HR's role in building a fairer workplace

A LACK of fairness at the workplace -- whether genuine or perceived -- has implications far beyond the emotional well-being of employees. Studies show that when employees are unfairly treated, they are less productive, less likely to help coworkers, and more likely to leave the company.

Conversely, workplace fairness brings many benefits. It not only makes employees feel safe and more committed, but creates a productive environment and fosters a harmonious relationship between employer and employee.

In Singapore, workplace fairness efforts began with the Tripartite Guidelines on Non-Discriminatory Job Advertisements in 1999. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices was established in 2006, and the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices followed a year later.

In 2021, the Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness was set up to review the workplace fairness framework and examine ways to better tackle workplace discrimination.

In February 2023, the committee released an interim report with recommendations to strengthen the framework, to eventually be turned into law. This includes providing avenues for workers to seek redress and broadening disincentives through enforcement levers.

Examining the implications

It is natural for employers to assume that the responsibility of responding to such legislation falls largely on the shoulders of human resources (HR). Thus we offer some thoughts about the implications of this impending legislation for the HR profession and employer organisations.

Many HR practices are designed with fairness in mind. This includes ensuring that hiring and promotion criteria are not biased against certain groups; designing pay bands that reward individuals based on their responsibilities and contributions; and determining access to benefits and perks.

Perhaps more importantly, the impending legislation should be taken as signalling a new era in workplace culture. As corporate social responsibility commitments grow, equality -- with special consideration for disadvantaged groups -- is now at the forefront of any conversation on a company's mission and values.

Even traditionally profit-driven stakeholders such as investor analysts are paying more attention to corporate initiatives in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics. It is thus important for employers in Singapore to embrace the upcoming legislation, using it as an impetus to drive organisation-wide change towards greater inclusivity.

We propose two principles to guide this drive. First is the principle of shared responsibility and transparency.

One of the recommendations is to strengthen protections against discrimination across employment stages. Many may think of fairness in relation to key events such as recruitment, performance appraisal and termination. But research suggests that everyday experiences at work are a major contributor to an employee's sense of fairness.

This implies that those with everyday decision-making authority, such as supervisors and managers, have the most responsibility for workplace fairness.

HR's role here is to design and curate learning and development initiatives that emphasise leadership development, to equip managers with two key skills that support workplace fairness: interpersonal skills and communication.

Managers should treat workers with politeness, dignity and respect, including when supervising them, giving feedback, setting goals and assessing performance.

Supervisors must also be able to communicate the rationale for why procedures were designed in a certain way, or why resources or outcomes were distributed in a certain fashion.

HR should be close partners with line managers, so that they are well informed of company policies and procedures, as well as their respective underlying purposes. Enhanced responsibility and transparency helps build trust between employer and employee.

Building a culture

A second principle is that of building a culture. For the tripartite guidelines to be effective, employers must demonstrate their commitment to fairness by weaving it into the fabric of their organisational cultures.

A workplace culture based on fairness emphasises support for every employee, starts with jobs that are designed to empower them with autonomy. This should be accompanied by channels for employee voices, allowing them to communicate with management about issues affecting their work.

HR should also take charge of programmes that promote workplace social networks, such as mentoring relationships, team collaborations and informal social events. Healthy and nurturing work relationships help to build a culture of fairness by assuring employees that they have access to multiple channels of support in the case of any grievances.

It is also within HR's remit to keep benefits updated and flexible enough to support employees from diverse groups. Benefit plans should extend beyond the usual health and professional development offerings to include occupational, social and psychological programmes.

Lastly, HR should be at the forefront of monitoring the organisation's culture-building efforts. Employee pulse surveys and social media sentiment analysis will help HR connect with employees and ensure that any instance of bias or discrimination is promptly dealt with.

One concern for HR and employers is whether employees might make frivolous claims due to misunderstandings or unfounded grievances. Employers need to update their grievance handling policies with what is considered discrimination, according to the latest tripartite committee recommendations.

The principles of transparency and culture can also help prevent such vexatious claim behaviour.

For instance, good communication and procedural transparency would discourage frivolous claims, as employees realise that clear grievance handling procedures will show their claim to be unfounded.

A fairness-based culture would also make such retaliatory behaviour less likely, as the empowerment it encourages would mean that issues are more easily handled with mutual trust before they escalate.

The committee's recommendations are tightly scoped and meant to work in tandem with the tripartite guidelines. We see them playing an integral role in strengthening the HR function, by providing benchmarks and nudging practitioners to implement best practices.

The upcoming legislation lays out comprehensive measures to discourage and deal with instances of workplace discrimination. But it is much wiser for employers and employees to take joint ownership of building a fairer workplace -- one that not only supports such legislation, but avoids the harsher means of adjudication, punishment and redress.

HR and managers can play a leading role in redesigning their organisations to support workplace fairness, laying the foundation for greater and more effective workforce participation by all workers.

Aslam Sardar is chief executive officer of the Institute for Human Resource Professionals. Trevor Yu is an associate professor from the division of leadership, management and organisation at Nanyang Technological University's Nanyang Business School.

A workplace culture based on fairness emphasises support for every employee, starts with jobs that are designed to empower them with autonomy.

Source: The Business Times