CE's speech at Staff Recognition Ceremony 2022

Introduction

1.

Good afternoon VITALites. We are here to celebrate the achievements of our 2022 Promotees and Long Service and Special Appreciation Award recipients.

2.

While I would have liked to hold this ceremony in person, the safe management measures had yet to be relaxed at the point of planning. Hence, out of prudence, we are doing a virtual ceremony again this year so that all our Promotees, Award recipients, your families and more VITALites can join us in this joyous occasion.

3.

You have done VITAL proud, and together with the rest of Senior Management, I would like to thank each and every one of you for your unwavering support and contributions.

4.

Today, we celebrate VITAL’s 66 Long Service Award recipients, 5 Special Appreciation Award recipients and 39 promotees. Congratulations to all of you!

Lifelong Learning & Upskilling

5.

In 2021, VITAL became the Central Agency for Corporate Shared Services and our role is now to transform corporate services delivery for the Whole-of-Government. We all need to adopt a lifelong learning mentality especially in this uncertain and fast-changing environment. Today, I would like to share with you inspiring lifelong learning journeys from 3 of our Long Service Award recipients.

Long Service Award Recipients

6.

First, Mdm Muntaj Begum. Muntaj started her career as an Office Attendant in 1981. She moved to the Salaries Section in MOE and joined VITAL in 2006 as a Payroll and Claims Senior Officer. Throughout her career, Muntaj invested time and effort to build up payroll expertise through on-the-job training, studying IM guidelines and payroll concepts, seeking advice from more experienced colleagues as well as learning how to operate with new payroll systems. It was very challenging, but she persevered!

7.

Today, Muntaj is one of the pillars in the HPA payroll team. She shares her deep knowledge selflessly as a mentor to new staff. She conducts payroll training sessions and developed the payroll OJT programme. In 2009, she was appointed as part of the Quality Assurance team to review MFA payroll. She attained a Foundation certification in Accounting from ISCA in 2019. In recognition of her contributions, Muntaj was awarded the Efficiency Medal in the 2016 National Day awards. What an inspirational story! Muntaj receives her 40-years long service award this year!

8.

Second, Ms Fariadah Omar from HPE. Fariadah started her career as a Clerical Officer handling payroll with MOE in 1991 and subsequently took on a supervisor role due to her good work performance. She joined VITAL in 2006 as a Payroll and Claims Officer. In 2013, Fariadah upgraded herself and obtained the Career Readiness Certificate at the supervisory level. In 2016, Fariadah was rotated to a Human Resource portfolio. She mastered the HR processes within a short period of time. Looking for better ways to do her work, Fariadah explored the use of Macros to process contract renewal cases during the COVID-19 Circuit Breaker period.

9.

In Feb 2019, Fariadah took on the role of Senior Executive (Leadership). With her wealth of experience, it is not surprising that she is an adviser to many; often advising her colleagues and MOE partners on HR and Payroll processes. She receives her 30-years Long Service Award this year.

10.

Last but certainly not least, Mdm Salamah Yusop from Pension Team, Central Services Division. Salamah joined the civil service in 1977. Did you know, 70% of VITAL staff today had not yet been born in 1977? Till date, Salamah has served a total of 44 years. She retired from service in 2016 and was reemployed since. This year, Salamah receives her 5-year Special Appreciation Award. Awesome!

11.

Throughout her long career, Salamah has worked in various portfolios such as HR, Finance, Payroll and Claims. Today, Salamah is a Pensions specialist. She takes pride in sharing her knowledge, guiding new hires and motivating the team. Over the years, Salamah attended programmes such as SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace and Microsoft Excel courses to keep up with new ways of working. Salamah is a recipient of numerous VITAL Star awards. In 2012, she received the PS21 Star Service Award and together with her spouse, was invited to a gala dinner graced by the President!

12.

Mdm Muntaj, Ms Fariadah, Mdm Salamah and many other colleagues receiving their Special Appreciation Awards and Long-Service Awards today are models of what life-long learning looks like. They all kept their skills updated and relevant, even technology and demands of the workplace keep changing. And I am glad that VITAL has supported their journey all the way. Thank you for being such great role models for the rest of us!

Exemplifying Our Core Competencies in Daily Work

13.

Learning is a never-ending journey. VITAL introduced the Shared Services Competency Framework. At the public service level, PSD introduced Our Core Competencies (or OCC) which articulate the critical behaviours expected of all public officers. We incorporated the OCCs in the Appraisal & Development Plan (ADP) to facilitate developmental conversations between you and your supervisors last year. Going forward, OCCs will also be used for performance, promotion readiness and leadership potential assessment. We will share more details later this year.

14.

I am equally encouraged to see that many of our VITAL staff have demonstrated various key competencies in their daily operations. Let me share some examples from our 2022 Promotees.

15.

Melissa Tay, from Compliance, acts as the liaison between our Finance Services (FS) and AGD auditors. She works effectively with citizens and stakeholders such as our auditors and functions to understand the reasons and the severity of the observations. Together with FS, gaps were identified and management comments prepared. Melissa explained to the auditors VITAL’s limitations in enforcing the proposed recommendations, discussed action plans and was instrumental in obtaining a favorable audit outcome.

16.

Anjani Ramrup, from Corporate HR, receives many HR-related queries from VITALites. In addressing these queries, she serves with heart, commitment, and purpose, and seeks to understand the question from their perspective so that she can better respond to them. She also sources for information beyond the IM, for example the Employment Act, so that she can respond to matters relating to temporary staff which is not covered in the IM. Anjani has put herself in the shoes of stakeholders to understand their needs and concerns.

17.

Muhammad Khidhir Bin Khairoman, from HRSA, has deep process knowledge and very strong tech skills. He plays an instrumental role in guiding key automation projects in the team. Wearing his ops-tech hat, he identifies processes, analyses the gaps and assesses if they are suitable for RPA before he recommends to proceed. Khid experiments with ideas, innovates to improve work processes and service delivery while managing risks and mitigating the potential impact of change.

18.

Png Si Yong, from Credit Management Services, was involved in several initiatives and process improvements undertaken by the CMS team. Improving and innovating continuously, he participated in CMS’ ideation of the new debt recovery system, transition from cheques to ibanking and advocated the use of productivity tools such as FormSG. He identified work processes that can be simplified and played an active role in implementing work improvement plans.

19.

Lee Yan Ni from Finance Services (FS) led a project team to analyse and review VITAL’s onboarding framework. Having learnt the Design Thinking concept, she puts her skills into action and applied the Design Thinking skills that she learnt to the project to enhance the overall service experience for customers and improve efficiency in the onboarding process.

20.

Ng Yun Jia from PACE, applied her payroll knowledge and provided value-added inputs to the discussions with stakeholders in the development of REMS 2.0. Technologically savvy, she keeps abreast of new tools, guides and encourages her team members to experiment digital tools to review and verify voluminous data records.

Conclusion

21.

The list of our officers’ outstanding achievements goes on, I am so proud of you VITALites and how far you have come along.

22.

A recent interview by GovInsider used the analogy of a magic show - everyone applauds the magician and their assistants for illusions well performed, yet no show would be successful without the work of the crew behind the scenes.

23.

In VITAL, we are that crew behind these scenes keeping the lights on, preparing the props. Enabled by our role at the Centre looking across HR, Payroll, Finance and Procurement processes, and with the help of technology, I believe we can make magic happen for Corporate Services across the Singapore Public Service.

24.

Once again, congratulations, and thank you again to all Long Service Award, Special Appreciation Award and Promotion recipients for your contribution to VITAL and the public service.