How employers should prepare for mandate on flexible work arrangements

From December 1st this year, employers in Singapore will be required to consider formal requests for flexible work arrangements from their employees.

It comes after the government accepted the recommendations made by the Tripartite Workgroup on the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement (FWA) Requests.

The guidelines set out how employees should request FWAs and how employers should assess such requests.

"This would help to maintain harmonious employment relations as both employees and employers can discuss practical and sustainable work arrangements that can meet the needs of both parties,” Edwin Ng, co-chair of the Tripartite Workgroup said in a statement earlier this year.

So how should employers prepare for these new guidelines?

Flexible work arrangements

The guidelines set up a framework for how employees can make a FWA request, Jonathan Yuen, head of commercial litigation and employment at Rajah & Tann Asia, told HRD Asia.

However, he highlighted that employers are not required to accept a FWA request.

“There is no obligation to do so,” Yuen said. “In fact, the government has said quite plainly that employers do have the ability to reject such requests.”

But there are certain grounds for rejection, he pointed out. These include factors such as:

• cost – where implementing the request could increase costs which would unreasonably burden the employer
• whether a flexible work arrangement will be detrimental to the productivity and output of the team
• whether it is not feasible or practical.

And there are some unreasonable grounds for rejecting a request as well, Yuen added.

“You can't tell the employee, ‘We've always done it this way, therefore, we won't consider it’,” he said. “The issue will always be about the scope and the extent of the request.

“What this framework will compel employers and employees to do is to fundamentally reassess the very nature of the work of that employee, to reasonably say which part of the work can be done flexibly and which part must be done traditionally ie in the office with a group of people in a team meeting.”

What employers can do

Yuen highlighted the three key types of flexibility in the workplace – in terms of location, the timing of the work and the workload. With seven months until the new guidelines came into effect, he advised employers to be prepared.

“My advice to employers and companies is to start examining your different categories of workers and to start thinking about how they can apply these flexi-conditions to the current work scope,” he said.

“They should start identifying which areas are open to flexible work arrangement requests, and how so, and which areas can't be. And to start establishing guidelines, protocols and processes because come first of December, they’re going to start receiving requests.”  

Another key tip Yuen shared was for employers to make sure that whatever frameworks they have in place are implementable and consistent.

“Because what workers get angry with the most is if they sense that the frameworks have been applied in an unfair or inconsistent or discriminatory manner,” he said.

Yuen also emphasised the importance of context when it comes to FWA requests.

“With or without these guidelines, if the employer is unreasonable, then the employee will learn to vote with their feet, to work somewhere else where the conditions are better,” he said. “Likewise, if an employer has to deal with incessant requests for ridiculous flexible arrangements, then the employer will say, ‘Is this the type of worker I want my team?’ So a lot of it has to deal with context; with the actual nature of the work itself.”

Enforcement of flexible work rules

Yuen said it appears that the Ministry of Manpower and the Tripartite partners are taking a light touch approach to the enforcement of these new guidelines.

“What I mean by this is that if the employee complains to the government that the employer has unreasonably denied requests, the Ministry of Manpower is not going to arrest people or fine them,” he said. “What will happen is that the employers will be invited to attend courses that talk about educating them on the benefits of flexible work arrangements.”

Another issue that could arise is in the short term is that Singapore could see an increase in complaints against employers, as employers and employees test the limits of the guidelines, Yuen said.

“As the workers naturally push for additional flexibilities and employers push back, I think it will be interesting to see how the Ministry of Manpower takes certain positions,” he said.