MAS for Mid Career Professionals

Originally Posted by Unregistered

honestly, not worth it to try to be a B performer. work like crazy and only get a little more than those slackers. on a per hour rate, those slackers must be the highest earning deadweight in the org

Slacking is the best way to survive MAS. Bosses only load people who can deliver with more work. Those who are condemned by bosses do not get much work.as bosses do not want the work deliverable to be crap.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Slacking is the best way to survive MAS. Bosses only load people who can deliver with more work. Those who are condemned by bosses do not get much work.as bosses do not want the work deliverable to be crap.

Agree. To add on, don't do any side work if that is not your main job role.

The following is an example for data analytics/science that applies to other areas: There is an agencywide drive to train more staff in data analytics/science from the academy side. Going for the training is fine, but I would not recommend anyone do any side data analytics/science work, *especially* if in a non-technical dept (e.g. business dept like policy/regulation).

The reasons are simple:

1. You will be rewarded - with more work. MAS does not appreciate technical work, as with most government agencies apart from maybe GovTech. You will only end up being the "go-to person" in office for all sorts of data analytics/science work, while your colleagues who refuse to learn (especially the senior ones) simply assign their work to you and coast by (with higher pay even, for the senior ones). There is no return once you are viewed as the "go-to person" in the dept; if you refuse work now, you run the risk of being marked down as uncooperative. Management is also complicit: I have heard staff who literally went to management claiming they don't know how to do data analytics, and management simply assigned the work to someone else who knew how to do it (instead of asking the staff to learn on the job).

2. You will not be recognised. There is no formal HR recognition process in place for side jobs like this through higher base pay, CEPs and performance grades. The higher CEPs and performance grades will go to your colleagues who *present* your data insights at management forums, but woe betide you if something is wrong with these insights, since you will get all the blame for actually *doing* the work. Maybe HR will do something about this, but I don't have high hopes. Even if HR comes up with some formal recognition process, it will probably be implemented in the next decade or so, going by HR's usual leisurely timelines that lag the reality of the job market by years.

TLDR: Don't do any side work if that is not your main job role. Learn what you can, and start job hunting once people start approaching you as the "go-to person" in office.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Agree. To add on, don't do any side work if that is not your main job role.

The following is an example for data analytics/science that applies to other areas: There is an agencywide drive to train more staff in data analytics/science from the academy side. Going for the training is fine, but I would not recommend anyone do any side data analytics/science work, *especially* if in a non-technical dept (e.g. business dept like policy/regulation).

The reasons are simple:

1. You will be rewarded - with more work. MAS does not appreciate technical work, as with most government agencies apart from maybe GovTech. You will only end up being the "go-to person" in office for all sorts of data analytics/science work, while your colleagues who refuse to learn (especially the senior ones) simply assign their work to you and coast by (with higher pay even, for the senior ones). There is no return once you are viewed as the "go-to person" in the dept; if you refuse work now, you run the risk of being marked down as uncooperative. Management is also complicit: I have heard staff who literally went to management claiming they don't know how to do data analytics, and management simply assigned the work to someone else who knew how to do it (instead of asking the staff to learn on the job).

2. You will not be recognised. There is no formal HR recognition process in place for side jobs like this through higher base pay, CEPs and performance grades. The higher CEPs and performance grades will go to your colleagues who *present* your data insights at management forums, but woe betide you if something is wrong with these insights, since you will get all the blame for actually *doing* the work. Maybe HR will do something about this, but I don't have high hopes. Even if HR comes up with some formal recognition process, it will probably be implemented in the next decade or so, going by HR's usual leisurely timelines that lag the reality of the job market by years.

TLDR: Don't do any side work if that is not your main job role. Learn what you can, and start job hunting once people start approaching you as the "go-to person" in office.

Agree much! HR is not pro-active is all these recognition stuff. While ppl across depts have been flagging about career development to HR, nothing was done. Even for internal transfer, HR is not pro-active to facilitate and recently depts r more keen to hire external instead of internal as a lot of experienced ppl have resigned and they need to fill up tt expertise that they lose.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Agree much! HR is not pro-active is all these recognition stuff. While ppl across depts have been flagging about career development to HR, nothing was done. Even for internal transfer, HR is not pro-active to facilitate and recently depts r more keen to hire external instead of internal as a lot of experienced ppl have resigned and they need to fill up tt expertise that they lose.

As much as I have things to say about HR, please understand that HR is not your mum or dad.

If you want to transfer to another department, it is up to you to show that you have the skills required of that department. I find it perfectly acceptable that departments conscientiously choose to hire externally rather than internally if they cannot find suitable internal candidates.

I don't see why HR should be beholden to helping you obtain the transfer you want if you personally cmi. In any case, all of my department folk who wanted to tranfer internally managed to do so without any issue.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Agree. To add on, don't do any side work if that is not your main job role.

The following is an example for data analytics/science that applies to other areas: There is an agencywide drive to train more staff in data analytics/science from the academy side. Going for the training is fine, but I would not recommend anyone do any side data analytics/science work, *especially* if in a non-technical dept (e.g. business dept like policy/regulation).

Fully agree with this.

I would even go one step further and support additional task-based compensation. That is, if you want a person to do data analytics work, you should pay him for the time he spent learning it and applying it, especially if it is not required of him to do so in his day-to-day work.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As much as I have things to say about HR, please understand that HR is not your mum or dad.

If you want to transfer to another department, it is up to you to show that you have the skills required of that department. I find it perfectly acceptable that departments conscientiously choose to hire externally rather than internally if they cannot find suitable internal candidates.

I don't see why HR should be beholden to helping you obtain the transfer you want if you personally cmi. In any case, all of my department folk who wanted to tranfer internally managed to do so without any issue.

Well, you are right in the sense that department choose candidate with suitable skills of that department that the person is applying to. However, hiring manager should not expect an exact match of their requirements as candidate from their existing department may or may not fit the full requirements. The beauty of getting internal candidate is that they know the company well, be it processes or culture and is easier to train up as compared to external candidate. Technical skills can be trained up and from HR perspective, cost of acquisition is lower.

Fyi: Not from mas but speaking from a private sector perspective.

Anyone know why the manpower dpt keeps hiring? Is the dpt really busy and toxic?

Got an interview and not sure if I wanna go

dd4 and above can be individual contributor role?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As much as I have things to say about HR, please understand that HR is not your mum or dad.

If you want to transfer to another department, it is up to you to show that you have the skills required of that department. I find it perfectly acceptable that departments conscientiously choose to hire externally rather than internally if they cannot find suitable internal candidates.

I don't see why HR should be beholden to helping you obtain the transfer you want if you personally cmi. In any case, all of my department folk who wanted to tranfer internally managed to do so without any issue.

Nice Try Susan. Do your job instead of trying to taiji

Anyone know the pay range for AD of around 3 years experience?