January 1, 2012, will be the date when employers would need to offer jobs to workers who have reached the retirement age of 62, as said by the prime minister in the National Day Rally Speech. The message that the government is serious about retaining older workers has been very successful as 13 out of the 14 companies which were checked by the Straits Times had already started retaining old workers. Companies are redesigning jobs, redeploying workers and changing working hours to get ready for this new legislation. However, without any specific guidelines to go about these changes necessary to suit the old workers, companies are using trial and error.
I feel that this policy will be beneficial to Singapore and its people in the long term. With advanced technology and increasing knowledge on staying healthy, more people are living to a very old age. Therefore, the money in the central provision fund might not be able to last them for the remaining time in their life. In the long term, when more and more people grow to a ripe old age and lack enough money to survive, they would live an unhappy and painful life, and at that age, it would already be too late to start saving money. In addition to these, they might also become burdens to the society, as the government would have to spend a lot of time and money solving this problem. Therefore, with this new legislation, more old people would be able to work and save enough money for retirement.
There are many benefits of older workers. As said by many employers, old people tend to be more serious about their work. They do not take unnecessary leaves and would work overtime without expecting extra payment. Furthermore, they are hardworking, determined and most are sincere about helping companies succeed.
I believe this trial and error method used by companies to make changes to the jobs to suit the needs of the old is an effective method. As this legislation is new to Singapore, the companies have to find out what modifications to the jobs would suit the needs of the old workers, without compromising on the companies’ ability to achieve results. Furthermore, different old workers encounter different problems carrying out ordinary jobs that younger ones are having. Some have knee problems, which do not allow them to bend, while others have back problems, which results in them not being able to carry heavy items. Whatever their problem may be, the job should be changed to suit their needs. Companies are already starting to do so. In the Yusen Air and Sea Service, older workers contribute by helping younger staff develop skills. New office-based jobs, such as filing clerks and quality control manager, are also created for older workers. With these modifications, old workers can have a comfortable environment to work in, and also be of much use to companies.
However, in the future, I hope that proper guidelines would replace this trial and error method. Research should be done on the needs of different types of elderly with their different difficulties in carrying out ordinary work. With previous experience, this knowledge could be used to set guidelines on redesigning jobs to account for the different difficulties of old workers. This would be more useful as research and experience of others had been used to design the guidelines. Furthermore, this would help save time, as the companies would not need to trial and error, thus giving them more time to work on developing their skills or equipping them with new skills, so that they can be of good use to the companies.
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