- All Singapore companies should follow new guidelines of FWA (Flexible working arrangements) in 2024
- Reports and surveys show flexible working benefits for both companies and employees.
- 42% of workers would resign if they cannot work flexibly.
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FWA will be a trend in 2024 in Singapore
The result of the pandemic makes Singapore employees become accustomed to working flexibly, which means depending on the employees’ needs to take action of work at home or work at the office.
A white paper recommends that the government expand the availability of FWA (Flexible working arrangements) by introducing a new set of tripartite (Policymakers, employees, and unions) guidelines that require employers to consider flexible work arrangement requirements fairly and properly by 2024.
The meaning of a fairly and properly flexible work arrangement is that reminding the directors to decide on the working method should be balanced between the needs of the companies and employees, not only benefits one side.
It also recommends measures to increase corporate participation in the FWA voluntary tripartite standard from the current 27% of all employees to 40% by the end of this year. This makes FWA becoming a future working trend in Singapore.
The strong recommendation from the Minister of State for Manpower
The Minister of State for Manpower (MOM) Gan Siow Huang s believes that businesses with FWA will help to attract and retain talent. She also said: ” Flexible work arrangements or FWAs will remain a key feature of our workplaces well after the pandemic is over. This is a win-win situation for employers and employees.” That means she believes that there are lots of benefits if the Singapore government adopted the FWA concept.
Actually, for Singapore companies, flexible working has benefits in terms of high productivity improvement, cost-saving on the operation, and retaining talents. Let’s see how flexible working benefits these aspects.
The benefits of flexible working for Singapore companies
High Productivity Improvement:
Robert Half, a recruitment agency, found that a total of 60 percent of HR directors have seen an increase in work productivity when employees have the option to work from home in Singapore.
The Straits Times said that it has as many as eight in 10 employers here who allow flexible work in Singapore, some banks in Singapore, including DBS, UOB and OCBC have flexible work plans now. DBS said that after the adoption of flexible working, employees’ satisfaction has increased and employees are more engaged in their work than before, which has a positive impact on the company’s work efficiency.
Cost-Saving on the Operation:
The Ministry of Manpower (a government agency in Singapore) allows companies to apply for flexible work schedules, which is a policy for companies that want to be exempted from certain Employment Act requirements for overtime, rest days, and public holidays pay.
The advantages of this policy are that it allows the companies to be exempted from paying the following salary rates to employees for overtime, rest day, and public holiday work, such as avoiding the payment of 1.5 times the hourly rate of pay for overtime work and 2 days’ salary for work done on a rest day at the employer’s request. There is a strong incentive to encourage companies to adopt flexible working by reducing operating costs.
Retaining talents:
For Singaporeans, spending time with family is more important than work. According to a survey about family bonds by the Families for Life Council of Singapore, one in two respondents said that could not accept that long working hours prevented them from spending more time with their families.
Flexible working allows the employees to have more time to take care of their children and elders. According to a study by the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore, 42% of workers who prefer flexible work arrangements would consider quitting if they were forced to go to the office most days.
The loss of a large number of people in a short period can have a very bad impact on a company’s productivity. Since the employee’s decision to resign depends on whether the company uses flexible work in the future, that’s why the companies that use flexible work can retain talents.
As seen above, if Singapore companies adopt flexible working, there are many benefits:
- Flexible working makes employees more engaged in their work so as to have high productivity;
- A flexible working policy allows for waiver of paying the extra operating expenses, and;
- Flexible working hours allow employees to spend more time with their families, preventing them from quitting.
Although flexible work allows the employees long hours of remote work, they occasionally need to return to the office to work.
So, when employees need to return to the office, what configurations can help them work flexibly?
What setup is suitable for the hybrid office?
A hybrid office should use a comprehensive office management system, which helps Singapore employees use office resources efficiently, such as rooms, desks, and office equipment, and support them have remote work and virtual meetings with their colleagues in the office.
If you are the company director in Singapore, using the management systems can help you consider how to reduce the operational cost such as reducing the office workspace and fulfilling the expectations of both employees and administrators.
Bookings ONE, one of the famous management systems, can help you to easily implement hybrid working at ease. You can easily perform virtual meetings, desk-hoteling, and digital office management with our Room Booking, Desk Booking, and Visitor Management features.
ONEs Software now has a dedicated page to introduce a series of hybrid working measures to help you solve problems. You may wish to go to https://ones.software/sg/hybrid-workspace/ for further reference.
Contact us: hello@ones.software, or visit ONEs Software official website for more information: https://ones.software/sg/.