Globally, in 2022, three out of four companies reported that they struggled to find qualified talent, according to a recent survey from ManpowerGroup. Talent shortages, the survey suggests, have risen to their highest level since at least 2010.
To close persistent skills gaps, a multi-sector panel, at the 3rd Integrated STEM Summit and GOI Launch in Southeast Asia, recently discussed how to build strong STEM workforce pipelines across Southeast Asia.
Panelists underlined that, increasingly, industry and education must work together to cultivate the cutting-edge skills required in rapidly advancing technical fields. Panelists also sketched policies for attracting and retaining new STEM talent, both within individual companies and within nations from which STEM talent is liable to emigrate.
Three panelists participated in the discussion, “C-Suite Perspective on Regional Workforce Challenges from HR Experts”:
- Milalin Javellana—Chairperson, Organizational Development Practitioners Network (ODPN), and Program Director, Australia Awards Philippines
- Nanette Legaspi-Aguas—Chief Human Resources Officer and Head-People Learning and Culture, United Laboratories (Unilab) Inc.
- Gil Paolo de Guzman—Senior Director of Human Resources, Western Digital
The panel was moderated by Kenneth Y. Hartigan-Go, Senior Fellow at Ateneo Policy Center, and Justine Raagas, Executive Director for Workforce Development at the Philippine Business for Education.
Companies can strengthen STEM workforce pipelines with immersion programs for teachers
“We see a gap between what’s happening in industry, which is so fast, and how that knowledge and experience goes back to academe,” said Guzman, Director of Human Resources at Western Digital, an electronics company specializing in the manufacture of hard drives. “We just need people to be there [on site] to observe and experience … and hopefully bring that back” to the schools.
To help schools stay current with industry trends, Western Digital has created an “immersion program,” which invites teachers to work at company facilities and learn the new skills emerging at the leading edge of industry practice. According to Guzman, the program has a “multiplier effect,” as a single teacher can pass along state-of-the-art knowledge to dozens or hundreds of students.
Echoing industry executives who spoke during another panel at the Summit, Guzman added that teacher immersion programs can also market careers in STEM. Participating teachers become, Guzman said, “spokespersons for what is happening in industry.”
To develop national workforces, students need help finding social purpose in STEM
According to Javellana, Program Director of Australia Awards Philippines (AAP), the attraction of high salaries elsewhere often pulls STEM students away from the Philippines.
“When they come back, they are so pirate-able,” said Javellana about students who receive scholarships from her program to study abroad in Australia. “The financial incentive outside the Philippines is quite high compared to whether they stay here.”
In part to help talent from being siphoned, Australia Awards Philippines asks its beneficiaries to return to the Philippines to complete a two-year “Re-entry Action Plan,” or REAP. Scholarship recipients must plan and execute projects that, according to the organization’s website, “contribute to Philippine development.”
“The government of Australia pays for everything, the Philippine government also,” said Javellana. “It’s a bilateral program.” As if she were speaking to a returning scholar, Javellana added: “Hey, pay [it] forward and help the country.”
Legaspi-Aguas of Unilab emphasized that STEM students may need guidance to discover a social purpose for their work. “It’s very important,” said Legaspi-Aguas, for STEM students to ask, “How will I be able to contribute to my community or to my country?”
Legaspi-Aguas proposed that STEM students might find an answer by working in real-world contexts, where they can do experiments and be “creative.”
“It’s really more of those opportunities that we should be creating aside from, of course, looking at the curriculum or looking at upskilling of teachers,” Legaspi-Aguas said.
To retain talent, companies may need to offer employees more than high salaries, especially among millennials and Gen Z
Panelists agreed that today’s workforce seeks more than high pay alone, with millennials and Gen Z possibly valuing personal growth and well-being even more highly.
“They don’t want to be stuck in just one area or discipline,” said Guzman about younger employees. “They want to gain as much experience as they can. Therefore, some sort of rotation needs to happen after a while.”
Javellana observed too that “the modern workforce is a bit different compared to 20 years ago.” Now, companies need new retention strategies beyond offering high salaries, which before, she said, may have been enough to retain “high potential people.”
“It’s not just a matter of giving them their high salary,” said Javellana. “The well-being of the person is now considered.”
Similarly, Guzman offered that, even in manufacturing, which can be “very rigid” in production schedules, companies now must “look into possibilities where work from home can be embedded into the normal scheme of things—even flexible work arrangements.”
To jobseekers: critical thinking and cultural sensitivity matter more than knowledge of English grammar
In response to an audience question, about whether job candidates must learn English grammar, all panelists downplayed its importance, instead asserting that good candidates must be able to think critically and communicate across cultures.
“Communication is how you express yourself,” said Legaspi-Aguas. “It’s not about the grammar, the syntax. It’s really more of how you’re able to convey your ideas … the thinking process that goes beyond what you’re sharing.”
Cultural sensitivity too is especially valuable in multinational companies like Western Digital, according to Guzman: “What I rather espouse … it’s cultural sensitivity because each of us will be speaking English in our own way. And there are nuances in every culture in the way they express themselves. I think that’s more where the stumbling blocks in communication happen rather than in grammar, syntax.”
This panel was part of the GOI Asia Launch event, the GOI will have a similar launch event in 2023 in Europe.