Discuss About The Industrial Relations Landscape In Singapore?

Tripartite Relationship in Singapore’s Industrial Relations

Question:

Discuss About The Industrial Relations Landscape In Singapore?

The relationship between the management of the organization and the employees of the organization is known as labour management relations. Under this relationship, various aspects are includes such as trade unionism, collective bargaining, grievance handling, etc. HR manager is the responsible for maintaining the relationship between employees and managers and he is the only person responsible for resolving the disputes amongst them so that organization’s performance could not get affected. Main motive behind maintain the relationship between labours and management is achievement of organizational goals in efficient manner. The chances of expansion for the organization also arises through maintain adequate relationship between employees and management. Under this report relationship of employer-employee will be discussed in consideration to the Singaporean companies. Furthermore, industrial relations of Singapore, advantage of the process followed by the Singaporean organizations and the role of the key player in the workplace will also be identified as well as discussed.

Landscape of the industrial relations are measured and controlled on the basis of tripartite relationship i.e. between government, employers and management. It also helps the industries to maintain and approaching the relationship with the labour unions. With the implication of this process, social-economic progress and success could be easily encouraged. Law of the Singapore have clearly defined the industrial relations and the process of union-management relationship is also described under the same law in various aspects (IMD, 2017).

Settling disputes and prevention of disputes arising between the employee and employer are maintained and regulated by the act introduced by Singaporean government i.e. Singapore Industrial Relationship Act. Processes such as collective bargaining, tripartite meditation of individual employees, arbitration, etc. could be used in order to resolve the issues between the management and the employees of the organization. NTUC (National Trade Union Congress) is the union which works for the protection of the employees’ and worker’s interest within the workplace and they works together with the partners in Singapore. Main motive of this operations is the protection of employees from the untraded practices followed by the organizational top level management. They work for the interest of industrial workers equity and they also fight for the right of social justice for the industrial workers. For maintaining the adequate relationship between industrial workers and employers, NTUC is held responsible (NTUC, 2017).

Employer, employee, government and the labour union are the four key players of Labour Management Relations. These players are responsible individually and collectively for maintaining and the preventing the relationship of employer-employee in the Singapore industries. Following are some of the functionalities of these players:

Singapore Industrial Relationship Act: Settling Disputes and Prevention of Disputes

Government: Government is the authorised body responsible for maintaining and developing the labour management relation amongst the whole country by developing various laws and by developing a separate department, concerns could be resolved in relation with the labour relationship management. The major motive behind the issues arising from the labours side are linked with the money matters and for the same Singaporean government have announced that their issues will be resolved through providing them benefits in the form of money only. Separate department is also being developed by the Singaporean government i.e. Ministry of Manpower in order to look out for the issues and the disputes arising through the country’s industries. They are also responsible for developing as well as implementing the relevant policies with the labour management relationship throughout the country. The major objective behind resolving labour related issues from the country is to gain the adequate image in the global market (MOM, 2017). Ministry of Manpower has extracted some positive aspects with the help of the processes for labours such as competitive global forces, job security as well as financial security and advanced workplace. Primary activity which is being assigned by the government of the Singapore is to maintain the peace amongst the all industries of the country as well as to promote jobs for enhancing the productivity as well as economic conditions of the country.

Trade Union: Primary objective of trade unions in Singapore is to prevent and fight for the rights of the workers and for the same process 58 unions and 2 associations are linked with National Trade Union Congress. Crucial roles of trade unions are:

Job security for existing workers: Under this right of worker, NTUC represents them and it basically means that they are fighting for rights of the workers without any benefit. This union is working just to promote the job within the country. Without any prior notice and with adequate reason, any organization cannot follow practices like retrenchment, negotiation in the worker’s pay, etc. Due to lack of education and the knowledge in relevance with the rights of the workers, companies perform various unethical activities and the NTUC and other trade unions helps the workers to fight on their behalf as well as to spread the awareness in the workers rereading their rights (EDB Singapore, 2017).

