00:00An employee applying for her company's talent development scheme is asked in an interview
00:04for the scheme if she plans to start a family and she replies yes she's keen to do so soon.
00:11She's then not enrolled in the scheme and her employer says this is because the interview
00:15panel felt that she would not be suitable for the high demands of the scheme due to her family plans.
00:30God people say workplace discrimination is a thing of the past and while statistics show
00:39that it has been on a decline, the bigger question is what is workplace discrimination
00:44and why should it matter to you? This is God People Say, a talk show where we provide
00:49a space for open conversations about topics often left unspoken. I'm your host Munah Bagharib and
00:55today we are talking about a very important topic which is workplace fairness. Now Ministry
01:01of Manpower is introducing the workplace fairness legislation to build fair workplaces in Singapore
01:08and I've got four guests with me who will be talking about workplace fairness and the potential
01:13benefits of this legislation. Alright so Annabel, let's start with you. So what is workplace
01:19fairness legislation? So the workplace fairness legislation or WFL in short seeks to protect
01:25job seekers and employees from the more common forms of workplace discrimination. So actually
01:32this is not the first time that we are doing this. We have been on a journey for many years
01:36with our tripartite partners and we have been building this fair workplace culture and norm.
01:42In particular, we want to preserve and improve on the existing fair and harmonious workplace
01:48norm that we have in Singapore. So then why is MOM deciding to introduce WFL? So we want to
01:55provide legal backing to our existing framework and in particular we think that it is very important
02:02for us to focus on education so that we don't just have a law but we focus on the norms and
02:08the mindset changes that we want. And there are three points that I want to share. So first is
02:13you know we've talked a lot about fair merit-based workplaces and that's something we want to
02:18reinforce. The second thing is actually in terms of providing more avenues for recourse and redress
02:23and the last point I spoke about workplace harmony. So what we want to do with the law is to
02:28actually provide a safe constructive space for the employers and employees to come together to
02:33discuss agreements. So how is workplace discrimination defined under this legislation?
02:40So workplace discrimination is defined as any adverse employment decision based on any
02:46protected characteristic. So when we say adverse employment decision, what we mean is things like
02:51you're not being hired, not being sent for training, not being sent for promotion or even dismissed.
02:56We realise that discrimination at its root is a mindset issue. Actually the protected
03:02characteristics under the workplace fairness legislation cover about 95% of all the complaints
03:08on workplace discrimination that TAFAP and MOM have received. So we are very familiar with such
03:13cases and would be quite confident in handling such cases. Also the protected characteristics
03:19actually support Singapore's wider social and economic objectives. So as we all know Singapore
03:25is an ageing population. So what that means is that there could be individuals that would like
03:29to work longer into old age and so protecting discrimination against age would be something
03:36that would support the employment of senior workers. At the same time with an ageing population
03:42I think more of us will then have to then balance and manage caregiving responsibilities even as we
03:48continue to work. So covering caregiving responsibilities under the legislation
03:53would also support the caregivers that are in our workforce today. Then of course protecting
03:58against discrimination against sex as well as pregnancy status actually supports women's
04:04participation in the labor force especially in a very tight labor market that we face today
04:08and it also supports women to thrive in their careers. Okay so there is a lot of support being
04:14included in this. I do want to hear from Derek from an HR perspective. How will this legislation
04:21benefit businesses and employers? I think top of the mind of almost every HR professional
04:27would be about how to engage the workforce more productively, how to able to better attract
04:32talents, how to improve employer branding and I think most importantly how to retain and able to
04:39bring the employees for a longer haul. So what we believe is that this workplace fairness legislation
04:45is actually having the potential to be able to gel these factors together to send a very clear
04:50message to current employees and would-be employees that this is an organization that
04:55stands firm on its ability to capture and retain the best talents. And Mr Ang just to jump in
05:02from an employer's perspective how do you think this legislation will be beneficial? I think if
05:07you look at the employer's perspective what employers want to look at is hiring the best
05:12people and how do they assess that is through certain indicators and right now what we are
05:20saying is that certain proxy indicators should not be used and therefore it will level up the ability
05:27of the employers to be more specific about what exactly they are really hiring for and when you
05:33level up the employers through the whole process you would create better companies, you will create
05:39people where the employers and employees are actually talking and overall a more harmonious
05:44workplace. Now given all of that being a legislation I think there will be adaptations that companies
05:50have to make and here's where I think as associations will come in to help provide that
05:56level up in terms of education and really mindset shift and how do you translate that into real
06:01action. So you spoke about settling disputes right so how can employers and employees actually
06:09settle workplace discrimination disputes? So under the workplace fairness legislation employers will
06:15be required to put in place an internal grievance handling process and there are three points I would
06:20like to highlight here. The first is that with a grievance handling channel employers need to
06:25communicate that and let employees know how to use it because no point having a channel that no
06:30one knows about or knows how to use. Then secondly when a grievance does come up through that channel
06:36employers are required to address the issue look into the grievance and also close the loop with
06:41the employee who reported the issue and thirdly I think which is very important in building trust
06:46and a safe space is that in terms of maintaining confidentiality of the report that was given but
06:52if this fails and or if the company somehow did not put in this channel that employees can use
06:58then they can come to TAFAP and in that case mediation will be a key approach to how we will
07:05resolve the dispute. Mediation is quite important process it provides a platform for both parties to
07:11share their views and also mutually agree on what are the outcomes that they can agree to so as to
07:19move the issue forward. There'll be a minority hopefully a very small minority that might be
07:25errant and always blatantly flout the rules and in those cases the Ministry of Manpower also
07:31take actions and impose penalties on them depending on the severity of the breach.
