Singapore resident female employment rate increased in the past decade from 54% to 57.7% in 2020, according to Minister of State for Manpower Gan Siow Huang.
Although women employees in Singapore are increasing and becoming more influential in the workplace, they are also subject to many constraints at work.
In a conversation with NTUC Women’s Committee leaders at the presidential palace, President Halimah Jacob said that the practice of flexible working has helped women stay in the workforce and solve the restrictions.
So firstly, you need to know what is hybrid work and what the restrictions are for Women in Singapore.
Table of Contents
What you should know
- President Halimah said hybrid working can solve women’s restrictions in Singapore.
- As a firm report shows that 60% of its leadership team is female in Singapore, female employees can become important Singaporean manpower.
- Hot desk helps female employees to obtain enough flexibility in choosing their working time and place.
What is hybrid working?
Hybrid work is an approach that combines work at home and work in the office and takes into account the needs of the individual.
It provides sufficient flexibility in work, including customized flexible working hours, workplace, and workflow by employees themselves, and allows them to work in the public workspace in the office.
As a result, employees in Singapore are able to enjoy a personalized work schedule and combine it with a co-working style within the company to create an organized and efficient work model.
(Watch our introduction video to Hybrid working: What is hybrid working? | ONES – YouTube )
What problems do Singapore female faces?
Stress from life and work
A recent poll held on the WSG Jobs & Career Advice Telegram channel showed 86% of Singaporeans believing that women do have it harder at the workplace juggling caregiver responsibilities and their careers.
In Singapore, female employees need to respond to more work, for example, they need to take care of their children and elderly family members after work, and those actions will increase stress in their lives.
The tremendous pressure will make them less satisfied, leading to a decrease in work efficiency, and eventually, they may even quit.
Madam Halimah said: “Once you’ve left the workforce, after years of being out of work, it is extremely difficult to try and retrain them and get them in tune with a workforce that has changed rapidly.”
She means that it is necessary to implement a suitable working style for them and pointed out that flexible work is the best choice.
“So, we need to look at ways of how to help them (female employees) remain in the workforce, and this is where flexible work practices are important.” She added.
Gender discrimination
Madam Halimah had already spent 33 years of her career in the labor movement. She said that women leaders are critical in ensuring that the grievances of female workers are heard, and inequalities are addressed.
But in Singapore’s workplace, which is still male-dominated, women’s voices are mostly silenced.
We need to change the mindset about how people look at men and women. For instance, caregiving roles and domestic work are still very much under the purview of women…If you want women to have greater participation at work, some of these responsibilities at home must be shared.
Singapore President Halimah Jacob
This means she recommends men should share the housework with their wives and need to face up to the issue of gender equality. Then, female employees in Singapore can be more engaged in their jobs.
Unfortunately, for a female employee in Singapore, it is difficult to have the power to speak out to get their ideas heard.
Dr. Sherry Aw, an independent fellow at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, shared that: “People look at me and they don’t automatically see authority, (which leads me to) think that if I were a man, I would automatically be accorded with more respect.”
Sexual harassment
According to “WHITE PAPER ON SINGAPORE WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT” by the Singapore Council of Women’s Organization (SCWO), it shows that Singapore’s women are often sexually harassed in the workplace.
However, they still have to go back to the office every day to face these problems. And there is no fully-in-office arrangement to prevent the problem, or without some systems and equipment to support female employees’ individual work.
Hybrid working empowers Singapore women
As mentioned above, Madam Halimah said hybrid working is the best solution for these problems. Let’s see why hybrid working can help female employees in Singapore to empower women in the workforce.
Providing customized working hour
In terms of stress, hybrid working allows female employees to work at flexible working hours. Therefore, they can decide the time length by themselves to have more time to take rest or spend time with their families.
In fact, this makes them have less stress in work and life, and would not be easy to quit their jobs. Additionally, as they save time on commuting, they have more time to work to ensure high productivity.
Providing flexible workflow and remote work
In terms of gender discrimination, hybrid working allows female employees to work with a flexible style, then they can arrange their workflow by themselves.
While taking care of their families, hybrid working allows them to work remotely, leading they can still participate in the workforce, such as work-from-home.
As a result, they still have time for work to strive for higher positions and responsibilities in the workplace, showing society that women have excellent working abilities and not only stay at home. This has a positive impact on gender equality.
Actually, the research from financial tech company Revolut says that women already make up half of its new workforce in Singapore and that 60% of its leadership team is female.
This shows that female employees who invest time in their work also have great result at work, and hybrid working will help to increase this strength.
Providing flexible work location and hot desking system
In terms of sexual harassment, hybrid working allows female employees to have flexible locations, where they can choose to work at everywhere they wanted.
Hot desking is an organizational workspace system for hybrid working in which desks are used on an ad hoc, first-come, first-served basis by different people at different times.
It is a workplace practice in which some or all employees exchange desks rather than having a permanent one, which is most common in an activity-based work environment. It allows multiple users can use the same workstation at the same time.
That means they can choose to work individually or work together with their colleagues. And if they return to the office, the hot desk also allows them to work individually.
The best setup for you to implement hybrid work
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.
ONES is one of the famous all-in-one smart office systems that 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/hybrid-workspace/ for further reference.
Contact us: hello@ones.software, or visit ONES Software official website for more information: https://ones.software/sg/.