Do we have the minimum wage to make ends meet?

Singapore does not have any minimum wage law and does not implement a minimum wage system. It postulates that wages should be determined by free market forces of supply and demand. Employers and workers should be allowed to negotiate and mutually agree on the wages to be paid before they enter into an employment contract.

The National Wages Council (NWC) was established in 1972 to advise the government on wage policies and also issue wage guidelines in line with long-term economic objectives. The NWC’s recommendations, when accepted by the government, serve as a basis for wage negotiations between employers and unions. NWC’s recommendations apply to both the public and public sectors

The key function of the NWC is to enhance Singapore’s competitiveness in global markets by adjusting wages in an orderly manner. With this as its purpose, the goal of the NWC is to recommend wage policies and guidelines that attract foreign direct investments into the country, and in its process provide jobs for its local and overseas residents.

A minimum wage is defined by International Labour Organization as:

The minimum amount that must be paid to the majority of the workers of a country, generally on an hourly, daily or monthly basis; and which is ideally fixed in such a way as to cover the minimum needs of the worker and his/her family, in light of the prevailing national economic and social conditions.

According to the conditions for work and employment information sheet published by the International Labour Organization, minimum wage laws are now enforced in more than 90% of all countries.

Adjustments to the minimum wage are driven by two criteria: social, and economic. The social criteria takes into account the needs of the workers and their families, the cost of living and / or inflation, general level of wages, and the level of social benefits. The economic factors are the economic situation and / or development of the country, the capacity of enterprises to pay, employment, and productivity.

There have been commentaries on introducing minimum wage legislation in Singapore. Many supporters of the minimum wage assert that it is a matter of ethics and social justice that helps reduce exploitation and ensures workers can afford what are considered to be basic necessities. Others, however, claim it hurts businesses by reducing profit margins, and also increases unemployment. While the discussion on minimum wage continues, Singapore (Incorporated) does not have a legislation on minimum wage.

The National Wages Council (NWC) has completed its deliberations on wage and wage-related guidelines for 2008/2009. In its deliberations, the Council took into account the prevailing national economic factors, such as its economic performance, labor market conditions, productivity, wages and inflation trends, Singapore's cost competitiveness, uncertain economic outlook, and high inflation.

The Singapore government has accepted the NWC’s recommendation covering the period from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. As in previous submissions, the recommendations by NWC were driven mostly from an economics perspective such as affordability of employers, increase in productivity of workers, and wage flexibility.

In addressing the high inflation in Singapore, the council recommends a one-off special lump sum payment for rank-and-file workers with heavier weightage for low wage workers. The one-off lump sum payment has been hailed by main stream media as an innovation of NWC, and was reported to be widely received by both employers federations and union members.

Although the lump sum inflation buster payment is meant to assist rank and file workers to make ends meet, the council could not prescribe the quantum to be payable. Hence, the amount of the one-off lump sum payable and its implementation are left to the creativity of companies and perhaps the devices of compensation and benefits practitioners.

NWC recommendations on wage and wage-related guidelines did not, in my opinion, delve adequately into the social factors such as the ability of workers to pay for what are considered to be basic necessities. As inflation sets in, a higher benchmark in terms of pricing for a basket of food will be re-established, and the affordability of workers to purchase basic necessities threatened.

Why do workers work? At the basic level, rank and file workers work to bring bread (and rice) to the table for themselves and their families. With the price of food and commodities reaching dizzying heights, are they still able to bring bread crump to the table?

Singapore could introduce an inflation-indexed wage system for its rank-and-file workers. Inflation indexed wage system means that wages would automatically go up by the extent of consumer price index (CPI) increase. The idea of an inflation-index wage system is not far fetched because the CPI indicator may be embedded as a key performance measure for rewarding public service administrators. Perhaps, the amount of the one-off special inflation buster pay could be index to consumer price index, and made variable according to employee levels. After all, the one-off special lump sum payment recommended by the NWC is intended to fight inflation, or isn't it?

Will we have the minimum wage to make ends meet?

Paying for non-performance?

In a commentary dated 15 December 2007 on “money not enough?” the issues of pay for performance were explored. As discussed, compensation of chief executives and senior management of private enterprises have been under scrutiny by stakeholders. Stakeholders are utterly disgusted at the manner senior managers reward themselves regardless of company performance.

