We urge Business Leaders and their HR teams in Singapore to provide the necessary facilities and direct their employees to work from home (WFH), wherever possible, in compliance with the latest government directive.
The default for all employees should be WFH. Employees should be allowed to be on-site for valid reasons only, such as attending in-person meetings critical to their duties, accessing vital onsite infrastructure for technical support and physical files, attending to work exigencies. In such cases, the following workplace safe distancing measures should be implemented:
- Reduced density for each floor and work area by limiting seats and ensuring safe distancing of at least 1 metre between work stations
- Split or shift teams;
- Staggered working hours;
- Safe distancing of at least one metre between individuals in common spaces (e.g. lifts, canteens, pantries)
- Temperature checks to be recorded and reminders for employees to adopt enhanced personal hygiene measures such as regular handwashing.
More info can be found in MOM’s advisory on safe distancing measures at the workplace: www.mom.gov.sg/safe-distancing
Please also consider other precautionary measures for your organisation including:
- Postponing or cancelling all non-critical group activities.
- Nudging customers towards on-line services or appointment instead of walk-ins.
- Communicating safe distancing measures to all workers and affected individuals; and
- Not allowing employees under any movement control measures (e.g. Stay Home Notice) to enter the workplace
We appreciate that there are many operational issues that each organisation needs to resolve to comply with the latest directive that workers must work from home as far as possible. Nonetheless, it is encouraging that many organisations have already succeeded in overcoming these issues to achieve over 75-80% of total staff strength working from home. We encourage you to reach out to your peers in the HR Community to learn and share good practices and resources and stay abreast of the changing situation. Let’s support each other so that we can best serve our organisations at this time of need.
Mayank Parekh
CEO
Institute For Human Resource Professionals