1 in 10 Singapore companies ready to consider employees’ requests for job sharing

This content was produced by Channel News Asia in collaboration with Milieu Insight.

SINGAPORE: Drivers working for logistics company D’trans used to be on the road for up to 12 hours a day.

That changed two years ago, when the firm began allowing their employees to do job sharing. Now, two workers share each vehicle and only work eight hours daily.

While it means the company has had to hire more people, general manager Shazuan Danial told CNA that the flexible work arrangement has improved productivity.

"The job scope can be quite demanding and they have to work long hours. So, having more days of rest will allow them to recuperate and then get back to work, well-rested … and then be able to cater to our customers' needs,” he added.

Job sharing is a kind of work arrangement that allows two or more part-time employees to share the responsibilities of a single full-time job.

While the take-up rate for job sharing has been low among Singapore companies, the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME) said that one in 10 firms are now ready to consider requests by their employees to job share.

In 2019, only 2 per cent of firms offered job sharing, said then-Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower Low Yen Ling.

The government has spoken about the need for flexible work arrangements, due to Singapore’s tight labour market and ageing workforce, with more people also taking on caregiver roles at home.

On Monday (Apr 15), new tripartite guidelines were launched, mandating that all employers must have a process in place for workers to make formal requests for flexible work arrangements from December.

JOB SHARING EASIER FOR LABOUR-INTENSIVE JOBS

ASME told CNA, however, that few companies have been willing to give their employees an option for job sharing as it is tougher to arrange for roles filled by professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs). Job sharing is more feasible for labour-intensive tasks instead.

Last year, PMETs made up 62.6 per cent of all employed residents in Singapore – a slight dip from the historic high of 63.6 per cent in 2022.

ASME president Ang Yuit said many businesses may not have designed their jobs or role structures to be split among more than one employee.

"Let's say you’re dealing with secretarial work or administration work, where if you need an eight-hour time to complete a piece of work, and you need to split it, you may then have to transfer knowledge, and that results in quite a bit of inefficiencies,” he noted.

“As you do a job share between two persons or more, you will need to have better processes to support that job-sharing workflow.”

Businesses need to have a realistic assessment of the labour market and review their job roles to better match the landscape, Mr Ang said.

He added that the process is more straightforward for jobs involving manual labour. For example, store attendants or logistics workers can split their work in shifts or among many people.

SOME FIRMS’ RETENTION RATE IMPROVED

Despite the difficulties in job sharing for PMETs, public relations firm Brand Cellar has made the work arrangement an option for its employees.

Some only work a few days a week, given their need for more time to take care of their young children or elderly parents.

These employees make up about 20 per cent of the firm’s headcount.

Brand Cellar managing director Joanne Ho said that staff retention has improved, even if they have had to provide more laptops for more staff. Due to job sharing, tasks are divided among multiple team members.

Ms Ho said the company has practised job sharing for the last 20 years. Some challenges cropped up initially, such as not getting “the right staff” or experiencing “a lot of attrition”, but that has since changed.

“We kind of make the job piecemeal, so they’re able to work from home. It’s very heartening to see that we have a lot of capable people who are working from home,” she added.

"It's very fulfilling because (this work arrangement) helps them, and by helping them, it helps us as well. A lot of them (have a) very, very good attitude, because they appreciate the job, and we appreciate that a lot as well."

Mr Shazuan from D’trans also said that job sharing has been a win for the logistics firm in the long run, even though the company’s costs initially increased by 50 per cent due to a need to recruit more drivers.

Their drivers have also not complained about being tired and are “definitely happier” since the switch to job sharing, said Mr Shazuan.

“Despite the challenges … We foresee that in the future, it will make our operations stable. So because it's stable, and we are running fine, we will get more contracts in the long term and increase our revenue,” he added.

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