Understanding Contemporary Society: The Social and Behavioural Sciences

In December 2024, the mandatory guidelines on flexible work arrangements (FWAs) by the Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) took effect. Employees can make formal requests to their employers to access greater flexibility in their work arrangements in terms of working place, time and workload, based on their diverse needs. The mandatory guidelines were introduced to respond to challenges posed by Singapore’s ageing population, a shrinking talent pool for employers, and rising rates of poor mental health among employees.

Tay, Hong Yi (2024, April 17), The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jobs/all-employers-in-singapore-must-fairlyconsider-flexi-work-requests-from-dec-1-under-new-rules
Ministry of Manpower, National Trade Unions Congress, Singapore National Employers Federation (2024, April) https://www.mom.gov.sg/-/media/mom/documents/press-releases/2024/tripartite-guidelines-on-flexible-workarrangement-requests.pdf
This assignment is focused on the Singapore government’s balancing act between maintaining Singapore’s economic competitiveness and ensuring an appropriate standard of living for its population.

You are expected to provide and use reliable supporting evidence and statistics to substantiate your arguments throughout the essay.

(a) Explain the key challenges faced by Singapore in the following areas and their implications. How would FWAs help to alleviate or mitigate the implications?

• Rapidly ageing population
• Shrinking talent pool for employers to hire from
• Rising rates of poor mental health among employees

(b) Based on your understanding of workplace culture in Singapore, what are three key issues that could limit the effectiveness of the FWA guidelines and process to provide employees with greater flexibility to meet their diverse needs? What are some proposed solutions that can help to overcome the key limitations identified?

You can refer to academic literature, other sources and/or draw inspiration from solutions adopted by other countries and tailor them to Singapore’s context to buttress your responses.

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Expert Answers on Above Questions on Singapore FWA Guidelines

Key challenges in Singapore and how flexible work arrangements help

An analysis of the Singaporean economy indicates that there exist demographic and social factors that directly affect the workforce and there are specific guidelines suggested by Tripartite Alliance for fair and progressive employment practices with respect to aging population, shrinking talent pool and rising poor mental health condition. With respect to the aging population in Singapore, the challenge is one in four Singaporeans will be aged 65 by 2030 which will result in shortage of labour, increased health care cost, and higher dependency ratio. Flexible work arrangement is significant in this respect as it allows older workers to work on part time basis, and also work from home. As a result of this, it will be possible to retain the experienced workers and there would not be any problem of labour shortages.

With respect to the shrinking talent pool, Singapore has a low fertility rate and Limited population growth. This directly affects the local workers availability, and poses challenges in the form of hiring difficulties, increased business cost and reduced competitiveness. Flexible work arrangement is helpful in this respect by attracting more workers including parents, and people with disabilities. Finally with respect to rising poor mental health, the challenges are in the form of work stress, long working hours and poor work life balance. As a result of this, there is a decline in the productivity level of employees, increased absenteeism and higher healthcare costs. Flexible work arrangement can help in improving work life balance, job satisfaction level and employee satisfaction which ultimately contributes towards higher productivity and lower turnover within employees.

Issues limiting the effectiveness of flexible work arrangement

The major issues are mainly in the form of traditional management mindset, fear of career disadvantage, and nature of certain jobs. Traditional management mindset leads to lower productivity and trust within remote workers which can be resolved by training managers in performance evaluation, and focus on output rather than physical presence. The fear of career disadvantage leads to feeling within employees that there are reduced promotion opportunities and it leads to lack of commitment. By following equal promotion opportunities, the problem can be resolved to a great extent. Finally some of the sectors like Healthcare, manufacturing and retail cannot utilise flexible work arrangements which can be resolved by offering flexible shifts and job sharing.

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