SIRC 201514

Q&A

What are the biggest cultural differences that you see between the London market and Singapore?

Singapore is a culturally rich and diverse country that attracts some of the best talent from across the globe. This has resulted in a multinational marketplace with each culture possessing its own unique set of intricacies, values and beliefs.

It important to be aware of these differences and you should be willing to learn and understand how to adapt your current business practices to fit in with the Singaporean culture. It can be something as simple as how you address somebody or how you exchange a business card.

The Asian market values trust and credibility. The depth of the relationships is similar to London, but in terms of how you nurture those relationships, it is very much about demonstrating the value you can bring to their business rather than just who you know.

In which business lines are you seeing the greatest need for new staff at the moment?

We’re seeing a lot of movement in the marine sector due to new players entering the market and moves at the top end having a knock on effect. It’s a market that’s quite fluid between broking and underwriting, particularly at the senior end, which means that we are seeing increasing demand across all roles and risks.

We are working with organisations that are finding it challenging to hire candidates who are prepared to commit to the region long term. Turnover in staff can have an impact on an organisation trying to build a sustainable business on the client side.

The mid-level energy space is also proving to be a challenging market to recruit for due to a limited local talent pool. The market demographics show the sector to be top heavy, with the majority being expats.

Where and what are the skills shortages in Singapore’s insurance market?With the Singapore government introducing

The Fair Employment Framework in 2014, limiting the number of Employment Pass applications for overseas candidates, we have seen a shortage of local candidates with technical capabilities within niche and specialty products, especially with new products entering the market.

Historically, London and Europe have controlled these products but we are now seeing these capabilities appear in Asia, with organisations bringing their own people across from mature overseas markets.

With a limited number of local candidates who hold these technical capabilities, organisations will need to decide whether to hire a local and train them up or source talent from an overseas market.

Have you seen many expats move out to Singapore to take on roles at insurers there? Where do they tend to travel from? What skills do they bring with them?

Where the skill set falls short we will see organisations bring in talent from mature overseas insurance markets. Outside of traditional established product lines (like property and casualty) we will see candidates coming from across the globe: construction, power and energy from Korea and China; and actuarial and cat modelling from India, the US and UK.

As Singapore is a regional hub, the preference is to bring someone in from an Asian territory that possesses the local market knowledge and language skills, or someone who is currently transacting business with the local market from another part of the world. These candidates will bring a whole host of skills and lessons from their respective markets, which will support the development of local professionals and benefit the long-term growth of the region.

What skills do the local talent pools have which the expats could learn from?

I don’t think that it is a question of technical or “hard skills” but more along the lines of how working in Singapore will develop your soft skills.

With Singapore being a regional hub you will typically hold a regional role, which will entail working with developing countries in Asia where local practices and legislation have varying levels of sophistication. This sometimes means going back to basics – processes may not be as evolved and having a flexible approach is key to success.

These are all skills that you can learn by working closely with local professionals who have been instrumental in building the business from greenfield operations.

Which area do you anticipate seeing the biggest growth in over the coming months, in terms of talent management?

Clients are looking at diversity within their businesses and we are seeing an increasing number of Asian female leaders take up senior positions in the market. I think we will see this positive trend continue, especially within multinational organisations.

With new capacity flooding the market, insurance companies are looking at how they can differentiate themselves from competitors and add value for their clients. Claims strategy is one of the areas that can demonstrate this and I think that we will see an increasing demand for technical claims capabilities in the region.

I think that we will continue to see growth within the credit and political risk space and also within cyber, contingency and crisis management. Some of these are new emerging products and we will see growth where there are existing capabilities in Asia.

With the expanding workforce in Asia we are seeing growth within the employee benefits sector and that demand for experienced practitioners will increase.

Mary FergusonAssociate Director, Singapore, Eames Consulting Group

As the (re)insurance world turns to the SIRC conference, The Insurance Insider talks to Eames Consulting Group’s Mary Ferguson to discuss the recruitment opportunities in Singapore, and what lessons local talent pools and expats looking to relocate can learn from each other…

Power to the people

“We will see an increasing demand for technical claims capabilities in the region”

SIRC 2015.indb 14 28/10/2015 17:06