TR EMERITUS

I refer to the 19 Jul 2014 Straits Times reports “Work-life integration: Most happy but 'more can be done'” and “The love-work imbalance”. It was reported that local workers are quite satisfied with their work-life integration and that 82% of employees feel they are in control of their work-life arrangement. But the accompanying ST graphics shows only 54% (42% + 12%) of employees agreeing or strongly agreeing with having the flexibility to integrate work and family life. How does the 54% who can integrate work with life translate to 82% who can control their work-life arrangement? EA chairman Claire Chiang reportedly said that these findings give the lie to recent polls painting Singaporean workers as miserable and disengaged and instead, show that Singaporeans love to work. Who is giving the lie Madam Chiang when “54% can integrate work-life” ends up becoming “82% can control work-life”? MP Lim Biow Chuan said the contradiction between 82% who say they are in control of work-life and 84% who feel their personal life could be better if their work-life management is better is a symptom of Singaporean addiction to work. No Mr Lim, it is a symptom of Singaporeans getting caught in the rat race, striving to outdo one another in a winner takes all society. Mr Lim would be pleased to know that the contradiction is actually less because it is not 82% who can control work-life but 54% who can integrate work-life. Thank you Ng Kok Lim Straits Times, Work-life integration: Most happy but 'more can be done', 19 Jul 2014 Only 6% of employees polled felt they lacked the flexibility to enjoy both A comprehensive new survey of bosses and employees in Singapore has thrown up a rather surprising finding - that local workers are actually quite satisfied with their work-life integration. However, data from the survey shows that this contentment comes not from any major lasting shifts in office culture or practices, but from ad hoc benefits. The poll, commissioned by The Straits Times and Employer Alliance (EA), took in responses from 1,000 employees and 500 employers across industries in Singapore. "It's the most in-depth survey on work-life integration in Singapore. Most surveys on the topic would just ask about whether the workers are satisfied or not, but this one drills deep into societal norms, desires and expectations," noted Ms Sharon Kok, the director of Degree Census Consultancy, which conducted the survey. Of the employees polled, 82 per cent said they felt they were generally in control of their work-life arrangement and only 6 per cent said they did not have the flexibility to integrate the needs of their work with their personal and family lives. Yet, each structured flexi-work programme such as job sharing or working from home had only ever been tapped by a fifth of the respondents or fewer. Instead, the top two most commonly used "work-life initiatives" were emergency leave and taking time off at short notice." When asked which were the initiatives they found most useful, these two were again voted top. EA chairman Claire Chiang said these findings give the lie to recent polls that have painted Singaporean workers as being miserable and disengaged. Rather, this poll shows they "love to work". "Usually when employees are disengaged, it's not because of the work itself but because of their supervisors. If their leaders are good, working hours will not be so much of an issue." But at the Tafep CEOs' Breakfast and Dialogue yesterday where the survey results were unveiled, Guardian Health and Beauty chief executive Sarah Boyd told some 60 business heads present: "I think for me, the ability to take time off at short notice or emergency leave shouldn't be considered a part of the frame of reference for work-life balance - it should be a basic human need... If Singaporeans were able to see what work-life balance and flexi-work means in other parts of the world, they would get a very different frame of reference for their decisions." To be sure, the survey indicates that despite their overall satisfaction, Singaporean workers, especially younger ones, do feel there is room for improvement. Among all workers, 84 per cent said their personal well-being would be better if they could manage their work and personal lives more effectively. Two-thirds of workers aged 30 to 39 said they would consider leaving a firm that lacks flexi-work arrangements. Of the 500 bosses polled, over 80 per cent said they felt work- life initiatives are important to improve employee satisfaction, raise productivity and retain talent. In some cases, bosses are even more open-minded than staff seem to think. For instance, only 55 per cent felt that staff should be in the office during working hours versus 75 per cent of workers who felt they were expected to do so. But bosses who want to implement structured flexi-work schemes said obstacles exist. Ms Boyd said her firm finds it tough as it does not have enough manpower. Others, like Gadgets.D. Legacy boss Ivan Choong, said employees sometimes have unreasonable expectations of flexi-work. But IBM Singapore managing director Janet Ang had encouraging words. "I would be bluffing you if I tell you that 100 per cent of the time for every employee at IBM, I feel 100 per cent trust that they are doing their job (while on flexi-work). But I will have to tell you the culture grows. You've