Although the westernised idea of paying for performance has been embedded as the reward strategy in many organizations, the question of paying for whose performance is pertinent. Are we paying company directors, chief executives and senior managers of organizations for their performance such that we may ultimately be “rewarded”? Or, are senior managers paying themselves handsomely for their own “performance”, even to the extent of behaving fraudulently to satisfy their greed addiction.

One need to go no further than to examine the classic case of Enron to understand why pay for (whose?) performance led to the collapse of the organisation. More recently, the collapse of Opes Prime in Australia wiped out millions of dollars of pension funds; First Capital suffered similar fate, and most recently, Victorian stock broking firm in Geelong, Australia has allegedly been behaving badly.

As the economy is flushed with more money and ready credit, greed had consumed some of us, allowing us to be extremely creative in feeding our greed addiction. As an example, the work performance of a loan officer is measured on the amount of credit that is booked for a given period. To secure higher book value, a bank credit officer may resort to unconventional means of earning performance bonus by offering higher credit to its customers, often ignoring their ability to service loans. Hence, many of us have continually been seduced by financial institutions offering pre-approved increases on credit cards limit, or re-financing homes with subsequent mortgages without much effort or difficulty.

For many years, organizations embrace pay for performance as the panacea for driving desired behaviours towards cash and more cash, often ignoring behavioural integrity, ethics or legal considerations. Edward Lawler III, an authority in compensation management once argued against the effectiveness of pay for performance in “why is pay no longer an incentive to better job performance".

Another commentator, Michael de Beer suggested that careful efforts to design an incentive system to make pay contingent on performance may be misguided, and raised questions on the worldwide trend towards the use of more executive incentives. However, many organisational practitioners are still paying extraordinary attention to pay for performance.

Perhaps, it is the idea of pay for performance, but whose performance? Are practitioners familiar with the notion of pay for non-performance?

The notion of performance based pay is rather complex. There are research conducted on pay and performance and on the causation between risks and rewards; the higher the risk, the greater the rewards.

For an economist, pay for performance is grounded on the theory of incentives known as the agency theory. Agency theory, also known as the principal-agent model presupposes the association between time and effort. The employee may influence the amount of work accomplished, by exerting himself, but he cannot control output entirely, because his work performance may not entirely under his control.

Under the agency model, the employee is assumed to be averse to both effort and risk. If an employee is effort averse, then incentives must be designed to get the employee to exert himself. As the employee is also risk averse, the question of tradeoffs between an employee and the employer sharing the risk is pertinent. Risk is in the balance.

As work performance may be beyond the control of the employee doing the work, pay for performance may perhaps be labeled appropriately as pay for effort. Hence, we find ourselves in a flurry of activities, as we are measured on the amount of noise we generate, and not on work related performance.

From a principle-agent perspective, the moral hazard of pay for performance is pertinent. Moral hazard is defined as the ‘‘actions or in-actions carried out by the agent that are unobservable by the principal’’ When the actions of the agent are unknown and cannot be evaluated by the principal, the principal’s ability to enforce the agency contract is hampered. Senior managers control organizational resources and know most about the organization’s activities; this allows them to act opportunistically to the detriment of shareholders.

Because of their superior information and shareholders’ lack of full observation, managers can take actions that will maximize their rewards; but their actions may harm organizational performance in the long run and result in losses to the principals.

In the words of Gordon Gekko, “greed is good, greed is right, greed works, greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of evolutional spirit”. Based from the collapses of organizations involving billions of dollars, is greed really good especially if pensions are wiped out almost completely overnight. Fortunately, the Central Provident Fund of Singapore manages pension of Singaporeans. At least, our superannuation are bolted under lock and key. Otherwise, we may suffer the same fate as the Australians that invested with the likes of Opes Prime et al. Trust is definitely in the balance.

Perhaps, pay for performance may actually be misguided as it will fuel more corporate collapse.

Should we continue to pay for non-performance?

An employer's dilemma?

