30 July 2006
We've won the Work-Life Excellence Award! To celebrate, staff were given early time-off from work on 28 Jul 06 – the day of the award presentation. Pauline Teo from HRD-Corp Comms tells you more.
Previously known as the Singapore Family Friendly Employer Award, the Work-Life Excellence Award is a biennial award conferred by the Ministry of Manpower. It recognises organisations that are committed to helping employees harmonise work and personal life through excellence in Work-Life Strategies.
The award acknowledges that organisations with good Work-Life Strategies will be able to create a win-win situation for employers and employees, spurring staff to be more engaged and motivated in contributing to the organisation's business performance.
It was no mean feat winning this award since almost 200 companies vied for it, but only 31 won it. How did we do it? Simple – through many relevant programmes that touched and continues to be relevant to our employees.
Take for instance, our in-house clinic. It provides free medical treatment for all staff. Other exampless include the above-the-norm welfare schemes such as marriage leave of six days (usually it's just three days), paid maternity leave of 12 weeks regardless of the child's status of citizenship for the first two children and up to 10 days of compassionate leave (three days is the market norm).
Said Liu Fang Joo, Senior Vice-President of Human Resource & Corporate Communications: "In implementing any programme, we take a multi-pronged strategy that sees to the needs of the staff in different schemes, at all levels."
She elaborated that this work-life balance strategy encompasses programmes on personal health awareness, nutrition and sports and recreation which are tailored to the needs of different age groups, gender and educational profiles. Taken as a whole, the strategy aim to help us better manage the demands of both work and life.
"We can have many wonderful initiatives but these will all come to nought if we do not have our staff's participation and support. So, kudos to all our staff for winning this award," she adds.
All of us certainly deserve a pat on the back... and that half an hour break. Hi-5!
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