got to believe it, execute it, hold people accountable and see the delivery of the results and if all that works, you have to trust them." Straits Times, The love-work imbalance, 19 Jul 2014 Better work-life integration was the popular refrain at the recent Our Singapore Conversation sessions. But a new survey finds low take-up rates for flexi-work arrangements, with employees sticking to full-time face-time. Insight examines the surprise result. AS A mother of two young children, 32-year-old Ms Shernice Ong could easily tap her company's schemes for more flexible hours or to work from home several times a week. But the operations analyst at an international bank chooses to stick to a traditional work routine - she is at her desk by 9 every morning and on most days, she leaves after 6pm. "I'm quite happy," she says simply. "I actually enjoy going in to work each day and meeting my colleagues. I'm quite a chatty person so I need that social environment." Ms Ong adds: "As long as my supervisor lets me take emergency leave if one of my kids falls sick and lets me leave at 6pm twice a week so I can pick up my daughter from childcare, I don't need to be on any special arrangement." Her sunny attitude towards work is reflective of Singaporean workers at large, going by the surprising results of one of the most comprehensive surveys ever done here of that buzzword "work-life balance", or what advocates now call "work-life integration". The survey was commissioned by The Straits Times and work-life advocacy group Employer Alliance (EA) and conducted by Degree Census Consultancy, which carried out telephone interviews with 1,000 employees and 500 employers in Singapore. While 86 per cent of employers support work-life initiatives that would help their staff cope with their work and family demands, flexi-work schemes such as job sharing and staggered hours have been used by about 20 per cent of workers or fewer. This is low compared with other developed countries, where at least half of the employees are on some kind of flexi-work arrangement, says Ms Wendy Heng, a manager at recruitment firm Robert Walters Singapore. The reasons that local workers shy away from taking advantage of flexi-work vary from the pragmatic to the philosophical. A quarter of the workers polled said they had concerns about using flexi-work, citing worries such as being passed over for promotions, getting smaller bonuses and receiving unfavourable work assignments. Others from this group said their concerns related to the Singapore work culture - they feared receiving negative comments from their supervisor or colleagues and having their commitment to the job questioned. EA chairman Claire Chiang suspects another reason so few have tapped flexi-work has to do with how central work is to most Singaporean workers' identity. As the senior vice-president of hospitality firm Banyan Tree, she has observed that Singaporeans, like operations analyst Ms Ong, simply "love to work". She says: "I look at myself and the people around me - every night I have to tell my people to leave the office. Work has become a central life interest for Singaporeans. The workplace has become a place for personal satisfaction and they also like the camaraderie they find there." These results come in the wake of the Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) exercise last year, which threw up a different take. The OSC committee found then that a majority of locals would prefer a more comfortable, slower pace of life, even if it meant giving up career advancement. The discussion has since gathered pace and the Government said in May that it plans to issue guidelines on how companies could put in place flexible work arrangements later this year. It also plans to improve the Work-Life Grant, which offers firms up to $160,000 over three years when they implement flexi-work schemes. Underlying factors BUT given the low take-up rate of flexi-work arrangements among workers today, this strategy of encouraging more widespread adoption of flexi-work schemes by local firms might not be the key to improving work-life integration in Singapore. MP for West Coast GRC Foo Mee Har, who has championed the issue of work-life balance in Parliament, believes that there are underlying factors at play. "For flexi-work schemes to be systemic and something that workers can take as an institutionalised way of working, it needs to be widely accepted and a norm in the workplace, or else they'd feel out of place." And for flexi-work to be widely accepted, employers first have to truly believe that work-life integration and flexibility will benefit them. According to the survey, only about half the employers polled provide flexi-work arrangements. For example, 55 per cent offer staggered start and end times and only 40 per cent allow staff to work from home. Among employers here which do offer a range of such schemes is MasterCard Singapore. "We recognise that work sometimes takes place around the clock, especially if staff have to dial in to conference calls in Europe or the United States - work doesn't stop just because it's past the official working hours," says general manager Julienne Loh. With staff working beyond the usual 9 to 6, the company believes it, too, should be flexible in return by allowing employees to better integrate their personal lives with their work. That means, for