Actually many talents are more talented than cert-holders.
Which is why Singapore is now falling behind.
When I gotta be eventually exported... then perhaps Singapore will know what Elfred is indeed good at, without the f**king certs. Hahaha...
Quick quick... can't stand rubbish in Singapore...
elfred, i must disagree.
if you are asking who makes the best iceball or cook the best kway teow, you do not need a degree to do that. if you ask someone to set up a business that is not in the technical or scientific field, like trading and import/export, or retail, you may still get away with ah seng, ali, or ahmad.
but when you are dealing with science, engineering and technology, your car mechanic will not be able to go more than unscrewing the nuts and bolts, change the oil or change the brake lining.
the skills and knowledge of engineering is a disciple, a hard discipline that no one can bluff his way through by his verbal skills.
of course you can ask a mechanic or technician to teach an engineer how to take out a piece of wheel or change the oil. a clerk will have to teach the ceo or cfo to operate the copy machine.
lets be real and don't be easily deceived by superficial logic.
The reality is many men will become only when they have the hands-on to become.
This is nothing hard to understand. Many technicians could be exceptional if situation allows, and their name could be Ali or Ah Kow... without qualifications.
And most importantly, if you know the economy has so many Alis and Ah Kows, why not develop equally high return industry for all, instead of for some?
Or is it that the gahmen is unable to come out with anything?
On the HR side, I still stress this... We hire so many 'pros' with experience and qualifications overseas, but how do those Alis and Ah Kow started?
They started as Ali, Ah Seng and Ah Kow... So let's just beat it. Singapore is super in wasting money to buy expensive sub-supreme talents and louya in nurturing. And its HR can only do this tinny much...
You only need common sense to know the HR's only most important role is to just tally what points to what points in such 'talent search' where even Wee Shu Min would fulfill all the points to lead you, instead of some Ah Sengs.
Hahaha... Local HR philosophy, as I am stressed, sucks to high heavens. With so much qualifications around, and Singapore remains tiny and now... puffing on competitions... and own talents stuck and starving.
Amazing.
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