Training and counselling session: NTUC also helps the workers to provide them adequate training and the counselling sessions which are quite crucial from the perceptive of enhancing a worker’s skills and talent. NTUC conduct various auditing programs for the workers which help them to polish their skills which plays vital role in personal development schemes. These are some of the training programs initiated by NTUC to enhance their skills such as SAA Global Education, Uni-SIM-NTUC Sponsorship, and Union Training Assistance Program (UTAP), etc. 

Role of Key Players in Labour Management Relations

Employee: These are people who are actually responsible for the success of the organization and they are responsible for physical production and rest employees and top level management develop plans, theories, etc. to produce the finished goods. Hence, they play crucial role in organization’s enhanced performance and success (Metters & Metters, 2017). Keeping this thing in the mind, organization does not follow unethical behaviour and untraded practices such as discrimination, unfair treatment, etc. These practices falls down the employees’ confidence and they feel demotivated and then it impacts over the performance of the organization. Infect employees should be treated in fair and adequate manner and time to their appraisals should be done in order to enhance the organizational performance. Adaptation of adequate strategies such as conducting training and counselling session for enhancing the skills of the employees in order to achieve the desired goals for the organization.

Employer: SNEF (Singapore National Employer’s Federation) is responsible for maintaining the peace in the organization in terms of employers. This body was found in 1980 and it is merger of two bodies working in the same field are (SEF) Singapore Employer’s Federation and (NEC) National Employer’s Council. This body helps the employers to enhance their skills and to polish their skills in order to maintain the healthy environment in the workplace. Providing adequate training measures to employers, conducting regular meeting for sharing crucial methods and information in relation to maintenance of relationship between employer and employee, providing adequate advice over various crucial matters, etc. are some of vital roles played by SNEF in order to prevent and develop employer’s interest in the workplace (Kuriyama, 2017).

After implementation and the execution of the labour management relationship within the industries of Singapore, productivity of the workers has been increased (Huat, 2015). Certain level of confidence has been built up in them in relevance with the organizational processes. With this, Singapore has been counted in the list of countries which has effective labour management relationship and this is the source through which they have achieved a distinctive place in the global market. Reviewing the strategies adopted by the industries of Singapore, various other countries has also taken Singapore as an inspiration to build the same level of labour management relationship in order to enhance the country’s productivity as well as to enhance position in the global market (Gospel, Pendleton & Vitols, 2014).

Some of the components will be discussed in order to gain the certain kind of knowledge in relevance with the development of labour management relationship. The Progressive wage model, under this model, efficiency of the workers is increased with the help of adequate incentives, and other monetary linked benefits. Apart from this, tripartism is a mechanism which is implemented to guide the labour to enhance their performance and it leads to increase in the economic growth of the country. This mechanism is being included in the traditional methods of resolving the issues but it is effective yet so it helps the organization in resolving the issues through providing certain benefits to the labours and employers in terms of increasing the economic growth of the country (MOM, 2017). Furthermore, NTUC made some amendments in these traditional methodologies with the support of government and these amendments are developing peace and effective relationship between labours and employers in order to increase the economic growth of the country as well as to enhance the country’s productivity. With the implementation of traditional methodologies with some modern improvements, economic growth and the total employment within the country increased by 2% and 8600 in 2016 respectively (Holmes, 2017).

Government’s Role in Maintaining Labour Management Relations

Numerous positive aspects could be observed from the implementation of methodologies in terms of enhancing the economic growth. Employment rate increased with 2.1%, price index of consumer of Singapore decreased with 0.5% in 2016 and the increase in the labour productivity was also measured as real value added per worker and it increased with 1% in the same year. Due the enhanced productivity, industries’ efficiency was increasing rapidly and with the effect of this, industries of Singapore have distributed incentives and bonuses in return of the great efforts of the workers. Another major reason for distributing bonuses and incentives are the increase recorded in the Central provident Fund of Singapore with 3.1%. Due to this, wage of the workers was increased in comparison with the rate of bonus. Country was growing in all sections and due to this, inflation rate also decreased with 4% and now the country was capable enough to stand against any uncertainty arises within the Singapore industries’ section in 2017.

