Reading Passage: In the wake of the global health crisis, the number of professionals suffering from workplace

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In the wake of the global health crisis, the number of professionals suffering from workplace burnout has risen and is still rising significantly. Workplace burnout is an ongoing reality. The number one reason cited for workplace burnout, as responded by professionals in a survey by anonymous workplace chat app, Blind, was the lack of separation between work and life. Sixty-eight percent of professionals felt more burned out than when they were working in an office. In another survey by Blind, workplace burnout has risen by 12% due to Covid-19.

A recent study by Cigna, a U.S. health services company, revealed that over 70% of respondents from Singapore described the "always on" work culture as even more prevalent with working from home due to Covid-19 restrictions. Anxiety levels have also risen, post Covid-19. Sixty-three percent of respondents in Singapore were found to have suffered from work-related stress in June 2020, compared to 58% in April 2020 before Covid-19 measures were imposed. An increase was also seen in countries like Thailand and Hong Kong.

Working longer hours has also affected the ability to sleep well, with workers often trading sleep for more work. Even before the pandemic, Singaporeans were already the third most sleep deprived, after the Japanese and Indians. This was shared from the anonymised sleep data of Fitbit users from 18 countries by Louis Lye, Fitbit's Regional Director, Southeast Asia at the launch of Fitbit's two new lines of Smart watches in September 2019

In Philips's annual global sleep study, conducted from November 17 to December 7 in 2020, three in 10 Singaporeans said that they now sleep less since the start of the pandemic. Chronic sleep deprivation not only affects our health but also affects our work performance, safety and general well-being.

Healthhub.sg has advised adults to get as much as 7-9 hours of sleep each night, while the National Sleep Foundation says that sleeping less than six hours will cause on-the-job burnout. Not only that, the lack of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is linked to Alzheimer's disease and depression. Fitbit recommends 20-25% of REM sleep (from a person's nightly sleep) for better memory and focus.

Working from home = more stress (lack of role clarity à mental stress)

Gifford Chan, principal clinical psychologist at Mind Care Therapy Suites, says that personal and work commitments in the same setting because of working from home, can further induce stress. The difficulty is in handling the role of being a manager, for example, and a mother at the same time. The lack of role clarity can bring on mental stress in the individual. Huang Zhang Jin, a clinical psychologist and supervisor from the Singapore Psychological Society suggests that employers set clearer boundaries to define work and personal time to cope with the mental stress that employees can be experiencing.

Right to Disconnect

To ensure that employees have protected time to rest and recharge, France is one of the first countries to implement the "Right to Disconnect" after work hours. In January 2017, a law was passed for employees to ignore emails outside of working hours to address issues of burnout and safety at workplaces. The legislation requires employers and employees to negotiate the protocol for non-emergency calls and non-critical emails outside of working hours.

The above made the news locally when former MediaCorp celebrity, Sharon Au, who is now working and living in Paris, sent an email to her colleagues twice after the workday has ended. Miss Au's French colleagues reported her to the company's HR department with a screenshot of the first incident, which was an email sent at 8:00pm and the second, a text sent at 11:00pm. The HR department proceeded to encourage Miss Au to pick up more hobbies and presented her with movie tickets to occupy her time outside of work instead. Besides France, other countries have also explored the "Right to Disconnect". The list includes Canada and Italy, and in Asia, the Philippines.

In his parliamentary speech in October 2020, Member of Parliament (MP), Melvin Yong, called for the "Right to Disconnect" to protect employees in Singapore to have the right not to respond to calls or emails after work hours to prevent employee fatigue and burnout. The need to rest and be productive the next day should be understood by employers. MP Yong cited a 2014 study by Stanford University which found that working for more than 55 hours a week resulted in a sharp decline in productivity per hour. This further led to more accidents and injuries at the workplace. He emphasized that other research also found that well-rested employees are more productive, more careful, and contribute more creatively at the workplace.

MP Yong also expressed the hope for the Tripartite Advisory on Mental Health to include relevant support for workers who are coping with mental health issues. One way to gather the relevant support needed is for the Ministry of Manpower to conduct an annual survey on workplace mental health. This is to track workers' mental well-being and the best practices among companies.

Human Resources experts, however, say that it will be an uphill task to implement the "Right to Disconnect" restrictions in Singapore due to the deep-rooted "always on" work culture, and to maintain a competitive economy. With global companies having their regional headquarters set up in Singapore, Ms Linda Teo, the country manager of recruitment company Manpower Group Singapore, says that employees will need to answer emails or calls after work hours due to the time difference. To have regulations on after-work communication could be difficult to achieve, echoes Mr David Ang, director of corporate services at Human Capital Singapore Academy.

