CEO 101

What is the impact of the current economic situation on your pro-family HR policies?

Mr Lim Cheng Teck, chief executive, Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore

Standard Chartered has in place strong pro-family policies and practices. In difficult times, it is more important than ever to focus on our employees.

However, these initiatives are not economic-environment dependent but are integral to motivating and bringing out the best from our talent.

We want to create a supportive and family-friendly workplace where employees are better able to maintain work-life harmony.

Examples of our pro-family practices include flexible/home working arrangements, a shorter work week, sabbatical leave, paid family-care leave and Happy Friday, whereby employees are encouraged to leave the office earlier one Friday a month to spend time with family.

From TODAY, Business – Monday, 01-Jun-2009

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What women want but aren’t getting

 Lin Yanqin, yanqin@mediacorp.com.sg

WITH women a minority in the upper echelons of companies in Singapore, nearly half feel that they will not reach a senior management position, a survey of women in the finance and accounting sector revealed.

Add to that the desire for work-life balance — the priority for 59 per cent of the respondents — and that 53 per cent of the women will leave their jobs for one with lesser pay in order to achieve it, it’s a worrying insight for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). Women make up 66 per cent of its 9,000 members.

Given the accounting and finance industry’s long hours, women choosing to exit the industry would drain it of much-needed talent, said ACCA country head Penelope Phoon-Cohen.

“The work-life balance situation has to improve (if we want to retain talent),” saidMs Phoon-Cohen, speaking on the survey results at a media briefing yesterday.

Women in accounting, she added, tend to leave the industry because of family commitments.

The survey by recruitment firm Robert Half Singapore and ACCA — which collected over 700 responses in March — found that 39 per cent of the women surveyed did not see women in their companies’ board of directors.

In addition, nearly half the respondents said their companies had formal equal opportunity or diversity policies, while 32 per cent said their companies’ did not have any, and 21 percent were not aware if their companies’ had one at all.

Employers need to do more about this, said Robert Half managing director Tim Hird, as a lack of formal policy means a lack of security and reassurance to employees on their career development policies.

While the survey showed that employers needed to do more to formalise and communicate policies assuring employees of equal opportunities, Mr Hird also felt that women should be more vocal about their workplace needs.

“We’ve seen women who want to leave their companies because they said they wanted more work-life balance, but they don’t actually know about the opportunities (to do so) in their companies,” he said.

Women may hesitate to bring up work-life needs in the current economic climate for fear of appearing unproductive.

However, open communication is necessary in order to avoid “grey areas”, whether it is work-life needs left unmet, or women feeling that they lack the opportunity to move up, said Mr Hird.

From TODAYOnline.com, News – Friday, 22-May-2009; see the source article here.

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CEO 101

How do you approach the issue of employees’ external appointments and activities?

REPLY FROM Mr Kevin White, General Manager for Tyco Fire Suppression & Building Products, Asia Pacific

At Tyco, we encourage good work-life balance and place a keen interest in our employees’ personal goals and pursuits. Demands at work can lead to spending an unhealthy amount of time at the office, away from friends and family, which is not good in the long run. It is important to be effective at work, so that you can spend more time with others for the things you enjoy doing together. Having a healthy personal life and fun interests clears your mind, and also aids in managing anxiety and stress — common factors that we see affecting employee performance and satisfaction.

From TODAY, Succeed – Monday, 18-May-2009

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