IDA strives to be an effective organisation by developing the capabilities of its people to the fullest, helping them to achieve work-life effectiveness and enabling the organisation as a whole to achieve excellence.
Last year, our efforts in these areas received acknowledgement in the form of accolades like the Singapore Quality Class STAR and the Singapore HR Awards, and are a signal that the organisation is moving in the right direction.
IDA strives to achieve organisational excellence through the adoption of best practices, an emphasis on innovation and a strong focus on customer service and knowledge management.
IDA was awarded the Singapore Quality Class STAR (SQC-STAR), People Developer and Innovation Class certifications in Aug 2010. These certifications were achieved in a single integrated assessment and signify our progress towards improved organisation performance attained through structured improvements of our systems and processes.
In Jun 2010, IDA’s Government Chief Information Office (GCIO) had its ISO9001:2008 certification successfully renewed. As the Singapore’s government Chief Information Officer, IDA facilitates and supports the development and maintenance of effective and efficient IT systems to serve the needs of citizens and businesses. The current ISO9001:2008 certification covers a total of 47 sites.
IDA conducted an Industry Feedback Survey in December 2010 to gather feedback from industry on IDA’s performances in its various functions as well as its overall effectiveness. IDA’s overall effectiveness score was 88 per cent.
IDA’s i-Singapore was awarded a ‘Silver’ award for Best PS21 Project at the Public Service’s PS21 ExCEL Convention 2010, held in November last year. This project is a collaborative effort with industry partners to introduce innovative ideas for mash-up of geospatial contents for better service delivery to government agencies, private enterprises and citizens.
The Knowledge Management (KM) programme and system implementation is aligned with one of IDA’s strategic outcomes, which is to be recognised as an impactful and effective organisation.
The KM System was launched in Oct 2010 to support the corporate-wide KM initiative to engage the groups and divisions to harness the knowledge resources within IDA. This was achieved by leveraging the technology platform to enhance staff’s ability to retrieve information, improve collaboration and information sharing, eventually leading to enhanced organisation learning and performance improvement.
In June 2010, IDA won three Awards under the Singapore HR Awards 2010 in the areas of Learning and Human Capital Development; Talent Management, Retention and Succession Planning; and Quality Work-Life, Physical and Mental Well-Being. IDA also obtained the People Developer Award in September 2010. IDA continues to strengthen and deepen leadership and functional capabilities and its culture, through a series of training programmes. It also does this through the development of core and functional competencies by using a structured 3E approach (Experience, Education and Exposure) via the roadmap programmes for IDA’s Business Groups.
Business consulting and industry engagement, communications, project management, operations management and financial analysis are key competency areas that will continue to be built up. Over the past year, there has been greater emphasis on tapping the wealth of internal expertise among IDA leaders and subject matter experts to leverage on their knowledge in building capabilities. Through the formalisation of tacit knowledge and experiential learning, and using peer and leader-led coaching and case-study-based approaches, learning and capability development is made more relevant and applicable to the workplace. This will ensure that IDA officers continue to perform and excel in their core roles.
To form a meaningful and lasting relationship with the staff, IDA has adopted a three-pronged employee engagement philosophy that aims to connect with them on three levels: rational, emotional and motivational.
IDA is focused on fostering a supportive culture as it aspires to be a great place to work.
To promote flexible work arrangements, guidelines were clarified and streamlined to facilitate smooth implementation and clearer understanding between the supervisors and subordinates. To encourage staff to improve work-life effectiveness, IDA worked closely with our recreation club, FUN@IDA, to launch programmes that will support our “Live a SMART Life” programme. To help staff achieve work and personal aspirations, SMART focuses on five aspects: Shine as IDA staff; Manage relationships; Achieve positive lifestyle; Reach out to community; Take charge of personal growth.
IDA continues to play an active role in supporting community projects through FUN@IDA, IDA’s recreational club. In FY10/11, Fun@IDA supported the Children Cancer Foundation (CCF) through a series of activities and fund raising efforts. Funds were raised for CCF through initiatives such as Fun@IDA Chill-out cum Charity Nite, movie screenings, Kidz@Work and Chinese New Year’s Roadshow. The Children from CCF were also invited to join staff in the Movie Mania — Toy Story 3 on 22 June 2010..
Other community projects that IDA staff also took part in under the FUN@IDA banner included the Yellow Ribbon Prison Run 2010