The question of “can we work anywhere we please so long as we get the work done” is pertinent for instituting a work-life balance policy in an organization. Are flexible working arrangements and unstructured work environments crucial for recruiting and retaining talented people? A recent report suggests that "shoo-ing workaholics out of office" may be the answer for a Singaporean mid sized law firm.

http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_main.asp?pubdate=20080314

In Singapore, the year 2007 ended with “money” talk. With an extremely competitive labour market, cash and more cash were thrown at people, particularly talented people to attract, and retain them. While this “old school” approach appears effective until greed consumes some of them, practitioners are focusing on non-cash compensation to engage talented employees to “keep you in business”.

It has been reported that organizations are pursuing non-cash compensation solutions. About 53 per cent of the organizations in a survey offer opportunities for continuous learning. Others cite improving work-life balance (49 per cent), improving staff engagement (31 per cent) and faster promotion (30 per cent).

Before we rush into creating innovative non-cash compensation solutions to attract and retain talented local and foreign people, it is important to realize that non-cash compensation solutions may be workable only if salaries are attractive and competitive.

From employees' perspective, cash compensation is normally not swappable with non-cash compensation. While we attempt to carve out current cash compensation to fund non-cash compensation items, employees perceive intangible benefits as entitlement. Carving out cash compensation to fund additional employee benefits are often perceived as a reduction in salary.

Should additional benefits to be introduced in organizations be carved out of their current compensation? Cognitively possible, but emotionally difficult to implement.


http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_main.asp?pubdate=20080315

Perhaps, the dilemma for employers is the spiraling wage costs. "Will spiraling wage costs scare away business?" An economist with the Singaporean UOB Bank did not think it will. Other advantages, according to the UOB economist, such as "a high quality of manpower, transparency and efficiency, and good infrastructure are what continues to attract businesses here.”

We assumed a causation between productivity and wages ; if productivity leads wages, there is no real cause for concern. But then, the concept of "productivity" is continually abused by government agencies to justify for spiraling wage costs, and increases in the cost of conducting business. Regardless, spiraling wage costs is still a cause for concern even if productivity leads wages.

An employer's dilemma is not so much as to offer innovative employee benefits to attract and retain talented people. What is most pertinent is the costs of providing for intangible benefits.

Human resource management practitioners may not be comfortable with the mathematics of actuarial science, financial modeling and life-choice simulations. Hence, the cost of non-tangible benefits may not be computed and thus, unaccounted for. We may be in for a rude shock if we compute the total costs of providing non-cash compensation to employees.

Where benefits are offered to employees, it may be difficult to swap them for other benefit items, or withdrawn from employees when dated. This is the main reason why organizations continue to "grand-fathering" dated benefits that were once offered to employees.

The dilemma of employers is the unseen costs of providing non-cash compensation to employees, talented or otherwise.

Never mind the rising rentals, really?

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/241170.asp

Can we work anywhere we please so long as we get the job done?

One of the most difficult question facing employers is on “how to keep the people who keep you in business”. As history reveals, the traditional method to attract and retain talented people is to throw money and more money at them. While this “old school” approach appears effective until greed consumes some of them, an appealing solution is to engage talented employees particularly the younger generation with flexible work practices.

According to Marcia Hall, owner of Reputation Counts, an American Severna Park-based firm that provides workforce development and productivity training, a work-life balance is particularly important to members of the "millennial generation" who were born in the early 1980s. They not only grew up under intense pressure to get into the best schools but also have become more aware of their mortality with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other tragic events, she said. "The effect has been that their tomorrow is unpredictable," Ms. Hall said. "That means time for family and time for their personal life."

Money isn't the key to keeping Kiwi workers either - it's improving their work-life balance and supporting their careers. Remuneration consultants DSD Consulting reported on the importance of work life balance in their recent remuneration and market trends survey of 65 leading companies in New Zealand.

"Companies need to realize that, for many New Zealanders, their career and work-life balance is increasingly important. They want to work and be appreciated for what they do but they also want to be able to spend time with their families and pursue their other interests," says DSD director Susan Doughty.

DSD says the research shows bosses also need to accept that Generation Y employees don’t stay in jobs more than three or four years, so notions such as long-service bonuses don't appeal anymore. Employers need to think differently to remain interesting to their work force, especially when unemployment is so low and jobs are readily available.

Technology has allowed people to stay connected from anywhere. Perhaps, flexible working practices and "family-friendly policies" that help employees achieve a balance between work and life should be the alternate reward management practice as baby boomers retire later and employers search for talented people in a tight labor market.

