As a management trainee with the Singapore Tourism Board, Kevin Choe is at the forefront of one of Singapore's most dynamic industries today.

by Colin Lim

At the age of seven, Kevin Choe left Singapore to study at the International School of Bangkok in Thailand. About ten years later, he returned to complete his National Service, but found himself feeling out of place. "I felt like a foreigner in my own country, after being away for such a long time,” recalled Kevin.

After living overseas for many years, Caryn came back to Singapore, wanting to establish a rewarding and satisfying career. Armed with a HR management degree, she never expected herself to enter the sales and marketing industry.

When she first joined Dirad Pte Ltd, she was pretty sceptical and was afraid it might turn out to be an MLM organisation. It wasn’t a smooth start when Caryn first embarked on this career a year ago, but she gradually learnt the art of communicating effectively with people from all walks of life. She also efficiently applied her HR expertise and worked on her management skills.

Currently enjoying what she does, Caryn is a team manager, involved in projects under the Charities division, such as the Singapore Heart Foundation and Singapore Cancer Society. Her short-term goals include promoting two team managers and one assistant manager by the end of May 2009. Long-term goals include being the number one performing office in Singapore and opening 10 offices in the next 5 years in Hong Kong, Thailand and China.

From 1996 to 2001, Eng Kiat was a Combat Officer in the Singapore Air Force. Being passionate about having a military career, he signed on as a regular even before he was enlisted for his national service. The first 3 years there was a great time for Eng Kiat as he enjoyed what he was doing. His hard work and good work ethics won him several promotions and he was managing people in no time. The years of hard work and passion did pay off as he was recognised and well compensated.

But Eng Kiat was looking to upgrade his diploma to a degree and applied countless times for scholarship that was given out by the Air Force. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time, he felt that he was bypassed on many occasions and was never awarded the scholarship he desired. Slowly his juniors who could study well and had good public relation skills moved ahead of him.

Secret 3 - A Blueprint for Success in School

Before Lessons
Content Preparation
Every lesson relating to the subject is an opportunity for solid preparation, so ensure that you are ready to sit and understand every single lesson. In other words, each lesson should be treated seriously.

That said, in order to understand the content in every lesson, it would be optimal if the lesson material is anticipated beforehand. This is called content preparation. The day before each lesson the day, read the chapter in the textbook to be covered at least twice to get a basic idea of the concepts to be understood. Create a list of questions to be posed during the class. This will allow you to map a mental strategy on how to conquer the subject...

The following is reproduced with permission from "Secrets of a Top-scoring Student", a book written by Linus Tham and published by ARMOUR Publishing Pte Ltd (http://www.armourpublishing.com)

Secret 2 - Lay the Groundwork

Know Your Learning Style
In the earlier chapters, I mentioned the concept of learning styles and how it can affect the learning efficacy of an individual. Scientific research has demonstrated that most of us learn and absorb information in different ways. It follows that the strategies should be adapted to suit our personal style despite the common belief in a fixed method of education...

A perennial challenge facing human resource professionals is keeping employees motivated at work. What drives someone to put in 100 per cent of their energy at work? What makes an employee consider a company a great employer?

Contributed by Michael Vavakis

Ask any leader and they will tell you that there is no simple answer. However, there is an appreciation to stop the second guessing and create a clear solution to keep employees motivated and inspired...

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