Leveraging Human Capital to Maximise Business Outcomes

As the world’s leading immigration solutions provider, Fragomen takes pride in their human capital talent management initiatives to maximise and provide development and career advancement opportunities to its employees. The Human Capital Partner (HCPartner) and Tripartite Standards adopter share more on their journey towards fair and progressive employment.

Adopting the Tripartite Standards and being a HCPartner was a natural step for Fragomen as they have always been a fair employer and are committed to taking good care of their employees. With offices around the world, including Singapore, the company’s diverse workforce and breadth of their global footprint are at the core of its identity and organisational purpose.

Being in the field of a highly specialised consultancy service that is subject to constant change and challenges, Fragomen makes it a point to invest in a skilled and knowledgeable workforce. In order to equip employees with strong technical skills, knowledge of the immigration requirements, and client relationship skills, the global firm developed some initiatives to help them achieve this goal.

One such initiative is the Promotional Development Plan which prepares talented employees for greater responsibilities by providing them the necessary training and coaching during the 6-month programme. The focus is to hone both the technical and soft skills necessary to perform effectively in their next role. Other key human capital initiatives that Fragomen has implemented include the Global Mobility Policy, which utilises the expertise, skills, and background of employees to fill specific firm needs in offices outside of their home locations. This allows Fragomen employees around the world to request or apply for job opportunities in other global offices using their unique skill sets and expertise, providing them with the global learning experience and knowledge to develop their own career paths.

Fragomen also ensures local-foreign complementarity in their offices, bringing experienced staff from around the world to train the local offices and share industry’s and company’s best practices.

So far, the initiatives have been very fruitful in meeting their staff development and retention objectives. “The feedback we have received has been positive. Employees are now aware that the firm takes an interest in their development and they also know what their managers expect from them. Many have also taken the initiative to look at their job descriptions and approach their managers to understand how they can improve,” said Mr Mark Buchanan, Regional Partner, APAC.

Coming onboard the Tripartite Standards serves as a testament to the firm’s continuous commitment to be a fair and progressive employer. Currently, all Fragomen Singapore staff, including those on term-contracts, are eligible to participate in the flexible working hours programme where they have three different work hours to choose from. Started as a 3-month trial programme turned out to be a successful one and was eventually launched on a permanent basis.

When asked on how the Tripartite Standards have benefited Fragomen, Ms Chervina Cheng, HR Manager, Fragomen said, “After adopting the Tripartite Standards and attending the Tripartite Standards’ clinics, we feel motivated and guided on how to formalise our current policies with best practices. Adopting the Standards also gives us access to resources from TAFEP and opens up learning opportunities, including workshops and conferences.”

Being a partner of the HCP Programme also shows how well the firm is doing as a progressive employer. “As we invest in sound and progressive employment practices which resonate with our company values, our existing and future leaders will grow with us in this journey as we continue to get support and guidance from TAFEP and its programme. We also look forward to interacting with other progressive companies and learning from them what initiatives have helped them to successfully build up a strong and dynamic workforce,” said Mr Buchanan.

This article first appeared in the April – June 2018 issue of Upbeat.