White Paper on Singapore Women’s Development: Gan Siow Huang on flexible work arrangements

As safe management measures gradually ease, there is the temptation to revert to pre-pandemic ways of working, said Minister of State for Manpower Gan Siow Huang. The White Paper has laid out a plan to strengthen and sustain flexible work arrangements, she said in Parliament on Tuesday (Apr 5). A new set of tripartite guidelines on flexible work arrangements will be ready by 2024, prescribing fair and proper practices that employers should adopt. She said it is important to take a calibrated and "enabling" approach to ensure that employers can manage and employees understand their roles in sustainable business operations. She stressed the need to build confidence and capacity instead of seeking legislation for every workplace issue that arises. More than 10,000 companies have already adopted the Tripartite Standard on Flexible Work Arrangements, covering more than one in four employees. As an intermediate milestone, the Ministry of Manpower and its tripartite partners aim to increase the adoption of this voluntary tripartite standard by companies, covering 27 per cent of employees today to 40 per cent at the end of this year.