NTUC Club may well be one of the frontrunners in the re-employment race; it was offering re-employment to its employees and hiring mature workers long before the Retirement and Re-employment Act was enacted this year.
At reporting time, close to 30 per cent of its 611 employees were aged 50 and above, just over 8 per cent were past the age of 62 and about 4.5 per cent were over 65.
NTUC Club offers a lively working environment that keeps employees like 65-year-old Narayasamy Mohan, a Customer Relations Officer for the iHelp centre at Downtown East, “quite happy” to keep working past the retirement age.
“It is very important for people like us to work in this kind of environment where you deal with people and the place is lively. Because if we come to a place where everything is very quiet, I think we will ‘go down’ (get older) faster,” says Mr Mohan, whose job entails attending to membership-related enquiries from walk-in customers.
After stopping work to take care of personal matters, he decided to return to the workforce at the age of 60 because he wanted to keep active and saw work as a means of staying fit. He joined NTUC Club in 2008 upon the recommendation of his neighbour.
According to NTUC Club Human Resources Director Franz Teo, age does not matter to the company when it comes to re-employing and hiring, as long as the worker has the physical and mental fitness to do the job and brings the appropriate experience.
Generally, re-employment contracts are offered to all employees who turn 62 based on their existing salary and benefits, unless the employee is transferred to a new job. The pay is adjusted accordingly if the job is downsized or upsized in terms of scope and duties.
Mr Franz Teo added that most of the staff who are offered re-employment contracts accept them, and that NTUC Club hires a large number of mature or older workers because of the diversity of its business.
Apart from overseeing Downtown East, it also manages resorts, clubs, jackpot facilities and Labour Movement community engagement clubs like nEbO and U Live, and organises events as well.
