The good news is that professionals, managers, and executives will now have access to the basic employee benefits, which they couldn’t enjoy earlier. A very anticipated bill to make amends to the Singapore Employment Act (EA) was finally announced on October 2, 2018, in the parliament.
One of the biggest proposed changes is about expanding the core provisions of the EA to all professionals, managers, and executives (PME), irrespective of their salary slabs. As of now, the PMEs who have an earning of over S$4,500 per month are not covered under the EA, and the companies or employers have been determining their employment terms majorly through contracts. However, PMEs would now be permitted to get the basic statutory benefits like annual leave, leave for medical reasons and hospitalization, and also protection against unjust or unfair dismissal.
The changes are also slated to impact some major employment practices such as termination of employment, managing disciplinary action, making and keeping of HR records, administering statutory employee benefits, giving allowable salary deductions and automatic transfer of employees due to some business re-organisation.
This bill also includes the below-mentioned major changes:
- Raise in Salary Limit for any Additional EA Protections: The salary limit or cap for employees (except workmen and PMEs) who enjoy additional protection and all the other benefits under Part IV of the EA, like overtime and rest days, would be now enhanced from S$2,500 per month to S$2,600 per month.
- Statutory Annual Leave which is Applicable to all Employees: The annual leave requirements listed in the EA have been extended and are now applicable to all the employees without any exceptions. Earlier only those people covered under Part IV were permitted to enjoy statutory annual leave.
- Augmentation of Dispute Resolution Services: The specific forum which hears the wrongful or unjust dismissal claims would be now changed to the Employment Claims Tribunal. Earlier the Ministry of Manpower took care of it.
- New Definition of “Dismissal”: As per the new definition of Dismissal, it will now include “the resignation of an employee if the employee can show, on a balance of probabilities that the employee did not resign voluntarily but was forced to do so because of any conduct or omission, or course of conduct or omissions, engaged in by the employer.”
- The compulsion to Present Additional Information on the Retrenchment of Employees: Employers have to, if ordered by the Commissioner of Labour, furnish all needed information regarding the retrenchment of any employee. As of now, the employers or organizations having 10 or more employees have to mandatorily notify the Ministry of Manpower in case five or more employees are retrenched in a period of six months.
The bill is forecasted to be put into effect in April next year. Employers and organizations should get ready for all the changes by revisiting their policies and also the contracts for all employees.
