23% of people believe that gender discrimination exists in the workplace, but not many are willing to report experiences of discrimination.
Here’s what the survey revealed, and what SMEs will be doing to build a fairer workplace.
Fear Of Losing Job, Or Causing Others To Lose Theirs
NTUC U Women and Family (U WAF) Unit, and the People’s Action Party (PAP) Women’s Wing conducted a month-long survey. They asked over 3,000 male and female respondents about their thoughts on gender discrimination in the workplace.
NTUC U SME and U WAF director, Yeo Wan Ling, revealed that 23% of respondents believe that even today, gender discrimination does exist in the workplace.
However, only 40% of women were willing to report discrimination experiences to their management, as opposed to 60% of men.
Across both genders, the main reasons for not reporting included the fear of losing their job, or causing someone else to lose theirs.
Looks like most of us believe in what goes around comes around, and wishes to do no harm to others, even if it’s at our own expense.
Another reason cited was the lack of a clear reporting framework.
Raise Awareness of Avenues to Report, and Protect Whistleblowers
Director Yeo expressed her intentions to help raise awareness of avenues available to report workplace harassment and gender discrimination. There also needs to be more protection for whistleblowers who report such incidents.
She also identified two needs to solve this issue. The first need is to improve HR policies to have a better way for people to report discrimination, without fear of retaliation.
The second need is to better train employees to be able to recognise workplace discrimination and report it in a way that HR policies would be able to take action on.
SMEs Committed To Building Fair and Progressive Workplaces
Four SMEs signed an agreement with NTUC at the event, where they pledged to implement fair recruitment and employment practices. They will also maintain a work environment safe from harassment, and with proper grievance handling procedures.
The four SMEs are IUIGA, Scanteak Singapore, Oriental Remedies Group and Xi De Li. An additional 18 SMEs will sign the agreement on 5 March 2022.
Ms Yeo expressed her hopes for more SMEs to come forward to work with NTUC.
“We would like to encourage more SMEs to tap on our resources and knowledge base for guidance to develop effective policies, and to join us in committing to make workplaces safe and fair for all. U WAF will continue championing fair, inclusive and progressive workplaces for all employees.”
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U WAF’s Approach To Building Better Workplaces
U WAF will use a three-pronged approach to help SMEs build fairer and more progressive workplaces.
The first step would be to create greater awareness of workplace harassment and gender discrimination. This would be done by engaging SME employers through dialogues, talks and webinars.
The second step is to provide advice and resources to help SMEs in creating clear HR policies, communication procedures and channels for workplace grievances reports.
The third step would be providing training for SMEs’ HR professionals and management teams, on how to manage such workplace grievances.
Gender discrimination in workplaces applies to both men and women. Ms Yeo hopes that this issue will be something the entire society will recognise, and work to rectify.
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Featured Image: NTUC Singapore