SINGAPORE: From June to August, Heemank Verma, a senior application consultant, has a long weekend every week. Mr Verma, who works in the Singapore branch of fintech startup Mambu, spends his Fridays hiking one of Singapore’s nature trails and learning Mandarin.
Mambu, a Berlin-based business, has a four-day work week policy in place for its locations around the world over the summer. During the European summer months of June to August, the roughly 40 Singapore staff get an extra day off per week. Mr Verma also receives 25 days of annual leave. He said it’s a tremendous contrast from his previous job, which he had at a more traditional multinational corporation in Singapore. In Singapore, companies often provide 14 to 21 days of annual leave, as well as a variety of other leave options such as compassionate leave, childcare leave, and marriage leave. After a chaotic epidemic year, workers welcome mental health days off.
“To be honest, the three months are always something we look forward to. Mr Verma stated, “Even when we are working in January or February, we are excited.” “Our organization does not tolerate micromanagement; employees accept responsibility for their work. That, I believe, is the foundation of the four-day work week.” People will be inspired to “work smarter, and be more productive and effective” during the days they are at work, according to Mambu. “At Mambu, we prefer to focus on productivity, production, and outcomes rather than the amount of time spent working,” said Myles Bertrand, the company’s APAC managing director.
It’s one of a growing number of companies in Singapore that have embraced more flexible leave and time-off policies in recent years, following a Silicon Valley trend.
POLICY OF UNLIMITED VACATION
Netflix pioneered the “No Vacation Policy” in 2003, and other Internet businesses have since followed suit. Rather than counting how many vacation days employees are entitled to, employers leave it up to them to decide. Deloitte is one company in Singapore that has adopted this strategy. Instead than having distinct leave categories, the professional services firm has a “flexi-leave” policy that includes family leave, compassionate leave, marriage leave, volunteer leave, and public holidays. Employees, in effect, choose how much vacation they take each year under the policy, which was implemented in July 2019. Mr Melvin Wong, a senior account manager at Deloitte Singapore, said he took 18 days of vacation in the previous fiscal year, somewhat less than the 20 days he usually takes. “Pre-pandemic, I would plan for a 10- to 12-day annual family vacation, with the remaining eight to ten days spread out throughout the year for birthdays, local staycations, and running races,” he said. Commentary: I wished I could be a better father, but paternity leave wouldn’t have helped. He noted that at the outset of each financial year, he works with his superiors to identify the schedule of events, which allows him to arrange his leave while ensuring that the days off do not conflict with any big client activity. He altered his working hours during the COVID-19 pandemic to help his family get through the bursts of home-base learning and to mentally and physically rejuvenate, he added. Deloitte’s flexi-leave policy is part of a larger work-life integration initiative that also includes flexi-work, which allows employees to customize their work schedules. When circumstances allow, they can work from home and alter their job start and end times to fit their family or personal demands, according to Deloitte Singapore talent leader Ms Ong Siok Peng. THERE HAS BEEN A MASSIVE MINDSET CHANGE” “It took some time for our personnel to adjust to the new situation… It also necessitates a significant shift in mindset among team leaders: “We educated them on the details of the new policy and have consistently communicated that the focus should be on whether KPIs (key performance indicators) are met, as well as the quality and timeliness of work, rather than the where and how,” Ms Ong explained. According to her, Deloitte employees normally take an average of 20 days of leave per person under the new policy. “It’s worth noting that this statistic is nearly identical to our previous leave entitlement figure. Obviously, some employees took more time off than others,” she explained. “We’ve found that our employees have been responsible with this flexibility, and we haven’t had any difficulties with it being abused.” READ: Commentary: Nobody wants to go back to the old five-day work week. An additional benefit during the COVID-19 epidemic was that no administrative labor was required to remind employees to clear leave, carry forward leave, or extend leave. “Even though we can’t all go right now,” she continued, “employees are nevertheless urged to take time off to avoid burnout.” In recent years, Ms Deanna Lim, consultant for HR & business support at recruiting firm Robert Walters Singapore, has seen several strange leave policies in job ads. Some companies, particularly in the financial services and ecommerce sectors, have granted limitless annual leave. “Others are demonstrating more support to their employees by extending prolonged maternity and adoption leave – beyond the government-mandated 16 weeks of maternity leave,” she said. “Other recent trends we’ve noticed include birthday leave, flexible time-off working arrangements, and study or examination leave for student employees.” Commentary: Nobody likes to respond to meaningless work emails after hours. Employees at Facebook Singapore, for example, earn two Choice Days in addition to 20 days of annual vacation. They can utilize the time off to volunteer, commemorate a faith-based, community, or cultural event, celebrate a birthday, or simply do something they enjoy. In 2020, the company provided special leave days to help employees cope with the COVID-19 epidemic, and this year, the Singapore office is providing three additional company-wide days off to allow employees to rest and recharge. MOVE AWAY FROM DOCUMENTED LEAVEMs IN A “PROGRESSIVE” MANNER More companies are projected to implement more flexible leave policies in the future, according to Lim. “They are able to remain competitive in their business as a result of this. We’re seeing an increasing number of companies embracing new programs and adjusting existing employee benefits to assist the establishment of family units,” she said. This, according to Dr Rashimah Rajah, a lecturer in the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School’s Department of Management & Organization, represents a “progressive step” away from documented leave. For example, she added, more companies are no longer requiring employees to submit medical certifications if they are only on sick leave for one or two days. “From a managerial and organizational standpoint, such regulations foster a higher level of trust,” Dr. Rashimah explained. “By cultivating a culture of trust and respecting others’ personal space when they are on leave, employees are more likely to collaborate and engage.” Commentary: Singaporeans are paying a price for their bedtime delay. She stated that the organization’s culture has a significant role in deciding the viability of such measures. “Having these policies can improve productivity if the culture of trust and respect has been in place for some time; however, if the culture included things like micromanagement, giving employees ‘sudden freedom’ could lead to potential abuse of the system because employees might use it as a way to vent their frustrations with the organization,” she said. “What matters is that expectations are aligned through communication, that common goals and objectives are established, and that everyone understands that while there may be one non-negotiable goal, the path to that goal might be flexible.”/n
