Better Times for Contract Employees

By Shukry Rashid

Added Benefits

Chloe Lee (pictured above, second from right), 25, has been working for employment agency P-Serv Pte Ltd for the last five years. Currently on a three-year term contract employment, and outsourced to Changi Airport Group, the Changi experience supervisor gets more benefits compared to when she was working part-time at a retail outlet.

P-Serv is one of the 300 employers who has signed on to commit to the Tripartite Standard on Employment of Term Contract Employees announced on 31 July 2017.

Training and Assurance

“We have a month-long class training and external training with Changi Airport Group. It prepared us to face the challenges on the ground,” shared Chloe.

She added that part-timers she works with now get the same training. She will also receive six months of notice period should her contract be terminated early or if it is not renewed.

While it has become a norm for term contract employees to have only the minimum of seven days of annual leave as stipulated in the Employment Act (EA), Chloe has had her annual leave days accumulate each year she works for P-Serve.

With companies adopting the Tripartite Standard, she said: “This gives employees assurance that their employers are responsible for them even though they are on term contract.”

Certainty and Protection

Coca-Cola Singapore's Human Resource (HR) Manager Grace Lai (pictured above, middle), 55, is another employee on term contract who sees her benefits comparable to her colleagues on permanent contract. Grace, who is one of 150 Coca-Cola term contract employees, said the new standard provides greater certainty and protection for workers like her.

Besides enjoying 14 days of annual leave from the start compared to seven as stipulated by the EA, Grace has been benefiting from many training opportunities during her time with Coca-Cola.

“We have a Senior Learning and Development Manager that manages employees’ development. I’ve attended courses on human resource and industrial relations. We attended courses that are relevant to our jobs, and also other development courses,” she said.

All Employees Matter

According to Coca-Cola HR Director Gaurav Sharma (pictured above, left), term contract employees enjoy the same benefits and allowances as its permanent contract employees.

The company also regularly gets feedback from all its employees on what matters most to them through surveys and focus group discussions.

The company’s progressive employment practices have helped improve its turnover rate from 19 per cent in 2010–2011 to 13 per cent last year – the best attrition rate the company has ever had.

When Coca-Cola had to relocate its manufacturing plant overseas, causing retrenchment, all affected employees received training.

“We did an upskill programme with NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute), NTUC and our union FDAWU [Food Drinks & Allied Workers Union] to provide the same training grant and programmes for all employees, whether permanent or contract so that they can upskill and get rehired,” explained Mr Gaurav.