example, allowing them to work from home or have flexible hours so they can run errands when they need to. But many other local companies are still "not on the right wavelength", Ms Foo laments. "We need to help employers see the benefit of flexibility, and not see it as 'welfare' but as a clear business advantage to engage employees and enhance business opportunities." Flexibility helps to attract and retain talent and can also help companies save costs, Ms Foo says, adding that a recent study of British firms with flexi-work schemes found that they had reaped cost savings of 3 to 13 per cent. Some, for example, saved on rental costs as they did not have to lease as much space, with workers telecommuting. Ms Foo notes: "Singapore is uniquely positioned to harness the powers of flexi-work as we're a wired and compact city with expensive real estate costs. So if companies can think creatively about how to do flexi-work, it would benefit both employees and employers." Sociologist Paulin Straughan notes that one major hindrance is ignorance among employers about how to harness flexi-work properly. "Many supervisors do not know how to assess performance of their team in this new economy where you can't easily measure work output. So for lack of a better alternative, they continue to resort to using face-time as a proxy for good performance," she says. "Employees know that, so they, too, try to ensure that they are seen in the office. Until we can get to the crux of the problem, this misperception will continue to guide performance assessment." National Trades Union Congress assistant secretary-general Cham Hui Fong agrees, saying that the structure has to be robust for flexi-work to really work. "Supervisors have to be trained to schedule and roster work fairly and not be biased against staff on flexi-work; and at appraisal time, the supervisor must be fair. "My sense is that the rostering and appraisal system is often not robust enough to measure the output of someone on flexi-work." The survey points to this conflict among bosses about how to properly assess and remunerate workers on flexible arrangements. For example, 65 per cent of employers have concerns about balancing business requirements with employees' work-life needs. The top worry, cited by 56 per cent, is not knowing whether the employee working from home or on a flexi-work schedule is really getting his job done. And while 86 per cent of the bosses said they were supportive of work-life arrangements to help their staff cope with their work and family demands, only 63 per cent of them said the career advancement and performance reviews of such workers would not be affected. Former civil servant Zubaidah Salim has faced such an environment - she felt she had to think twice about applying for a flexi-work arrangement after her daughter was born. "I knew it would affect my chances for promotions. I also heard from others who took up part-time positions that the work distribution wasn't very fair. You take home half the pay but you do more than half the work." She eventually decided against flexi-work and left the job altogether. Making it all work OF COURSE, availability of flexi-work schemes is one thing, but fostering a culture that makes it acceptable and normal for workers to take them up is quite another. One interesting finding was that among the workers polled, 82 per cent said they felt in control of their work-life arrangement. Yet, 84 per cent also said that their personal well-being would be better if they could manage their work and personal lives more effectively. MP for Mountbatten Lim Biow Chuan says this contradiction is a symptom of the Singaporean addiction to work. "Although they are in control of their work-life arrangement, they probably feel that work is so important that they spend an inordinate amount of time on it. All of us want more time for ourselves to do our own thing. Even though you know you ought to spend more time on yourself and your family, you don't." And for those brave enough to take the plunge into flexi-work, there is cultural stigma to contend with. "When you receive an accolade, people say, 'Claire seems to manage work, family, life and community'. An ability to manage it all seems to be the accepted definition of success," notes Ms Chiang. "Hence, if you don't work full-time, that means you're not able to cope, when in fact it is rather a choice someone can make at a point in his life, to want to contribute just this much, for this purpose, during this period." The only way to change this mindset is to empower workers to ask themselves what they want and speak up about their needs, Ms Chiang says. "Bosses must know their talent and what they are going through. Employees very often won't present their problems. So we need to foster a culture where people can share their problems." She suggests that during job interviews and annual appraisals, bosses should ask their staff about their personal lives and take the lead in suggesting flexi-work options if the worker seems in need of help. "People must feel safe to be themselves and it is the real hurdle - it requires a lot of trust between the management and the staff." The way forward THE results point to work-life integration becoming a more pressing need in future - young workers expressed a high desire for good work-life integration, more than any