First, I wish to welcome everyone to NTUC WDS’s seminar on Time Out for a Great Work life. I am happy to see that, other than our union leaders, there are also many company representatives from all sectors of the economy attending this seminar. This is a strong show of support for our efforts to promote work life integration at the workplace, something which I am sure many companies have now come to realise is a comparative advantage, if they want to recruit and retain the best talents in our workforce.
NTUC WDS has organised this seminar as part of our 3R strategy, that is, Recruit, Re-adjust and Retain. Under the first strategy, Recruit, we assist as many women as possible to return to work under our Back to Work programme. Since the Back to Work Programme started in 2007, we have assisted about 7,000 women to return to work. Under the second strategy Re-adjust, we help to better prepare these women for work as many have been stay at home mums for years and need to be reskilled and also mentally prepared for new demands at the workplace. Under the third strategy, Retain, our focus is on how to help women who are already working to continue to remain in the workforce.
This third strategy, that is Retain, is a very important one. Our biggest challenge today is that women enter the workforce in large numbers in their twenties but start falling out in their thirties when they start having children, and most never return to the workforce. So, if we want to boost our overall employment rate, we cannot focus on getting women back to work alone after they have dropped out, but we must help to prevent them from dropping out in the first place. Otherwise, we will forever be chasing our own tail, because even as we step up efforts to get more women back to work, many more are also leaving the workforce thus neutralizing all our efforts.
We are a small country with limited resources. Hence, we have made huge investments in the education and skills acquisition of our people, including our women and it is a great pity if these investments were to go to waste because we are unable or unwilling to fully tap our women’s potential. At the same time, women too have their aspirations and goals and our society will be much poorer if our women feel that existing obstacles or rigidities in the workplace or society prevent them from living a full and meaningful life.
We are now in the midst of a major debate on how to boost our productivity by two to three per cent a year. We agree that we need to shift to a productivity led growth instead of relying on labour inputs alone. But recalibrating our foreign worker growth alone is not sufficient to achieve productivity growth. We need to look at ways to make better use of our existing workforce. Companies need to create environments that will help to nurture and develop a highly engaged and motivated workforce that can deliver high quality and productive work.
We cannot underestimate the damage and loss in productivity arising from a disengaged and demotivated workforce. Employees who suffer from stress, burnout and frustration because they are not able to cope well with their multiple roles cannot be highly engaged and productive employees. Many surveys have shown that it is not just salary that is the determining factor whether an employee stays or leaves a company. An equally important factor is whether they able live balanced lives, especially when they have to fulfill work demands at the expense of all other needs and demands in their lives.
Live@Work – New Work life Integration Programme
Recognising the importance of work life integration, I am pleased to announce that NTUC WDS will be launching a new work life initiative called Live@Work
Live@Work is a one-hour talk programme which aims to help employees achieve a better work life. The talk addresses working women’s concerns and how they can set priorities for the different demands that they face at work and in the home. They can also pick up tips on how to better balance their multiple roles as a wife, mother and employee, and manage their family time, childcare and finances effectively.
The talk also addresses the men and their concerns on how they can further support their spouses and families with their spouses at work. This programme is supported by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and we are partnering Fei Yue Community Services to conduct the talks. The talk is provided free and we hope to reach out to at least fifty companies this year.
Two companies that have taken part in this programme are ST Microelectronics and Coca Cola. I am glad that they have found the programme useful. As Ms Geraldine Chay, a Manager of STMicroelectronics, said “The Live@Work talk was a timely reminder for our employees that work commitment, though important, should not be at the expense of our families. We need to learn how to strike a balance between work and family life. This talk provides some good suggestions and interesting husband-wife communication techniques.”
Other than this Live@Work programme that we are launching today, we also have other programmes like the Little Ones@Work and our Flexi Works scheme which are ongoing and which are part of more holistic efforts to promote work life integration. We have one basic objective in all these programmes. We aim to raise awareness of the importance of work life integration and to support companies’ efforts to provide their workers with more balanced lives, as we recognize that there is a heavy price to pay if we continue to ignore this, and the cost is not only economic. Increasingly, we now see more people suffering from stress and other psychological disorders because of the increased complexities of our daily living and where work environments have become highly competitive.
If we can help people to live better and more fulfilling lives by just tweaking some policies and putting in place some programmes, then why not. Lets’ make this our mission so that we have a highly motivated, engaged and productive workforce that is also happy satisfied and feel highly fulfilled.
Thank you.
