Following the release of the Tripartite Guidelines on the Re-employment of Older Employees (Tripartite Guidelines) in March 2010, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) unveiled the publication, “Re-employment Guide, An Insight on the Practices and Implementation”, today at the “Working Beyond 62: A Re-employment Symposium” organised for union leaders and management representatives.
The half-day symposium serves to raise greater awareness and encourage active take up of re-employment practices among participants way before the re-employment legislation kicks in in 2012. Participants heard from guest speakers their experiences and views on facts, fallacies and strategies; performance management; and re-employment preparation for older employees. They also viewed programme exhibits like the Workforce Skills Qualifications courses offered by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency and counseling programmes offered by the Centre For Seniors.
To help companies and employees better prepare for the re-employment journey, NTUC’s Industrial Relations Department has published the guide, which serves as a useful reference for all parties to better facilitate the re-employment process and work towards win-win re-employment negotiations. The guide also addresses common concerns and issues relating to re-employment, which unionised companies’ management have feedback to unions and NTUC Industrial Relations Officers while working with them on re-employment. These concerns and issues include:
i) A lack of practical knowledge for companies who are keen but unsure of how to implement a robust performance management and career transition system, and a Human Resource system that complies with good re-employment practices advocated by the Tripartite Guidelines.
ii) Need for more simplified resources to help older employees understand their re-employment options and be open to mindset changes after being re-employed.
How The Guide Benefits Employees
The guide helps employees understand the Tripartite Guidelines from a layman’s perspective. Apart from providing responses to commonly asked questions by employees, there is also a retirement checklist and illustrations to guide them through the re-employment preparation and process.
For example, through real-life case studies, the guide explains to employees why some companies reduce wages upon re-employment so that employees are more willing to accept reasonable wage cuts. It also helps companies and employees understand what it means to be “medically fit” enough to continue employment.
How The Guide Benefits Management and Union Leaders
To help companies implement the Tripartite Guidelines, the comprehensive guide shares tips and best practices by companies in Singapore; suggests good re-employment processes for companies to adopt; and even provides a sample re-employment policy for reference. There is also a resource page to direct companies and employees to more help and assistance.
Referring to the guide, NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Heng Chee How, who leads the NTUC Re-employment Group, said, “The NTUC re-employment guide complements the Tripartite Guidelines on the Re-employment of Older Employees released in March this year. The guide has many practical examples, and makes using, adopting and implementing the Tripartite Guidelines easier. I encourage all companies to use the guide so as to be re-employment-ready well before the law takes effect in 2012.”
Since NTUC launched its re-employment efforts for older workers in 2006, 890 companies have committed to re-employ 9,087 older workers in the unionised sector as of 31 March 2010. Additionally, NTUC has a four-tier re-employment framework, which categorises the level of commitment that companies have towards re-employment, with Level 4 being the highest level. Within this framework, about 51% of 890 companies are currently at Level 1 and 2. Please refer to Annex A for more details on NTUC’s re-employment framework.
Together with the launch of the guide and other upcoming outreach plans, NTUC hopes that these companies will move up the re-employment framework quickly so that they will be well-prepared before the re-employment law is enforced.
ANNEX A
NTUC’s Re-employment Framework
NTUC has developed a four-tier framework to track the commitment level of unionised companies to re-employment initiatives:
Level 1 refers to companies that are already re-employing older workers, but on an ad-hoc basis.
Level 2 refers to companies that are already re-employing older workers and have a re-employment clause in their Collective Agreement or Memorandum of Understanding with the unions.
Level 3 refers to companies that have a formalised HR policy on re-employment.
Level 4 refers to companies that are pro-actively seeking out new initiatives to ensure that their re-employment efforts are sustainable and scalable.
