Promoting Flexi-work Arrangements to Alleviate Manpower Shortage

Ms Mary Liew asked 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.

Ms Foo Mee Har asked 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.

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin:

(for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, may I take the next two Questions together?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: Flexible work arrangements are an important means for employees to manage both work and personal needs. Properly implemented, we believe that 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. This is an important point to emphasise. We do know that there are people, especially women after having the children, are looking to re-enter the workforce but are also looking for flexible work arrangements. Given the tight labour market, we do encourage employers to consider adjusting the work arrangements to make it flexible so that you can attract a portion of Singaporeans to come back into the labour market. This can be mutually beneficial for both employers and employees.

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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 would directly benefit their employees. These include 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 on board.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Mr Hawazi Daipi, chairs a national Tripartite Committee (TriCom) on Work-Life Strategy to oversee initiatives to encourage and help employers implement flexible work arrangements. 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 at the same time, 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 to encourage others to follow suit. And many of these practices are indeed practical and replicable across many of the companies.

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.

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. Employees and unions can also help the process by suggesting options and practical alternatives for the companies to take up.

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. For example, in 2010, 35% of establishments offered at least one form of work-life arrangement to their employees, which is up from 25% in 2007. We do foresee that this trend would probably continue.

As the largest employer in Singapore, the Public Service is taking the lead in offering flexible work 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 give officers options, in terms of how they carry out work alongside their 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 childcare and parental care leave that public officers can tap on for their care-giving responsibilities.

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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 fora and learning journeys to enhance capability in the area of flexible workspace. 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 take on board and to try these arrangements. This would go a long way in engaging the workforce at the same time, in encouraging more people to return to the workforce.

Ms Mary Liew (Nominated Member): I would like to thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response. I have a supplementary question. I would like to mention that I am also the Vice Chair of the NTUC Women's Committee. The NTUC Women's Development Secretariat has been helping some 12,500 women over the past five years to rejoin the workforce.

We recognise that there is a tight labour market right now. Many of these jobs for the women are rank and file jobs. I would like to also add that increasingly, there are more demands for the PME jobs. We would like to ask the Minister of State what more can be done, together with the tripartite partners, to improve the situation. Although we have been encouraging the companies but the take-up rate has not been as encouraging as we had hoped. I would like to ask if there are any further plans to look into providing a more holistic and flexible support for companies to provide more flexible work arrangements for workers, including the PMEs, and also to reduce the dropout rates from the workforce and to retain the women within the workforce.

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: I would like to thank the Member for her concerns and questions in terms of what more we can do. We are quite open to suggestions and ideas about new initiatives that we can put in place to incentivise and encourage companies to go along this path.

As mentioned earlier, we do note that in terms of trends, flexible work arrangements are increasing. For example, as mentioned, the public service in a quite significant way has been embracing it, and trying to encourage it. It actually varies from sector to sector. A lot depends on the nature of the jobs, whether it allows for flexible work arrangements. But we do believe that there is still a lot of scope. For example, we do know that in the F&B industry in the developed countries, there is a lot of part-time staff. And they surge the staff numbers during peak hours, for example, during lunch time and dinner time. That kind of flexible work arrangements encourages a lot of women to come back into the workforce, who are looking at coming back to work, but perhaps not looking at full-time work. We do not notice many companies embarking on those practices here.

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We do believe that with the tightening labour market, we hope that that, in itself, would incentivise companies to take that leap and to make that change. The transition, I think, is not easy. Culturally, we have used to operating on a particular basis for a very long time. We find that along with other productivity efforts, there is sometimes a bit of inertia in moving along those lines. The natural process will come from the tightened labour market and companies would begin to explore.

What we really need to do is to actively promote this. We need to highlight companies that have successfully implemented these practices in place, so that other companies can realise that it is actually quite feasible and to emulate it and to try it out. We do not have any other particular initiatives right now. We have put in place a number of programmes as highlighted earlier. We will be quite happy to take on board suggestions from Members of this House and from the public as to whether there are other measures that can be put in place. My sense is that as the labour market tightens, and companies are beginning to feel the effects, I would encourage companies to explore, for those that can, flexible work arrangements for their staff.

Mr Ang Hin Kee (Ang Mo Kio): Thank you, Speaker, and to the Minister of State. I am very happy to hear that you are open to new suggestions to encourage the hiring of women and flexi-work arrangements. For a start, will the Ministry consider having the public sector share the age profile and gender profile of all the employees as an effort to encourage the hiring of workers of all ages, all gender and the proportion or share of flexi-work arrangements in the workforce?

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: I do not have the specific figures with me but that is something that I can check on, and revert to him on it.

Mr Speaker: Mr Patrick Tay, last question.

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan: Sir, I would like to ask the Minister of State this. Earlier on, he said that his Ministry is looking at encouraging more flexible work arrangements, but are there any targets set by his Ministry in the number of employers embarking on flexible work arrangements for employees who are parents?

BG [NS] Tan Chuan-Jin: I would like to thank Mr Patrick Tay for his question. We do not have a specific target per se . What we are tracking are the trends and what we do note is that the numbers are increasing. The percentage of companies that are participating is increasing and that is something that we are encouraged by. We continue to do as much as we can to get as many companies on board as possible.