{"id":12633,"date":"2019-01-01T15:18:11","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T07:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/?p=12633"},"modified":"2025-12-02T15:31:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:31:17","slug":"leaving-behind-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2019\/01\/01\/leaving-behind-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Behind Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The best thing that Mr Chong Khin Yong (Engineering ’79) enjoyed most about retirement was being able to enjoy quality time with his family, especially his grandchildren. But while Mr Chong delighted in watching the little ones grow up, he wasn\u2019t quite ready to leave the workforce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWorking provides me an identity and purpose. And it also enables me to contribute to the society in more meaningful ways,\u201d he admits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So after tasting retirement life for two years, the IT professional chose to make the leap back into the working crowd once more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

BIDDING RETIREMENT GOODBYE – FOR NOW<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Having built his corporate skills in multinational companies such as Fujitsu Asia, Mr Chong\u2019s impressive resume caught the attention of Hans, a local Food and Beverage firm, which was looking for someone to help improve its software systems. Recognising his IT expertise, the company was keen to hire him, but was worried of the cost that came with doing so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shares Ms Lilian Teoh, Learning and Development Manager at Hans: \u201cWhile we are always keen to hire these highly skilled workers, we may not always have the financial capability to do so, especially when resources are already stretched amongst various operations.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

SEEKING ASSISTANCE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Han\u2019s decided to get help from Workforce Singapore (WSG) for its salary support initiative, Career Support Programme. This allowed the company to not only employ Mr Chong, it also helped defray initial hiring costs of up to $42,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now part of the IT department, Mr Chong has helped update the company\u2019s enterprise resource planning for overall management of orders at the back end. He has also urged management to update the existing point-of-sale system to reduce breakdowns and analyse sales data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Chong continues to set his sights on taking Han\u2019s further in the digital age. With the help of P-Max programme, which helps facilitate the hiring and familiarisation process between SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) and PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians), he learnt to manage and set goals for himself, allowing him to grow into his job role.<\/span><\/p>\n

NO REGRETS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Chong is excited to continue contributing to the working world. \u201cKnowing that I can lend support in my own way to help the company progress is something that energises me,\u201d he reveals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to continue doing this for as long as I can.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This article is contributed by Workforce Singapore. Want to know more about WSG\u2019s Career Support Programme?\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not quite done with his career yet, Mr Chong Khin Yong (Engineering ’79) returned to the working world with the help of Workforce Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12633"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12646,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633\/revisions\/12646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}