WORKING FROM HOME, COMPRESSED WORK WEEK
Under the guidelines, employees will be empowered to ask for flexibility through formal requests.
“So these guidelines will really encourage employers to see employees as fathers, as mothers, as sons and also as daughters,” said Dr Xander Ong, CEO at Centre for Fathering.
“Once we’re able to encourage everyone to see our colleagues also as such, we’ll be able to really build Singapore to be one that is made for families.”
One arrangement familiar to many people is teleworking, where people can work from the office a few days a week. In Singapore, this is commonly known as “work from home”.
This arrangement has gained prominence around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A survey by job search platform Indeed in June last year, which polled 607 employers and 1,223 employees, revealed that nearly half of employers in Singapore allow for some form of hybrid arrangement.
But FWAs can also include a compressed work week, which some countries have embraced. Under this, the standard 40 hour five-day work week can be compressed into four days.
Belgium became the first European country to legislate this for workers who want to do so in 2022. All government employees in the United Arab Emirates can also legally choose to take on such an arrangement from July 2023.
There are also countries allowing flexible working hours, such as Finland, which first passed the Working Hours Act in 1996, giving staff the right to start and finish three hours earlier or later than their usual time.