Letter to the Editor: Employers should create win-win work environment with employees, fostering mutual respect, understanding, and negotiation to avoid conflicts

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Dear Editor,

I refer to the report, “Singapore workers want more flexibility, training, and pay – or they will quit” (ST, May 30).

I am appalled by the surveys conducted this year, which revealed that a majority of workers intend to quit if their demands are not met.

Foremost, we should raise the doubt that is it generally the various sectors of commercial entities in Singapore are in bullish or positive financial positions so that they can facilitate ample employment opportunities?

In fact, most of the global economies are just recovering from the post-Covid-19, and they are still struggling in a fragile and unpredictable situation. For example, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that the electric carmaker needed to cut staff by around 10%, according to an internal email seen by Reuter.

Hence, applying the phrase seismic ceding to describe the pervasive demands from the workers, in general, is not quite appropriate. Unless the employees are very certain that the company they have been employed is continually making profits and yet does not provide a reasonable level of the salary scale and other benefits such as promotion and training opportunities, medical welfare etc.

However, I also don’t eliminate the possibility that there are bad or selfish employers existed in the market. They might simply ignore the appeal of plights and reasonable demands from the employees.

Nonetheless, companies that are commercially viable and upstream in the business spectrum for a long time should have equipped sensibility, an acute sense of business vision, social responsibility and flexible or nimble human resource policies in place to tackle any unexpected circumstances that arise from the employees’ demands.

In short, employers should aim to create a conducive, win-win work environment and culture. In due course, fostering mutual respect, mutual understanding, mutual trust and regular communication and negotiation between the employers and employees are the key pivot for avoiding any industrial disputes and conflicts.