Work-related communication after office hours is common in Singapore, and even more so when working from home during the pandemic. Employees cited superiors sending them WhatsApp messages at midnight and expecting immediate responses, and the norm of receiving emails after working hours from their bosses or colleagues. Some solutions from human resource experts to ensure after-hours work communication does not happen include the following:

Companies to set guidelines such as to be given 24 hours to acknowledge emails
Companies to use a top-down approach to encourage work-life balance
The government to begin with a softer approach through public announcement or advertisements to encourage having interests outside of work

Architect Atelier

Carmen Chua is the founder of Architect Atelier, a Singaporean architect firm of 12 years with 46 employees. In addition to being known for her talent, Carmen's flamboyant personality is popular with the socialite circle. She is often featured on luxury fashion and lifestyle magazines such as the Tatler and Prestige while attending many social events.

Architect Atelier's projects include designs ranging from the office, retail, institutional to the residential and hospitality. Some big projects worth mentioning are the Singapore General Hospital's Traditional Chinese Medicine Centre, the Science Centre Board Robotic Learning Centre, the Prime Minister's Office, and JC Decaux's corporate office at 8 Temasek Boulevard. Architect Atelier is known for "taking architecture to the next generation".

While having struggled at the beginning when she first started her architectural firm, Carmen quickly grew up in the business to understand the importance of cash flow. A self-professed and widely known workaholic, Carmen witnessed the firm's earnings grow at an impressive average rate of 20% per year. With the growth, Architect Atelier saw through 10 projects in 2019, serving a continuous explosion of emails that came with the thriving business. Staff often work beyond the operating hours which are from 9:00am to 6:00pm (Monday to Friday), communicating with clients via email, phone call or meeting them face-to-face.

Working closely with clients enables the project team to know what the clients need and ensure they get what they want. However, clients can email at any part of the day, and it often takes multiple calls and emails before each issue can be resolved. Even then, it is common for clients to change their minds and derail previously agreed arrangements, leading to even more follow-up calls and emails. With multiple pressing project deadlines, working late into the night for the project team is a common sight.

Appendix B

Right to Disconnect - Some Examples in Singapore[1]

Aviva (Insurance company)

Virtual group exercise classes such as yoga, Zumba, piloxing, start promptly at 6.15pm to encourage employees to exit "work mode" by turning their attention to an activity.

Dow Chemical Pacific (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Global materials science company)

At least once a month, employees can knock off an hour earlier on Friday so that they can start the weekend early and spend quality time with their families and friends.
Happy-hour tea sessions are often organised, with employees having the choice of attending a "virtual happy hour" where they play games with their colleagues, or simply log off to spend quality time with families.

FirstCom Solutions (Web development and digital marketing firm)

About 80 client-facing employees have been given corporate mobile phones. With the work phone, they can detach themselves from needing to check on the phone outside of working hours, as compared to using their own phones.

Mercer Singapore (Human resource consultancy)

A paid "Voluntary Leave & Reduced Hours" scheme is offered to those who need a break or want to pursue other personal or professional interests.

Unearthed Productions (Events company)

Mandatory no-meeting days on Friday as a mental break for everybody just to chill out, similar to an extended weekend
For the rest of weekdays, last meetings of the day are scheduled to start at 5pm so that they can end by 6pm
After 6pm, there is no need to respond to any work-related WhatsApp messages (Employees can choose to respond on their own accord)

[1]Extracted from Meah, N. (2020, October 17). The big read: Working from home becomes a nightmare when lines are blurred and boundaries trampled. TODAYonline. Retrieved October 19, 2021, from https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/big-read-working-home-becomes-nightmare-when-lines-are-blurred-and-boundaries-trampled

Question:

You are Jenny and have been with the HR and Finance Team at Architect Atelier for one and a half years now after graduating from Nanyang Business School. After reading more about what other local companies are doing (see Appendix B), you have decided that Carmen, your boss, needs to consider implementing the "Right to Disconnect" at Architect Atelier. Swee Kheng (your team's supervisor) agrees that it is important to "establish after-hours policy for work communication". She has kindly offered to send the email in her name. Now, you must prepare the draft and send to Swee Kheng for her review before she sends it to Carmen.