With escalating fuel prices, additional taxi fee surcharges, increase on mass rapid transport (MRT) and bus fares, and more recently, an increase in the number of electronic road pricing gantries in Singapore, there is really no merit in merit pay increase.

Compensation and benefits management practitioners need to work harder than simply rely on benchmarked salary surveys to stay on the job. Instead of the 5 C’s in Singapore, "we talk about the four Fs being the key to what employees value - that's finance, future, fun and features. It's the combination of pay with a range of other factors - both financial and non-financial - that determines whether your staff will stay or not." DSD director, Una Diver commented.

Should we rethink the traditional boundaries of a “9 to 5” workday? Are flexible working arrangements and unstructured work environments crucial for recruiting and retaining talented people? Can we cultivate a flexible work culture by allowing people to work anywhere they please so long as they get the job done. Can we retain employees by introducing job sharing?

More importantly, can we work anywhere we please so long as we get the job done relevant to the (overseas)Chinese work communities?

Is there merit in merit pay increase?

In a statement released yesterday, ECA International, a global association of human resource practitioners says that Singapore workers can expect their pay to go up by an average of 5 per cent in 2008 as compared to last year's average increase of 4.5 per cent. However, inflation is likely to take a big bite of that pay rise.

According to the ECA report, the surge in prices of oil, food and lodgings will 'counter-balance' the projected big pay rise 'considerably'. With Singapore workers looking forward to some of the biggest pay rise in the developed economies, real take-home increases will be 'relatively subdued'. Most other developed economies in the ECA survey are showing forecast wage increases of approximately 4 per cent.

'This latest upswing in inflation, which has caught many people by surprise, will have an impact on real salary increases in 2008,' said the firm's general manager. Employees in Singapore are likely to experience relatively subdued real income rises and employers may have to budget for higher salary increases next year to make up for this year's relatively low increase in real incomes.

If compensation practitioners are considering an upward revision in their forecast salary increases to retain talented employees, they should instead consider the merits of merit pay. Are merit pay increases simply employees’ entitlement based on cost of living adjustment (COLA), or are merit pay increases really based on merit?

According to the Business Times report dated 10 January 2008, Singapore’s inflation rate could soar past 6 per cent in the current quarter, beating previous estimates, as an upward revision of the value of public housing kicks in this month and food and oil prices continue to climb. If employees perceived merit pay increases as entitlement for COLA, there may be an reduction in their real take-home pay.

The concept of merit pay has been around for some time. Evans (1970) believed that merit pay has its origins in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the Protestant Reformation. The protestant work ethic, which views man as competitive and individually oriented, emerged from the belief that economic success was evidence that a person who worked hard was serving God; material success was equated with spiritual purity. Thus, according to Evans (1970), performance-based pay plans continue this theme by rewarding those who have worked the hardest and contributed the most.

It appears logical to base merit pay upon performance, or is it? Commentators say that merit pay plans based upon performance can have many defects, including improper design and implementation; difficulties in paying for individual performance; lack of conviction on the part of employees that pay is really linked to performance; inadequate or inappropriate objectives, criteria, and measures; as well as other shortcomings.

Merit pay continues to be a popular vehicle for rewarding employees. However, merit pay systems that are poorly designed and implemented can lead to perceptions of inequity for individuals; and these perceptions of inequity held by individuals can have a negative impact on important organizational outcomes.

Voluntary turnover is one possible response to merit pay inequity. Those who quit in response to perceived merit pay inequity are typically an organization’s better performers. The average and below-average performers are typically “not bothered” by a merit pay system that pays them the same as their harder-working coworkers.

Another possible response to merit pay inequity is that high-performing employees who receive the same merit pay as lower-performing employees may choose to stay on the job, but they may decide to lower their performance or reduce the quality of their work in the future in an attempt to restore equity.

Regardless of the methods employees adopt to restore their perception of fairness and equity, there is a need for practitioners to know if such behaviors are harmless or may create serious consequences for organizations. Talented employees, especially if they are working in (overseas) Chinese work communities, may simply choose to quit and seek their fortune elsewhere.

