Growing manpower woes push SME Centres to provide greater support for HR capabilities

There’s a new HR shared services initiative.

SME Centres have been reaching out to thousands of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through one-to-one advisory sessions, capability workshops and outreach initiatives.

According to a media release, in response to growing manpower challenges faced by SMEs, the government has expanded the services available at the SME Centres and introduced a HR shared services initiative to support SMEs in human capital development.

SPRING Singapore announced that from June 2015, the five main SME Centres will have a dedicated business advisor each to provide SMEs human resource and training advisory services, in addition to guidance on capability development programmes and schemes. This was announced today by Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Teo Ser Luck at the 2015 SME Centre Conference.

Apart from the SME Centres, SMEs will also be able to tap on professional HR advisory and management systems through SPRING’s HR shared services initiative from 1 May 2015 onwards. Recognising that SMEs, especially micro and small enterprises, often face resource constraints and may not be able to develop trained internal staff to support their HR operations, SPRING has appointed 11 HR service providers as part of the HR shared services initiative.

SMEs can expect to reduce costs and resources spent on HR administration and upfront investment on HR systems through this initiative. They will be able to outsource some of their operational HR activities such as payroll processing and employee data administration, so that they can focus on core business and strategic HR functions. Interested SMEs can approach any of the appointed HR service providers to sign up and receive funding support of up to 70% on qualifying costs, including one-time set up cost and subscription cost capped at 12 months.