In every company, finding and nurturing the right talent are key.

Cindy Tay, Senior Manager, Talent Performance and Development of BlackBox Research, will vouch for that.

BlackBox Research, a Singapore-based research agency, had been looking to find an HR candidate to enhance the company’s Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development. Early this year, the company hired Cindy to fulfil the role.

Having devoted most of her career to research for the past 18 years, Cindy found the fresh challenge of recruiting and nurturing talents exhilarating. She was motivated to widen her skillsets and reached out to SME Centre @SMCCI where she was referred to our WSG Business Advisor, Manisah, whom specializes in workforce programmes for SMEs.

“When I met Cindy in June, she shared her background and wanted to find out more about available government assistance schemes they could tap on for manpower,” shared Manisah.

 Adapt & Grow

During the discussion, Manisah realized that Cindy was eligible for all programmes under the Adapt and Grow initiative, given her background and the period of her current employment at BlackBox Research.

“Prior to joining BlackBox Research, Cindy had been actively working as a freelancer for research agencies and tertiary institutions for more than 6 months. The Adapt & Grow initiative helps reskill PMETs who are switching careers by providing salary and training support. Hence, I encouraged Cindy to leverage on certain programmes on her company’s behalf so that she can get the training she needs to excel in her new job,” explained Manisah.

Manisah shared with Cindy the following programmes:

Professional Conversion Programme (PCP)

Career Support Programme

P-MAX

Salary and training support

In an effort to help Cindy gain as much HR knowledge as possible, Manisah assisted Cindy to apply for PCP immediately, a career conversion programme targeted at providing on-the-job training and external courses for employees. In July, the grant application successfully went through.

“Without Manisah’s guidance, I would not have been made aware of the available grants my company could tap on to help defray hiring as well as training costs. These programmes are also useful for mid-career switchers like me, to expand on our skillsets. We (BlackBox Research) have also applied for the Career Support and P-Max Programme,” shared Cindy.