Creating opportunities for more older people & the Re-employment Act

By Salma Khalik, The Straits Times, 4 Nov 2011

The tightening of the rules on foreigners working here will make it easier for older Singaporean workers to find jobs or continue working, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, who is also in charge of ageing issues.

The Ministerial Committee on Ageing (MCA), which he chairs, is trying to prepare Singapore for a time when one in five people here will be 65 or older - and that is just 18 years away.

Beyond 2030, the proportion of older people will continue to grow.

The MCA comprises 12 political appointees, including four ministers, whose job is to jointly turn Singapore into an age-friendly nation.

One of the committee's priorities is to get as many of the elderly as possible to stay productive, because this will both keep them active and provide them with a steady income.

Said Mr Gan: 'With additional constraints on foreign manpower, I think companies will have to innovate, find new ways of doing things, raise their productivity and at the same time be creative about employing people, tap on older workers and even women who are at home.'

This could mean retaining older workers by offering shorter working hours or fewer working days. There must be flexibility, he said.

'The challenge is to create opportunities for them, so that they have a choice. They might have to accept that they may not be able to work the same way that they've been working before. They might want to spend more time at home. They may not want to work too long hours.'

Nursing and teaching are two areas where older workers are being wooed back to work, largely due to a shortage of experienced staff.

Today, only 59 per cent of people aged 55 to 64 are still in the workforce. The Manpower Ministry, which Mr Gan formerly headed, wants to push that figure up to 65 per cent.

Mr Gan said that with Singaporeans having an average lifespan of more than 80 years, stopping work at 60 or 65 means working for less than half their lives, since most would start working in their 20s.

The Retirement and Re-employment Act takes effect next January. It will require employers to offer eligible workers the option of working beyond the retirement age of 62, to 65 first, then to 67.

But Mr Gan also said that older workers need to be realistic about remuneration, while companies must be fair to them.

Referring to what constitutes fair remuneration, he said: 'You have to take into account the productivity, the capability and the experience of the person. On the other side, you have to be mindful of the seniority system which may be in place.'

Aside from keeping older people employed, he also wants them to have opportunities to learn skills they are interested in but never had a chance to do, be it painting, skydiving or creating their own Facebook page.

But he would prefer these activities to be initiated by the seniors themselves rather than by the Government, which should just help facilitate them through community centres or day care centres.

'It is important for us to see how we can tap on the seniors to help seniors,' he said. 'This will give this group of seniors a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their daily life. So it's not only about themselves getting engaged and getting busy but also to help others.'

As the Health Minister, he will also put in place facilities to cope with the growing number of less physically able seniors, and those who are sick.

MCA's goal in the next 10 to 15 years, he said, 'is to provide more options, more choices for the seniors'. This would allow those who decide to age at home to do so, and those whose conditions require them to be institutionalised will also be looked after.

Tackling the issues of ageing, he added, involves everyone, not just the Government, health-care providers or patients.

'We have to come together, evolve solutions, create the solutions together and that solution will involve a role for everyone,' he said.

Re-employment law: Many firms ready

They have begun re-hiring staff who turn 62 ahead of January deadline, but some lagging behind

By Elgin Toh, The Straits Times, 4 Nov 2011

In less than two months, the re-employment law will kick in. But many Singapore companies are more than ready, according to Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin.

Larger or unionised companies especially have already begun to re-hire workers who turn 62, he said, ahead of the January deadline when the law makes it compulsory to re-hire suitable workers.

Similarly, many small and medium-sized enterprises are doing it too, employing workers to age 65 and beyond, plus giving them the same employment terms, he noted. Large companies tend to re-hire with reduced pay and fewer benefits.

But some companies are lagging and Mr Tan urged them to act immediately.

'Assess your readiness, tap on all the available resources and assistance, and make the necessary adjustments,' he said at the opening of a two-day conference on age-friendly practices in the workplace.

He expressed confidence that Singapore is 'well- placed to ride the huge waves' of the impending silver tsunami.

A survey, however, found that the 'paiseh effect' can work against older job seekers. The Hokkien phrase means awkward or embarrassed.

Its effect is seen at job interviews when the people on the interview panel are young. The job seeker's chance of getting and keeping the job is 57 per cent compared to 69 per cent when an interview panel has some older people.

The difference is partly because some young managers are uncomfortable and feel 'paiseh' with subordinates who are as old as their parents, said the general manager of the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (Tafep), Mr Andrew Fung.

Tafep did the survey of 300 older job seekers and employees earlier this year and presented its findings at the conference.

The survey also found that mature workers are more likely to succeed if their companies give them a 'buddy' in the same age group, or give them regular feedback on their work performance.

The Age Friendly Workforce Asia conference, organised by the Rotary Club of Jurong Town, was attended by more than 350 people from a wide range of companies and professions.

Many were keen to learn what the big boys such as fast-food giants McDonald's and KFC as well as engineering conglomerate Siemens were doing for older employees.

McDonald's went through its work process with a fine-toothed comb and tweaked the small things to make life easier for workers who are older, said its senior director, Mr Tan Kwang Cheak.

These include introducing trolleys to transport bags of raw materials, and picture icons on the touch screens of cash registers, to prevent backaches and eye strain.

Siemens has programmes to encourage bonding among people of different ages while at KFC, the microwaves will signal the food is ready with a 'ding' sound as well as a light coming on, to aid hearing-impaired and older workers.

The discussions also sparked a debate on controversial topics, like the effectiveness of re-employment.

Mr Leong Sze Hian, former president of the Society of Financial Service Professionals, posed a series of questions on re-employment and asked why the Government did not just raise the retirement age to 65.

Would workers be able to make ends meet if they were, say, re-employed on a 50 per cent pay cut? What if companies converted workers from permanent to contract schemes early on, just to avoid re-employment?

'Why are the employers being given so many escape clauses?' he concluded.

Responding, NTUC's assistant secretary-general, Ms Cham Hui Fong, pointed out that under the re-employment law, workers who suffer huge pay cuts can ask the Manpower Ministry to arbitrate.

Re-employment, she added, gives all parties a flexibility that raising the retirement age will not.

Ms Cham also argued that if the solution was to be sustainable, it had to be win-win for workers and businesses, or companies may leave the country or find other ways of getting rid of their workers.

'Let's start with re-employment and see how it works out,' she said.