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Oral Answer by Mr Tan Chuan-Jin, Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, to Parliamentary Questions on Promoting Flexible Work Arrangements

Notice Paper no. 208 of 2012 for the Sitting on 9 July 2012
Questions no. 473 and no. 488 for Oral Answer

MP: Ms Foo Mee Har

Question

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower what enhanced measures are being considered to promote flexible work arrangements to (i) increase the availability of flexi-work for government employees with young, elderly and disabled dependants; and (ii) encourage more private companies to offer flexi-work options for professionals, managers and executives.

NMP: Ms Mary Liew

Question

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry has a record of the number of women employed under flexi-work arrangements; (b) if so, how many women under the rank and file category and the PME category are employed under flexi-work arrangements; and (c) how will the Ministry encourage employers to consider offering flexi-work employment to address the manpower shortage.

Answer

  1. Flexible work arrangements are an important means for employees to manage both their work and personal needs. Properly implemented, flexible work arrangements can improve employee engagement and enhance their sense of well-being and provide flexibility all round. The provision of flexible work options also avails employers to a larger pool of potential workers who might otherwise find it difficult to join the workforce. We do know that there are women, especially after having children, who are looking to re-enter the workforce but are also looking for flexible work arrangements. With a tight labour market, we are encouraging workers to adjust working conditions to make it flexible in order to attract portions of the Singapore population to re-enter the workforce. This can be a mutually beneficial arrangement for both employers and employees, especially in today’s tight labour market.
  2. To promote flexible work arrangements, the Government has in place a range of initiatives. This includes funding assistance schemes, such as the Work-Life Works! Fund and Flexi-Works! Scheme, where employers receive Government co-funding when they put in place flexible work arrangements that will directly benefit their employees, including professionals, managers and executives. More than 840 companies and their employees have benefitted from these two programmes so far and we encourage more companies to participate and come aboard.
  3. SPS Hawazi Daipi chairs a national Tripartite Committee (TriCom) on Work-Life Strategy to oversee initiatives to encourage and help employers implement flexible work arrangements.
  4. The TriCom has been working with the Employer Alliance, under the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), to organise more fora and dialogue sessions to share effective work-life practices amongst employers. The Employer Alliance is enhancing its Work-Life Tool Kit and developing more case studies to better help employers recognise the value of enabling work-life harmony for their workers, and to implement flexible work-life strategies. This year, the TriCom is also organising the Work-Life Excellence Award to showcase employers who have put in place good work-life practices and encourage others to follow suit. Many of these practices are indeed practical and replicable across many other companies.
  5. In the course of the next two years, the TriCom will focus on fostering workplace cultures that support flexible work arrangements. One initiative that is currently being piloted is the Home-based Work and Smart Work Centres Project by IDA to take advantage of Singapore’s Next-Generation broadband network to facilitate working from home or from satellite offices. While the initiative is not targeted solely at professionals, managers and executives, this group will see more options opening up to them if the pilot proves successful.
  6. While the Government will continue to promote and facilitate the provision of work-life arrangements, employers need to take the lead in implementation, with the active support of their employees, as well as the unions. We do not have comprehensive statistics on the number of employees who require and are currently employed on flexible work arrangements. Nonetheless, we are heartened that more employers are now offering work-life arrangements to their employees. In 2010, 35% of establishments offered at least one form of work-life arrangement to their employees, up from 25% in 2007.1 We do foresee that this trend will probably continue.
  7. As the largest employer in Singapore, the Public Service is taking the lead in offering flexible working arrangements to its officers. There are various schemes to help public officers better balance their work and personal needs, which can include looking after their parents, young children or dependants. Many agencies have both flexi-time and flexi-place practices that gives officers options in how they carry out work alongside personal needs. The option of a reduced hour work-week is also available to officers who are not able to take on a full work load due to their personal commitments. These flexible working arrangements complement the range of child-care and parental-care leave that public officers can tap on for their care-giving responsibilities.
  8. The Public Service has also leveraged its Work-Life Network to build a culture of workplace flexibility. The Network meets regularly to share good practices and has forums and learning journeys to enhance capability in the area of flexible workplace. In addition, the Public Service also provides resources to educate individual officers and supervisors on the new ways of work, and the responsibility and trust that needs to come about in order to implement flexible work practices successfully. The fact of the matter is, flexible work arrangements can work and has worked, and we do encourage companies to try these arrangements as they will go a long way in encouraging more people to return to the workforce.

 

1 Source: MOM’s Conditions of Employment Survey 2010. The survey covered establishments in the private sector each with at least 25 employees and the public sector comprising government ministries, organs of state and statutory boards.