MANICMUMMY
Imagine working three days a week, so you can devote the other two working days to volunteering with troubled teens or at-risk kids. Or telecommuting once a week, so you can snatch some precious moments with your children, like having lunch together or being there when they get off the school bus.
How about starting your day officially at 7am every day, then knocking off at 3pm to beat rush-hour traffic and make it in time to pick your elderly parent up from physiotherapy?
With a call for flexi-work legislation in the news recently - part of the People's Action Party's Women's Wing pro-family position paper to the Manpower Ministry, and debated by workers and employers - it helps to consider who would benefit from such laws. And the short answer is: everybody.
The media reported last week that the Women's Wing was calling for legislation under which employees with children under the age of 12 can request for arrangements outside of the normal nine-to-five work-in-office hours.
That being said, the Women @ Work position paper - posted on the Women's Wing website - recommends "making flexi-work readily available to men and women", without stipulating that they be parents of young children.
With the Singapore National Employers Federation saying in a statement that legislating a right for employees to flexi-work to take care of their children will create "unnecessary friction and stress...among employees", one wonders if it might not be better to make it a right for every worker: single, married, childless or otherwise.
After all, with most sorts of affirmative action, it is true that resentment might breed and the system might become skewed. Why not make it fair and open to everybody?
Such laws would also benefit workers who are caregivers of elderly parents or disabled family members. And it would be a boon to those who might otherwise have to take no-pay leave or burn the candle at both ends to take part-time education courses.
And in an age of Gen Z-ers, who crave self-actualisation and prize meaningful personal pursuits over fat pay cheques, a fluid work culture would translate into greater happiness and, possibly, higher productivity.
Employers will - inevitably and understandably - recoil in horror. Yet, consider the unquantifiable advantages of a flexi workforce. Companies would be able to draw from a larger pool of workers: not just working mothers, but also young talents and top foreign brains who might stay away if the work culture is perceived as too rigid and stifling.
Those who receive their employers' blessing to work flexibly might be more loyal, reducing staff turnover and the need to retrain.
Industries and businesses with regular peak and lull periods can also leverage on flexi-work to manage payroll more efficiently. Online retail giant Amazon, for instance, beefs up its contract workforce to cope during high-volume order periods such as Christmas.
With flexi-work, employees can opt to work only during the peak periods from the very start.
Britain, struggling with a stagnant economy and recently downgraded credit rating, has already implemented flexi-work laws, under which employees can write in to their employer to apply for flexi- work, provided they explain how they want to work flexibly and how to deal with issues which may arise that affect the business.
Employers can reject a request for one of only seven reasons - including extra cost, and any effect on quality and performance - and must give leeway for an employee to appeal.
Critics of this "right to ask" law have pointed out that it seems toothless as companies have the right to refuse. However, for an issue which requires a gradual and sometimes painful mindset shift, and with employers groaning under what they call a burden of more red tape and higher costs, it is a step in the right direction.
"Ask, and ye shall receive" is a saying that applies to the workplace, too. Too many employees are afraid of asking for flexi- work, for fear of being turned down straight away and labelled as troublemakers.
Instead, they suffer in silence, until the stress of juggling their work and family responsibilities becomes too great, and they throw in their resignation letter.
Removing that mental barrier is a valuable first step towards transforming the work landscape for the better.
Singapore lawmakers, stakeholders and civil-society groups must work together to tailor a method that is particular and suitable for the nation. And, with employers and employees engaging in a legally-sanctioned dialogue, creative solutions can often be found where flexi-work might at first seem impossible.
As a flexi-working mother, I urge everyone - male or female, parent or no - to fight for the right to initiate this dialogue.
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