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SATS helps careers take flight with global opportunities

As one of the world's largest providers of air cargo handling services and Asia's leading airline caterers, SATS invests in developing its people — equipping them with global exposure and leadership skills, and redesigning roles to support long-term career growth. This places SATS among the top 20% of nearly 1,500 organisations on the Singapore Opportunity Index.

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“Our success stems from attracting great people, nurturing their continuous growth, and keeping them deeply engaged. These commitments anchor our human capital strategy and have resulted in positive outcomes across the dimensions measured by the Singapore Opportunity Index.”

—Tan Chee Wei, Chief Human Capital Officer

SATS builds fulfilling careers for employees and enables them to make a meaningful impact. The organisation offers overseas rotations to early-career employees, leadership programmes tailored to different levels of leadership, and redesigns jobs to improve job quality and create opportunities for career progression.

Nurturing well-rounded associates:

The Graduate Associate Programme at SATS deepens associates' knowledge of each business unit and overseas operation. Rotation periods have been extended to enhance training, while self-awareness workshops help employees improve their performance. The programme also offers overseas rotations to help young associates gain a global perspective and a keen eye for best practices from different locations. SATS believes that early overseas exposure also promotes learning agility and builds employees' appetite for bigger roles within the organisation.

Fostering collaborative leadership:

The company regularly brings together mid- to senior-level managers across business units and countries to network and exchange leadership ideas. This fosters relationships across stations and facilitates exchange and cooperation. For example, a cargo services manager in Singapore could visit their counterpart in the United States to conduct a case study on infrastructure revamp and apply the learnings back at home. In addition, a smaller cohort of SATS' top talent participates in a global leadership programme co-developed by the organisation and the Singapore Management University, where they learn from leaders of other companies.

Redesigning jobs: 

The organisation has redesigned jobs across business units to optimise processes, improve job quality and create career ladders for employees. For example, customer service agents, who attend to passengers at check-in counters and departure gates, used to find the progression to customer service officer steep. Today, these agents are given broader roles, including supporting customer service officers, to better prepare them for promotion. In another example, ramp loading officers, who used to be stationed on the tarmac, can now work partially from a comfortable office, as SATS has digitalised certain operations to improve employee welfare and productivity.

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