NTUC to pilot mentorship programme to support union members with career guidance

THE National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) will soon launch a mentorship programme to support union members with skills and career guidance.

The pilot initiative, announced on Thursday (Feb 13) by secretary-general Ng Chee Meng, will connect workers in unionised companies with a network of 1,200 mentors and experienced industry leaders for skills and career guidance.

The Company Mentorship Circle will also help to strengthen companies’ culture of continuous learning and development for workers, said the labour movement in a statement.

This new initiative builds on and complements the NTUC Executive Mentorship Programme which is open to all workers, including non-members.

Since its launch in 2023, the programme has benefited more than 146 mentees. Its next run from March to May will support more than 250 workers to pivot into new roles and industries, with a particular focus on emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence.

For a start, the Company Mentorship Circle will be rolled out to companies under the three unions: the United Workers of Electronics & Electrical Industries, the Healthcare Services Employees’ Union (HSEU) and the ST Engineering Staff Union (STESU).

Interested employees from the unionised companies can come forward to sign up for the programme through their companies’ human resource (HR) or union leaders.

Ng said these unions were selected for the pilot as the spectrum of workers represented by them are diverse, and the unions are supportive of the programme and its aims.

For instance, the make-up of STESU membership comprises both blue and white-collar workers, and has a significant number of professionals, managers and executives (PMEs). This makes it a useful platform to see if this new initiative can help a wide spectrum of PMEs, said Ng.

Meanwhile, the HSEU will allow NTUC to see how coaching and mentorship programmes can be designed to support workers in a uniformed service which requires dedicated skill sets.

Ng hopes that more unions can come on board in the next few months. “I would like all our unions to participate, including all the associations, because we want to use mentoring and coaching to impact workers.”

Efforts are under way to recruit and train more mentor volunteers to support these programmes. But NTUC will need to see the demand for the programme first to match the supply, said Ng.

More than half of the volunteer mentors hold C-suite or director-level positions, and more than 80 per cent of them have at least 15 years of working experience.

For the Company Mentorship Circle, NTUC will collaborate with HR leaders and union leaders of the various companies to seek out individuals who are interested in joining the initiative.

In time, Ng hopes that the union leaders themselves can step up to volunteer as mentors.

“We think that this will benefit many of the PMEs seeking some form of guidance from people in the industry,” he said.

Companies can also benefit by being more attractive to young workers and fresh graduates who are seeking some form of career guidance.

Grant enhancements

The new initiative follows other efforts by the labour movement to enhance workers’ employability and job security.

This is as workers themselves are expressing anxieties over jobs, noted Ng. Based on a survey conducted by NTUC this year on economic sentiments, 34 per cent of workers have expressed concerns about job security in the next three months.

A World Economic Forum report also indicated that 70 per cent of Singapore’s workforce would need to undergo upskilling or reskilling by 2030.

On NTUC’s part, the Company Training Committee (CTC) grant has benefited more than 7,400 workers with real wage increases, structured career pathways and skills allowances, said NTUC in its statement.

This grant enables companies to implement transformation plans to raise productivity and redesign jobs.

NTUC hopes to expand it, and has started conversations with the government to seek further injections into the grant, said Ng. More than 85 per cent of the latest tranche of S$100 million – set aside in 2022 – has been utilised so far.

“We are seeking government support to increase the scale of our effort to be able to use the CTC initiative to do even more for business transformation and worker outcomes,” he said.

CTC has helped the labour movement understand the skill sets that would be useful for companies and which workers should upskill and reskill to attain better wages and job opportunities.

“Hopefully, over the next three to five years, we can have a sizeable amount to scale the effort.”

Budget 2025 wishes

Besides the CTC grant, NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) will continue its efforts to support jobseekers.

In 2024, it successfully placed more than 29,000 jobseekers. With the expansion of the e2i career and job services network across 27 centres in Singapore, job placements for PMEs and skilled technicians rose to 17,000 from 8,800 between 2023 and 2024.

The proportion of PME jobseekers who approached e2i between the Q4 2023 and Q4 2024 rose to 61 per cent, from 45 per cent previously.

Aside from enhancements to the CTC grant, Ng hopes that Budget 2025 will shed light on the government’s growth strategies for Singapore.

He added that the tripartite partners are ready to rally behind policies that will help businesses to thrive and workers to get a good livelihood.

On his personal part, Ng hopes that Budget 2025 will include more cost-of-living support for workers.

While inflation has cooled from the highs seen in the past few years, households are still feeling the pinch from elevated prices, he said.

“Many Singaporeans (are looking) to see how the government can assist ordinary Singaporeans in coping with… the last phase of the impact of inflation, driven by all the Covid-related supply chain issues.”