other age group. Furthermore, this is no longer a women's issue - 87 per cent of men said they would be attracted to work for a company that supports them in managing work and family commitments. Experts agree that the path towards better work-life integration will require the combined efforts of all - the Government, employers and employees. The Government, as the biggest employer in Singapore, should take the lead, says Mr Lim. For example, managers in the civil service should not be allowed to call employees after office hours, unless there is an emergency. Ms Foo adds that there needs to be more education and outreach to employers to get them on board. "The Government could roll out schemes but why would companies even apply for the schemes if they don't believe in the benefits?" Employees have their own part to play too, Ms Chiang says. "You have to know what you want and how you want your work to fit into your life. But you also have to be responsible and accountable to the organisation's requirements."  Read More →

On the 26th, we were alerted to the fact that this ad was in the NDP Funpack. We pondered long and hard as to our response. We ask that you share this far and wide AND with your MPs, to alert/advise them of this NDP travesty - that Singapore has become about acquisition and little about life values. Living animals are not furniture or electronic goods that can be returned if all instalments are not paid. Has Singapore lost her soul this National Day? After the proposal for "industry-led" pre-purchase screening towards animal welfare by the Animal Welfare Legislative Review Committee, this NDP ad is equal to a national statement that lives can be sold without ethical accountability. All rescue shelters are full. Where will the increasing abandoned dogs go? Does it mean our country promotes and does not care about the vicious cycle of hasty pet purchases (made even easier now with instalments) that often leads to neglect that leads to neighbour complaints with pet eviction notices, leading to increased abandonment, then subsequent killing of even more lives at the national pound? Is this part of nation-building - grow innocent lives in puppymills with poor welfare and quality control to sell and dispose at will? With a 0% interest instalment plan, it means more Singapore residents can buy puppies without any bother about whether they can actually afford the care of a pet for the rest of its life and that animals are mere objects. If you need to pay for your pet on instalments, it means you can hardly afford to keep one and should not be misled by advertising, towards keeping a pet that will become more expensive to upkeep without instalment plans down the road. Instalment payment to procure pets must not be permitted. Defenceless lives are at stake. Visit https://www.facebook.com/ndpeep to voice your thoughts and if you want to join us in our letter to the news editors, PM us your name to be included now.   [Source]: https://m.facebook.com/aawsg/photos/a.289331831159279.65138.250270161732113/680052198753905/?type=1&source=46    Read More →

Singapore - From First World to Third I am starting to question myself as to who really built this city. One thing for sure, it cannot be Singaporeans. Singaporeans are simply daft and got no talent. If there are any Singaporeans with some talent, they can only be found in the govt, earning millions happily paid by the daft to control them. There was this great city paradise once called Singapore that was handed to the Singaporeans. Now it is turning into a 3rd World slum, or soon it will be one. The Singaporeans are so ungracious, they are so unkind, they are so wicked, this part is true if you know how some of them abused their maids, and they are xenophobic also. And the island, once the cleanest city state in the world is now getting so dirty with litters and rubbishes everywhere, it is going to become a slum. It must be the fault of the daft Singaporeans. And despite years and years of education and no littering campaigns, they still cannot cut this bad habit and keep on littering. Look at the beer bottles and plastic bags all over the place, in public parks, in open fields, everywhere. The Singaporeans are incorrigible, cannot be taught to be gracious, to look after a clean city handed to them for safe keeping. And they can all boast about being 1st World citizens, being very well educated, but they could not keep their little island clean. No wonder the govt is replacing them with foreigners from the 3rd World that are better in all ways, even in cleanliness. The foreigners came to sweep the grounds and keep the grounds clean. The foreigners are very nice people, very kind, very gracious, and do not litter. As for the Singaporeans, they don’t even treat this island as their country and feel very happy to litter everywhere, dirty everywhere, because it does not belong to them. It is good to have the foreigners here to teach the Singaporeans how to live well and live clean, keep their city clean. True or not? Do the Singaporeans deserve to go the dodo way? PS. Every silly bugger, local and foreign, is pointing the finger at the Singaporeans. This must be the right thing to do, so I just join the bandwagon, in Singaporean bashing.   Chua Chin Leng aka redbean * The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenew.blogspot.com    Read More →