Additionally with the help of various programs and initiated by the government helped the industries to adopt attractive schemes under which organization is able to modify their costs through which wages of the workers could be remain constant in the difficult times. Apart from this, (Key Performance Indicators) KPIs are also being used to evaluate the performance of the employees and then they are being rewarded at the same rate. Indicators are set up by the management as this technique also lye under the management’s control and they evaluate standards through which employee’s performance are being checked (Giri, 2017).

With the effect of these methodologies and adaptation of improvised methods to increase the efficiency in the workplace, Singapore has gained adequate amount of goodwill and the market growth in the global market. The major issues of the Singapore were labour management relationship but now this has been converted as the strength of the country and with the effective labour management relationship throughout the country, organization is able to increase the efficiency of the organization. Hence, this is the primary reason for other business enterprises to expand their business in the Singapore in order to increase the growth as well as the profitability of the business. Through the efficiency archived in very short period, Singapore has achieved the 10^th place in terms of most emerging economic markets amongst the 121 countries (Bekhouche, 2015).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid discussion, it can be concluded that organization has Singapore was struggling with a severe issue known as labour management relationship. Due to lack of knowledge in terms of rights with the workers, industries used to exploit them in every aspect. Lateran, this changed due to introduction of various agencies which helped the employees as well as the employers in terms of developing peace and preventing both party’s interest in the organization. Uber this report, it has been also discussed that implementation of efforts should be from both sides i.e. employer as well as employee. With the implementation of progressive model, triptaism methodologies, Singapore achieved to the level of adequate increase in the economic rate. Today, it is included in the top 10 countries in terms of economic rate and due to effective labour management relationship; Singaporean industries have achieved next level of efficiency which has provided them effective competitive advantage.

References

Bekhouche, Y., (2015). The Global Gender Gap Index 2014. World Economic Forum.

Giri, M. P. (2017). Industrial Relations–An Overview. Journal of Industrial Relationship, Corporate Governance & Management Explorer, 1(1), 21-25.

Gospel, H., Pendleton, A., & Vitols, S. (Eds.). (2014). Financialization, new investment funds, and labour: an international comparison. Oxford University Press.

Holmes, F. (2017). Switzerland And Singapore Top U.S. In Global Competitiveness Ranking. Viewed on September 27, 2017 from < https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/10/06/switzerland-and-singapore-top-u-s-in-global-competitiveness-ranking/#6dcf8e834325>

Huat, C. B. (2015). Singapore: Growing Wealth, Poverty Avoidance and Management. Developmental Pathways to Poverty Reduction, 201.

Kuriyama, N. (2017). Stereotypes of Japanese Human Resource Management and Labour–Management Relations. In Japanese Human Resource Management (pp. 3-34). Springer International Publishing.

Metters, R., & Metters, R. (2017). Gender and operations management. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 24(2), 350-364.

MOM., (2017). National Wages Council (NWC) Guidelines 2017/2018. Viewed on September 27, 2017 from < https://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/press-releases/2017/0531-nwc-guidelines-2017-2018>

NTUC., (2017). Industrial relations landscape in Singapore. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from < https://www.ntuc.org.sg/wps/portal/up2/home/industrialrelations/irlandscapeinsingapore>

IMD, (2017). The World Competitiveness. Viewed on September 27, 2017 from < https://www.imd.org/uupload/IMD.WebSite/wcc/WCYResults/1/scoreboard_2014.pdf>

EDB Singapore, (2017). Facts and rankings. Viewed on September 27, 2017 from < https://www.edb.gov.sg/content/edb/en/why-singapore/about-singapore/facts-and-rankings/rankings.html>

MOM., (2017). Flexible Wage System. Viewed on September 27, 2017 from < https://www.mom.gov.sg/~/media/mom/documents/statistics-publications/flexible-wages-for-smes-english.pdf>