Ministry outlines what employers need to provide for new initiative
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has underscored the role of employers in ensuring that its Overseas Markets Immersion Programme (OMIP) will have meaningful outcomes.
The OMIP was launched by the government last year in a bid to encourage employers to send more local employees with little to no overseas experience for overseas work postings.
It also aims to support organisations in building a globally competitive workforce to realise their overseas expansion.
Answering a question over OMIP's safeguards in Parliament, MOM said it has measures in place to ensure that organisations aren't just using the programme to subsidise routine business costs instead of employee development.
The first measure includes employers' submission of a business growth or transformation plan to show that the overseas posting will contribute to business expansion.
Organisations also need to provide a comprehensive on-the-job training plan that will describe the developmental skills and competencies that the employee is expected to obtain by the end of their in-market training.
"Both the business plan and training plan must be approved by either WSG or the Singapore Business Federation SBF, which is WSG's appointed Programme Partner for OMIP," MOM said.
The third measure involves preparing a career development plan (CDP) that will outline the employee's development over the next 24 months, including the potential career pathways that the trainee will have after finishing the overseas posting.
"To fulfil these criteria, employers and employees must do their part to follow through and make the most of their overseas training experience," MOM said. "This is why WSG requires companies to get their trainees and their supervisors to acknowledge the CDP."
The OMIP, a $16-million initiative, will enable Singaporean companies to send up to a total of 250 local employees for a period of two years.
According to MOM, each OMIP application will be assessed based on merit and potential impact, instead of company size, to ensure that even SMEs can participate.
The ministry will review the outcomes of OMIP in 2026 to assess its success. These outcomes include:
"We hope that through OMIP, many more Singaporeans can gain overseas work experience to help them progress into higher positions, and companies too will be equipped with a globally oriented workforce to support their overseas expansion plans," MOM said.
