By Elaine Ee
As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that Singapore is likely to avoid a technical recession, he also cautioned of challenging economic times ahead. “There’ll be ups and downs,” he said. “There’ll be rough spots, and we are going to get used to not so fast growth as before, but we have to work to achieve that, because you can’t just lie back and say, ‘I’m working too hard, I have to slow down.’” (See here.)
Singaporeans are amongst the hardest working people in the world. The number of hours Singaporeans spend working are so long that work-life balance here has become some elusive dream. And of course with wages being low compared to our high cost-of-living, many of us here have to toil to make ends meet.
Prime Minister, when a person says ‘I’m working too hard, I need to slow down,’ it’s probably not because they don’t grasp the reality of the challenges we face, or just want to slack, it’s because they are burning out.
And considering how hard we work, our level of productivity is disproportionately low. This issue is nothing new. It has been swirling around for ages, most recently heated up again by debates over low wages and low birth rate.
The factors that hinder our productivity have been well aired: inefficient systems, too much administrative work, poorly scoped out jobs, ineffective management approaches, budgets that are too cheap—and a clock-watching work ethic that pressures people to linger in the workplace, even if their work is done, just to be seen in the workplace, because that somehow is supposed to mean that they are better employees, even if they are really on Facebook.
A person who leaves ‘on the dot’ is viewed as leaving ‘early’ in some organisations - so time-keeping at work becomes about proving your worth and loyalty by working overtime for the sake of it. Which of course completely misses the point.
So, no, I don’t think we need to work harder. But we definitely need to work better and smarter, and dispense with the outdated parts of our work culture. We want value and quality - good ideas, good attitudes, results, motivation - not just sheer labour and servitude.
Performance needs to be calibrated so that a person’s contribution is measured by the standard of what they do, and not just how close they have kept their nose to the grindstone.
And we need to trust our workers. Trust that they are essentially responsible, professional people who will do their job and take some pride in it. If they’re not, get rid of them. But don’t hire someone and then treat them like a five year old. Because if that’s how a person needs to be managed, then why were they hired in the first place? They’re not someone you want on your team.
Working smarter and creating a smarter work culture can go a long way to help Singapore face the tough times that may lie ahead - and be good for society too. The average worker will produce better stuff, function at a higher level, and achieve more with less - which should make us better competitors in the corporate world, and leave us with more time for the important things in life, like our families.
So please don’t tell an already stretched-thin and wage-depressed workforce to work harder. We’d do better to focus our attention on how to help our workers improve the quality of their working life, so they work better, last longer and are better positioned to rise to the challenges ahead.