Debated in Parliament on 7 May 2024.
Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health with the recently released Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (a) how will the Ministry track the effectiveness of these guidelines, especially in the community care sector which has limited staff strength and frontline facing jobs; (b) how will the Ministry support employers to overcome manpower limitations while creating a working environment with better work-life balance; and (c) whether the Ministry will incentivise employers who come up with alternative job-sharing solutions, besides the use of grants or financial incentives.
Dr Wan Rizal asked the Minister for Health what specific measures are in place to support flexible work arrangements for healthcare workers while ensuring that patient care standards are maintained.
While flexible work arrangements may be more easily implemented in some working environments, certain professions, such as healthcare workers, operate on rosters to ensure continuity of service and high standards of care and safety for our patients. As the manpower situation is tight for the healthcare sector, when a frontline staff requests for part-time or fixed shift work, our clusters will consider them sympathetically and objectively based on the needs of the organisation and patients.
For office-based work, there is greater scope for flexible work arrangements. In fact, as frontline agencies in the fight against COVID-19, the Ministry of Health and related agencies fully appreciate the value of contingency planning, which incorporates aspects of flexible work arrangements.
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