Uncomfortable face-to-face employment disputes may soon be a thing of the past with the introduction of an online mediation service.
The Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) is a new initiative by the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) that allows employers and employees to leverage electronic communication tools to settle their disputes without having to attend physical mediation sessions.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and TADM announced the pilot on 9 July 2021.
TADM said that the ODR pilot has settled an average of about 600 cases per month in 2020, adding that the initiative was useful during the circuit breaker period, where physical mediation sessions were proven difficult due to safe management measures.
Since the start of the initiative, adjustments have been made to enhance the digital experience and facilitate structured conversations for effective dispute resolution.
In the next phases of development, TADM will enhance the system’s usability to cater to more user profiles, such as exploring the use of artificial intelligence and scenario-based conversations to guide parties in decision-making.
When fully developed in 2023, TADM says that the ODR will be a comprehensive online platform to fully handle employment disputes covering advisory, lodgement, mediation and settlement.
The ODR will also be integrated with the Employment Claims Tribunal’s (ECT) claims filing system.
An ex-office manager in an engineering firm, who wished to be known as Ms Ang, was one of the many employees who managed to resolve her dispute with her former employer via the ODR.
For her, she was pleased with the quick turnaround time and the convenience that the ODR offered – resolving her dispute without her having to make a physical visit to TADM.
“Having an online mediation is definitely more convenient. It saves me the trouble of having to physically be there [at TADM],” she said.
However, a senior executive in the banking sector, who wanted to be known as Ms Lim, had her reservations about online mediations.
As someone who had once filed a case of wrongful dismissal, she said that a physical mediation was preferred as she would have wanted real-time responses from her former employer.
“It would also have given me and any mediator the opportunity to see the reactions of my then-employer, and I could immediately verify if they had changed their story as well,” she said.
The Ministry of Manpower also released its Employment Standards Report 2020 on 9 July 2021.
The report stated that the overall incidence of salary claims had fallen from 2.68 (per 1,000 employees) in 2019 to 2.15 in 2020.
Among local employees, the incidence of salary claims increased to 1.61 per 1,000 local employees in 2020, as compared to 1.53 per 1,000 in 2019.
Such incidences were higher in industries such as accommodation and food services activities, infocomms, and construction.
Together with the Employment Claims Tribunals (ECT), TADM recovered some $15 million owed to employees – with full salary recovery for more than 9 in 10 employees.
TADM also assessed and substantiated some 26 per cent of wrongful dismissal claims. Many of such claims had arisen from disputes over work performance, poor communication between the employer and employee, or business restructuring due to poor performance in the economy.
According to TADM, about 8 in 10 salary claims and 7 in 10 wrongful dismissal claims were concluded within two months
