Work-Life Harmony
In today's evolving employment landscape, shorter business cycles and increasingly 24/7 workplaces have increased the pace of work tremendously. While this may be a competitive advantage for Singapore's employers in a fast changing globalised work, it is also important to ensure that employees' well-being and work-life needs are met.
Providing work-life friendly workplaces will result in a win-win situation for both employers and employees. Work-life friendly workplaces enable employees to balance their personal and work commitments. Employers who proactively support a work-life friendly environment will stand to benefit from having a more engaged and productive workforce. This will aslo help in attracting and retaining talent, especially in light of the tight labour market.
Click here to read about the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy.
Work-Life Strategies
The Government encourages all businesses to implement work-life strategies such as flexible work arrangements (FWAs) so that their employees can enjoy better work-life harmony and they can benefit from having a more engaged and productive workforce.
What Are Work-Life Strategies?
They are strategies that an employer implements to help employees manage work responsibilities alongside personal and family needs.
They contribute to maximising employee productivity at work and help make organisations more competitive.
Work-life strategies can be divided into 3 broad categories:
Why Should I Implement Work-Life Strategies?
The Singapore National Employers Federation conducted a study on 11 Singapore-based organisations in 2003 and found that for every S$1 spent on family-friendly programmes, the company reaped a return of S$1.68.
Work-life strategies have been found to lead to:
- gains in productivity and shareholder value
- improved employee engagement
- improved attraction and retention of talent
- reduced health-related costs (e.g. absenteeism, medical leave)
- improved customer experience
- a more motivated and satisfied workforce
How Do I Get Started?
Work-Life Took Kit
A toolkit on work-life strategies developed by Employer Alliance that contains useful information on what you need to know about implementing work-life strategies and success stories. Visit the 'Work-Life Integration' section for more information on implementation.
Work-Life Harmony Report
Browse through the Work-Life Harmony Report for general and sector-based tips on how to implement work-life strategies. The report also covers examples of best practices from the banking, chemical, healthcare and infocomm technology industries, as well as small and medium enterprises.
Is There Any Funding Available?
The Work-Life Grant under the new one-stop WorkPro Programme will help employers to improve work-life harmony. It has two components:
- Developmental Grant (up to $40,000): Helps employers put in place flexible work arrangements (FWAs) and other work-life programmes;
- FWA Incentive (up to $120,000): Motivate employers to support more employees on FWAs.
Download: Work-Life Grant booklet (1.4 MB)
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