No big rise in unfair employment practices in recession year
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No big rise in unfair employment practices in recession year, says Halimah Yacob
By S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia
Posted: 20 January 2010 1747 hrs
SINGAPORE: Singapore's employment market did not see an exponential rise in complaints about unfair employment practices in 2009, even though the country experienced a recession last year.
The Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP) also saw a significant drop in the number of discriminatory job advertisements.
The message about fair employment practices is catching on since the TAFEP was set up in 2006. The team members said they have visited nearly 300 companies to spread the message.
Bob Tan, co-chair, Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices and vice president, Singapore National Employers Federation said: "We are committed to helping our companies to be seen as good employers, helping them with practices that will enable them to attract the best talent.
"On the whole, employers are very supportive. The fact that we have got 1200 companies who have signed the employers pledge is a good indication of support"
Halimah Yacob, co-chair, Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices and deputy-secretary general, NTUC said: "We helped to train the HR managers, some 7,000 of them, over two years.
"We also visit the companies, we talk to them. These are efforts which have created a much more conducive environment for companies to practise fair and responsible employment practices."
Surveys showed that seven in 10 employers have adopted fair and merit-based employment practices. There has also been a significant drop in the number of discriminatory job advertisements from 19.7 per cent in 2006 to just one per cent in 2009.
The TAFEP feels it is not just the employers who have to be educated about fair employment practices. Co-workers also have to be brought on board. So, one of the initiatives for 2010 is to conduct awareness programmes for co-workers in companies.
The public must also not be left out in the awareness programmes, said Ms Halimah.
"When we talk about the employment of older workers, sometimes it is the customers. They say I don't want to be served by an older worker because they are slow, maybe don't understand me well enough so that level of tolerance and acceptance is also important and we have been targeting employers, what about the customers," Ms Halimah said.
Evolving mechanisms for effective grievance handling are also important.
Ms Halimah said: "Sometimes I get complaints about women who take maternity leave not from employers but co-workers. They say, you know, I have to do the job, so we need to target co-workers and create a holistic employment and target everyone."
The TAFEP has also identified the need to change mindsets of employers about hiring mature workers, especially with an ageing population in Singapore.
Mr Tan said: "The demographic shows that businesses must engage older workers and I think by creating the awareness amongst the line managers and helping them integrate older workers into their workforce is very important one.
"TAFEP is going to conduct research on managing workers in the workplace. This will help to share best practices across the board. This will go a long way in engaging older workers."
And so, TAFEP plans to develop new research and training for managing mature workers.
Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...031935/1/.html -
I have posted this here in Speakers' Corner a couple of days back but mod has moved it to Jobs and Employment forum
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some mods is not worry about the posting but rather the person who post it.
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Very strange, the tripartite loves to take old workers as mature workers, ...i think that is very wrong, old do not imply mature ya. See some old men enjoying dinner with PRC gals while leaving their old wifeys at home worrying and lonely...you call that mature????