Commentary

November spells tax time for Singapore companies. We examine six tax deductions not commonly understood by startups in Singapore.

Singapore has often been known as the food capital of Asia, and the range of cuisines we have in this little country is immensely diverse and vibrant. Needless to say, new restaurants and food concepts in Singapore pop up like pimples during teenage puberty; As do many restaurants close down in the same period.

“Just browse through some online images and find something funny to post. Hopefully people will follow us! Whatever we do, we can’t spend more than $50k on Social Media.”

Whether you like it or not, unemotional, highly rational, mechanistic and authoritarian leadership are a thing of the past. It is true that these traits might have worked over a decade ago when most corporations were structured on the hierarchical business model of rapid industrialization but those days are long gone.

A majority of professionals in Asia have left a role because there is a lack of clear career progression. This is according to a white paper by Robert Walters, a specialist professional recruitment consultancy. According to Channel Newsasia, this white paper aims to examine talent management issues that have a critical impact on business performance.

Having control (even the perception of it) is a funny thing. It makes us believe that we can influence events that are actually beyond our capacity. It’s quite similar to a placebo drug that gives you a sense of confidence over the outcome that, in reality, is outside your influence.   Anything that increases the perceived confidence on influencing outcomes of an event can make a person quite ‘attached’ to it. We experience this attachment in our everyday lives and keep such superstitions close to us. In the past, we have seen people wearing their favorite t-shirts to cheer for their football teams or the cautious ones who do not count money while gambling.

Who isn’t guilty of a swift ‘Alt + Tab’ keyboard manoeuvre after noticing the boss’ impending approach while you’re on Facebook? This image highlights two facts. The first being virtually everyone in the workplace indulges in social media activity. The second is that social media usage in the workplace is often associated with slacking off. But this perception is fast changing.

As a manager, you may completely baulk at the notion of having a pessimist on your team. But there is a breed of pessimist called Defensive Pessimists, who are able to transmute their penchant for pessimism into a strong suit and harness anxiety as motivation to deliver exceptional results.

It’s pretty easy to get massive viral PR in Singapore. Create a website that specialises in adultery. Bring it to Singapore. Let the politicians, facebook and public do the rest. Bang you have the No.1 “dating” site in Singapore.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore has warned all government bodies, government-linked entities or anyone remotely related to the public sector to be on heightened alert for targeted cyber-attacks from the Anonymous collective. Here is some further information about this potential threat.

The premise of talent management (TM)

No one should be surprised that Anonymous showed its face last week - hacking The Straits Times website and threatening further attacks on Singapore's infrastructure. Additionally, it attacked Philippine Government websites and defaced a range of Australian business websites.

The cost of a new hire is certainly escalating in Singapore and this will only be exacerbated by the manpower crunch resulting from a progressively tight labour market.  

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a 'manager' as one who is in charge of a business, department. The Manager can also be one who directs the training and performance of a business team, sports team and/or athletes. As part of our learning partners communication model, managers are tasked to be the mentors for their people. And having coached thousands of participants together with their immediate managers in Singapore, our experience has allowed us to categorise 6 types of managers.   Which type of a manager mentor are you ? Can you identify these qualities with people you know? 1. The Escapist The escapist is a non-confrontational manager who refuses to engage in a head on meeting with his employee. He rather keeps quiet in a face to face meeting, and becomes more critical of the employee behind their backs. He may be calm or diplomatic because he wants to give his employee another chance. 2. The Dominant One The dominant manager is one who loves to engage his people head on. He is very critical and often tells them off directly. He would often takes it upon himself to take charge in any circumstances 3. The Clueless One The clueless manager is one who has no idea on what solutions to present or even what to do. He is like a jelly fish in the ocean and is fortunate to assume the role because there was a gap in the company. 4. The Non-Chalant One The non-chalant manager is one who doesn't believe in nurturing people. He assumes the role of a manager only because he is told to do so. He has no inclination to develop any one and only seeks  his own self-interest. 5. The Beggar The beggar is a manager who only wants answers to be handed to him. He will treat coaches as consultants and refuses to think harder for any solutions. He has been conditioned to answers being handed to him. 6. The Leader The leader is a manager who is positive minded, goal oriented and self motivated. He is firm, friendly, flexible and fair. He understands that building a team is essential in any growing and sustainable organisation. So which type of a manager mentor are you? It is indeed not easy to be appointed a mentor. However, when you are possess the right mindset, you can perform more effectively, and the powerful results can be seen thereafter.

I gave a talk to a group of SMU undergrads a few months ago and had a great dialogue with them. Through the Q&A, I learned so much about how the current generation thinks and behaves.

News flash of the week: LinkedIn now has 259 million monthly active users, an increase from 238 million in the previous quarter. There’s no doubt that LinkedIn is the world’s largest social media platform when it comes to business networking, however only a handful of its 259 million members are getting any real business benefits out of it.