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A natural question which officers might as is why do we need to train. And also a common excuse is that we are all "busy".

Message: This slide aims to resonate with the officers and they will then be keen to know why we need to train, even amidst our busy schedules.

Certis Cisco guard accidentally fires shot in restricted area at Changi Airport, no injuries reported.

15 Sept 2017

Incident occurred at 5.45am, at a restricted staff-only rest area which is not accessible to public. The rest area is situated outside the Changi Airport perimeter fence and away from the passenger terminals.

With better firearms and safety training, could this have been prevented?

Message: Training could have prevented many mishaps, and it is no different in SPF.

An investigation by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) at a biomass in Springfield, New Hampshire, determined that 25 safety violations contributed to the death of a 23 years old employee who was killed when he was "pulled into a conveyor" during a work shift on 27 November 2017.

Of which, it was found out that employees were not trained in lockout/tagout procedures to prevent equipment from unintentionally starting.

Officials said the worker's death was a tragedy and the plant's owner could have prevented it with better training.

Message: Training is a matter of life and death.

Forbes stated that from a survey that 58% of managers said that they did not receive any management training.

Is this alarming?
Or is this acceptable?

Fact is we are mostly focusing on hard skills to get work done, but management skills (more of soft skills) are neglected.

Bad boss = poor morale = higher turn-over and lower efficiency

Message: Soft skills training is as important as hard skills training.

This slide includes some of the verbatim comments sieved out from the PS EES (Public Service Employee Engagement Survey) 2018.

There are numerous entries on training. In fact, a simple "find all" search done in Excel found 261 entries with the word "training".

Message: Officers do feel the need to be trained adequately. And we acknowledged it.

1st Key Message: Training is for real and it affects your life and job. It is a need, not a want.

2nd Key Message: Train smart - we need to transform training. The same amount of training time may have different levels of effectiveness and we need to ensure that we can reap the most benefits out of the training time we invested in.

Why do we need to transform training? There are 6 key reasons (driving forces may be too technical for front-line officers).

1st reason: Changing demographics, in another words, ageing population and ageing workforce. We have to keep up with technological advancement and be adaptable with change.

2nd reason: Significant and growing threats, with current trend of cyber crimes and terrorism related threats, we have to ensure that we are able to be adequately trained to prevent, deter and detect such activities.

3rd reason: Technology is evolving at such a rapid rate that if we tap on it well, it could be very useful in the realm of training. We are talking about, VR, AI, simulators, and gadgets which improve training effectiveness.

4th reason, is international pressures. We recently had our TKS and ASEAN summit, and also some tension with our neighbour. We were in global limelight and attention and may continue to be. And we will need to be trained to be ready to face such international pressures.

5th reason: We will continue to expect higher loads. The fact is that while Singapore population has been increasing steadily over the years, SPF manpower has plateaued. This means that the population that needs to be taken care by each officer is increased.

6th reason: As of year 2000 (dragon year, 47k live births), Singapore live birth rate has been on a decline. For the babies borned in year 2000, they are now 19 years old, and are joining our workforce. After these few years, we will expect fewer applicants due to the fact that there is a dip in birth rates after year 2000.

(Birth rate data from https://www.tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/publicfacing/createDataTable.actio...)

Message: Our current training methodologies may not be adaptable and sustainable to meet future demands.

How do we transform training?

Message: Changes can be scary, but changes can be for the better, and the results can be beautiful as well, like how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

To transform training, we have 4 key parts to the training philosophy.

These 4 parts should be the guiding principles for us to follow when we embark on the training transformation journey.

Message: Philosophy is a big word. We can let officers understand that they are just some principles to follow. The hand shows that we want to guide officers to the right direction and at the same time, reaching out to them and "giving them a helping hand" when they need us.

1st part of Philosophy: Officers must be trained for the job they are deployed for.

Example: We have on-going review on courses and course materials to ensure currency and relevance so that our officers are trained for the job they are deployed for.

Example: Our ERT officers who were chosen in 2017 had to go through the ERT course which was tailored to ensure that they are able to neutralise terror threats. It was designed to be difficult and there were many officers we did not manage to pass the course.

Message: We set high standards to ensure that our officers are well-trained for the job they are deployed for.

With our Police Smart Phones and the mobile training apps, officers are now able to be trained anytime and anywhere.

There are more e-courseware which are still being developed.

Message: Technology is enabling us to bring training to officers, anytime and anywhere.