With four young children, Mohamed Sophian Rafai needs to do all he can to help his wife, Siti Zarina Jamil at home, especially since she also works. Thankfully, his company, CGG Services (Singapore) Pte Ltd, has been instrumental in helping him achieve work-life balance.
Extra Leave for Family
The company gives their staff an additional three days of family care leave on top of the six days of child care leave given by the government to employees with children who are Singaporean.
“Having kids who are still very young and require a lot of attention can be quite challenging for any working parent. While the six days of childcare leave provided by the government may be adequate at times, having an additional three days allows me to play my part as a father by giving me the additional opportunity to care for my children,” said the Resource Coordinator, Resource Team Asia Pacific at CGG Services (Singapore) Pte Ltd.
Last year, those extra days came in handy when his wife gave birth by Caesarian operation to their fourth child and was very weak post-delivery. By then, he had used up his government allotted child care leave to attend parent-teacher meetings and vaccination appointments, and look after his children when they were sick.
“I was very glad to have the additional family care leave on top of my paternity leave to help care for her and my children”, said Mr Sophian.
For its efforts, CGG Services (Singapore) Pte Ltd clinched an award under the ‘Best Companies for Dads’ category.
Care for the Worker
His wife, Madam Siti, found just as much support at work when she had their fourth child in October 2013.
“At that time, it was a fairly stressful period for me as I was also looking after my other children aged six, four and two. We finally got a helper in January 2014 to look after the children before I went back to work in February 2014,” she said.
Three weeks before the Administrative Executive at CapitaMalls Asia Limited returned to the office, she called her immediate supervisor to get up to speed with her expectations when she returned to work.
Throughout the conversation, instead of talking to her about work, her supervisor, Ms Tan Pei Ching, was more concerned about her well-being.
“I am very grateful to her for wanting to ensure that I will have peace of mind once I go back to work. Even after I went back to work, she made sure she engaged me regularly to ensure that all was well and I was settled down well,” said Madam Siti.
Ms Tan received the ‘Most Supportive Supervisor’ award.
Original article written by Naseema Banu Maideen, and can be found in NTUC This Week (27 July 2014)