In administering merit pay increases, we are forced ranked and fitted into merit pay matrices representing normal distribution curves. This forced-fitting ensures that our pay increase budgets are on target. On occasions, we may "rob Peter to pay Paul" to balance the pay "bucket".

In addition, the spread in pay increase percentages between high performing employees and average employees are usually insignificant and/or inadequate to drive change in behaviors toward increased work performance.

What if a merit pay increase budget contains both cost of living adjustments and work performance outcomes? Where the quantum of merit pay increase lags inflation, as it appear to be the current situation, can we seriously talk about merit pay increase aligned to work-related performance?

Is there really merit in merit pay increase?

Will the public servants speak out?

In compensation terms, the year 2007 ended with “money” talk. As we recalled, there were debates of how we should throw more cash at people to attract, and retain them. There were also discussions on “are we paid our worth?” and perceived pay equity.

For the public servants, their salaries were revised significantly higher to reflect the amount of compensation they expect to receive if they hypothetically resign from public duty to take on their dream jobs in private enterprises.

The thinking behind compensating talented public servants with top private enterprise salaries is to induce and retain them in the civil service. Is such thinking flawed, and taken in the interest of the public, especially when the motivation of work of the private enterprises is significantly different from that of the civil service?

According to March & Simon (1958), pay, within the context of the employment exchange, is an inducement to work. Money is provided in return for work and is based upon some specified contingency relationship between work and pay. To the extent that pay is desired as a medium of exchange with instrumental value, money provides people, either as means or an end, with a purpose to work.

In addition, pay can be conceived in terms of symbolism. The concept of symbol, in this context, is defined as a sign which signifies something other than itself. Do you remember the first dollar you earned when you started work? The symbolic meaning of the first dollar you earned signifies more than the instrumental value of a dollar. Clearly monetary pay symbolizes instrumentality as a medium of exchange, but it may also be associated with outcomes such as status, security, and achievement and thus acquire symbolic value as well.

Pay and reward systems in general is symbolic of organization culture. Will there be a clash of cultures between hierarchical bureaucracies and the horizontal organizations of the private sector? Are we motivating our public servants to behave like mercenaries?

In presenting the rationale and justification for paying public servants market benchmarks, our leaders appear to discount the symbolic value of pay. In all respect, the symbolic value of the high office of the land is worth a lot more than several millions of Singapore dollars. If we cost the symbolic value of pay, our public servants’ pay may be placed beyond the red circle; a term used to denote salaries that exceeds the top pay range in their grades.

But then again, if we ask ourselves whether we are pay competitively, our answers invariably would be negative, because money is never enough. Perhaps, we should start the year of the golden rat by questioning why we are paid so much for doing what we enjoy. Should we also be asking why we are paid so much for doing so little?

In the brave new world of 2008, we hope to have less “money talk” and more on the intangible value of reward management. The GROW 2.0 initiative announced by the Ministry of Education, Singapore may be a start.

In its 2007-08 Global Strategic Rewards study, the global consultancy firm Watson Wyatt concluded that employers and employees rank attraction and retention factors differently. They commented that the first thing employers need to do is to recognise the factors that attract and retain talent, and to realise that their expectations, as employers, are sometimes different from those of their employees.

For example, the Watson Wyatt study on accounting and finance industry in the Asia-Pacific region revealed that employers ranked base pay, employer reputation and career development opportunities as the top three attraction factors. On the other hand, employees ranked the nature of work, then base pay and employer reputation as the top factors that attracted them to a job.

In addition, the recent Watson Wyatt WorkAsia study found that drivers for employee engagement are customer focus, compensation and benefits, and communication. Employees said they wanted to feel good about the products and services their employer offers. Employees also said pay, stress levels and promotion opportunities were the main factors affecting their decision to stay with a firm. The amount of respect employees received in the workplace was another important factor in their decision to join or stay with a company.

Can we ask the real public servants the factors that will drive them to commit and engage themselves with the Public Service Division of Singapore? Do they intend to leave for greener pastures now that they are paid according to the private sector? Are our talented people currently working in global corporations applying in doves to serve the Public?

If we are to stop throwing more cash to attract and retain employees, we may need to understand their expectations more fully. We certainly need to keep the people who keep us in business. What do our public servants feel most passionate about as they serve? Will the real public servants and our private sector employees please speak out?