Meet Ingo Laubender 👋
Ingo is an accomplished CHRO with over 20 years of experience, passionate about leading HR and IT teams, who are driven by a near-obsession with improving how HR’s products and services deliver value to an organization and its stakeholders.
Insights from Ingo Laubender
1) On Culture: What’s one thing you or your team does regularly to build a strong, positive workplace culture?
Embrace intellectual friction:
This is the integral part of a progressive culture and eventually will lead to better outcomes for the team and the organization. People need to feel safe to speak up, challenge the status quo, and offer dissenting views and have constructive debates. Of course, it requires all the elements of a psychological safe environment, such as open communication, mutual respect, active listening, humbleness, and a growth mindset of getting better every day.
2) On Impact: What’s one HR initiative you led or supported that made a clear impact on your team or company? What changed because of it?
Leading and operating HR and IT as ONE team for many years.
In today’s workplace, technology has become an inseparable part of employees’ workflows as well as HR processes, unveiling many synergies and opportunities for IT and HR to integrate as one team and operate in smarter and more productive ways. This convergence has led to better data and insights, greater efficiencies through automation, and improved employee experiences.
3) On the Future: What’s one key skill or mindset you think every HR professional in Singapore will need in the next 5 years - and why?
If I had to choose only one, it would be adaptability. Backed by evolution and plenty of quotes: It's not the strongest of the species that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change. And, change is the only constant. Though I would like to add that the rate and magnitude of change has been increasing disproportionately in recent decades through the advancement of technologies.
4) What’s one HR initiative or practice you believe more companies should adopt to build stronger teams or workplaces — and why?
HR needs to free up capacity (and ring-fence budget) to invest in itself, else its value to the business will saturate if not diminish over time. Despite being crucial for efficiency and effectiveness of the HR department, back-end capabilities and related activities (e.g. operations and systems) are often underinvested, as they happen behind the scenes and interact less directly with employees. Yet, the back-end work powers the HR function with technology, data and insights, and has a positive impact on HR’s value creation, workplace culture and P&L contribution.
5) What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting their career in HR or people leadership?
Don’t consider a career in HR just because you care about people, that's the required baseline element. The HR profession has become increasingly interdisciplinary and complex and evolved into something far more expansive than just the “business of people”. HR leaders are assuming responsibilities that don't always naturally fall within traditional HR domains, managing an ongoing stack of organizational challenges at any given time. Willingness to learn, a hunger for progress, and resilience will position you well for sustainable success.
6) What’s one workplace trend you’re excited about — and one you’re cautious of?
Cautious about return-to-office: Depending on industry and nature of business, each company has to find their own unique position on what is best for their stakeholders, particularly their customers.
Excited about enterprise technology: AI is defining the future of work in ways yet to be seen, and puts even more emphasis on human skills that we need in order to create the most effective and viable symbiosis of people and machines.
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As Singapore marks 60 years of progress, SG60: 60 People Leaders Shaping Workplaces honours the people leaders building cultures where people thrive.
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