07:36And with Derek HR plays a really important role in handling grievances right so maybe you can
07:43share more about that too? I think much like how Faith has pointed out about communicating about
07:48a grievance channel what I believe would be very functional for organisation would be for the HR
07:55department to work closely with the management team. Ideally one of the method can be they setting
08:00up a joint committee to be able to overview the entire workplace fairness legislation
08:06implementation. So I think on top of communication what is crucial is also to be able to hold a
08:12workshop for the frontline managers so that these frontline managers are able to of course
08:18understand the legislation at the same time pick up any potential issues that's happening on the
08:22ground and also be able to help the employees to seek redress. So as a business owner operating in
08:29Singapore one of the benefits is that the Singapore government does actually communicate its policies
08:34way in advance so that companies are able to put in place policies preparations and on top of that
08:41there's also a lot of toolkits and resources available. So now we understand how workplace
08:47discrimination disputes can be resolved but what if someone from the outside applies for a job and
08:53faces discrimination? Sometimes we see unconscious bias creeping into the job advertisements that are
08:59put out and so we sometimes see job advertisements that say I need the person to be of a certain age
09:06of a certain sex to be able to do the job and in most cases this is not true right. The second way
09:12in which a job seeker may experience workplace discrimination could be at the job screening or
09:18the job interview phase and this happens sometimes when for example the employer or HR asks for a
09:25person's age right and then says things like oh you know for this role as a facilitator for young
09:32children's education programs you need people who are young and energetic right and this may
09:39then come across as the remark that that does touch on age which is a protected characteristic
09:45as well as demonstrates that hey something was said that resulted in me maybe not getting the
09:50job then TAFAC would be the place to go. In addition to that when it comes to the selection
09:56and interview phase what we would also recommend HR professionals to adopt is the blind recruitment
10:02method such that before sending out the resume to the hiring manager what the HR manager could
10:09actually have been doing would be to remove away the personal information such as the name, the
10:14name itself could be telling of the gender, the age can remove away marital status and maybe even
10:21removing the photo so this allows the hiring manager to be able to also use a more fair and
10:27inclusive hiring decision when it comes to judging the candidate based on their track record based
10:34on their experience. And to Faith how do you think employers can hire fairly? I think the first step
10:41is to actually be quite familiar with what is required under the tripartite guidelines as well
10:47as the legislation and at TAFAC I think we have quite a lot of resources either templates for how
10:52to draft the job advertisement, interview question templates as well which employees can tap on in
10:59terms of conducting interviews that really tease out what are the qualities, skills, knowledge,
11:05experience of the candidate those are the focus of what a fair hiring exercise should be. If I may add
11:12I think there's a whole bunch of training and the practice and scenarios that we have to go through
11:19because if you hear just from these scenarios you know this is something that many people can
11:24easily slip into and I think that training is critical. Thank you so much for being on this
11:31episode of Got People Say and thanks for sharing great insights on the upcoming workplace fairness
11:36legislation. I hope you've learned more about the legislation and how you can be protected from
11:41workplace discrimination and if you are an employer how to create a more harmonious workplace.
11:47Till then I'm Una and this is Got People Say, see you in the next episode!
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