\n<\/p>\n
Some single Singaporeans said that the additional workload will be manageable if employers planned for absences properly and parents do not misuse their childcare leave for their own leisure or breaks.<\/p>\n
Ms Lee Qiao Mei, who works in the business sector, said colleagues in her organisation typically take childcare leave for only one or two days at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt won\u2019t translate to a huge increase in workload. I\u2019m lucky to be in an environment where the management distributes responsibilities well, so it won\u2019t be too much,\u201d the 30-year-old said.<\/p>\n
However, she added that trust between colleagues was important, particularly given the flexibility parents have in deciding when to use their childcare leave.<\/p>\n
Under Ministry of Manpower (MOM) guidelines, parents can use childcare leave to spend time with their child for any reason and do not need to produce a medical certificate for the child.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be a reasonable level of trust. We must also trust our colleagues to use their childcare leave for the intended purpose,\u201d she said, adding that repeated or clear misuse would create problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others who CNA spoke to questioned whether the flexibility for parents to take childcare leave was fair, especially if parents were able to tap it to go on holidays with their children, while those without children had to dip into their annual leave for holidays or other personal needs.<\/p>\n
Asst Prof Chong said workplace fairness does not necessarily mean giving all employees the same benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, fairness is about levelling the playing field so that different employees with different life circumstances are all able to perform at their best and contribute meaningfully to the company,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added that employers should regularly review employees\u2019 circumstances when administering benefits and allocating work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is advisable for companies to continually discuss and review employees\u2019 circumstances and develop performance indicators that are achievable given their current life stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
To this, Dr Tan Ern Ser, adjunct principal research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), suggested extending benefits to employees who take on additional work they need to cover someone else for taking child-related leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they are colleagues, and are expected to cover the workload of the person on leave, my view is that it’d be fair if they are compensated in some way, by cash or by receiving some other credits, including symbolic rewards.\u201d<\/p>\n
One suggestion raised by several people CNA spoke to was to have more family care leave for employees with other caregiving responsibilities, besides children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After all, caregiving goes beyond parenting, said one 33-year-old who wanted to be known only as Sofie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adam, who currently has two days of family care leave, said: \u201cI\u2019m not getting any days off for wanting to spend time with my family or friends, but my colleagues get paid time off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand they have new babies, but what if I have elderly family members that I need to take care of?\u201d<\/p>\n
A 32-year-old who works in the IT industry, who wanted to be known only as Wayne, described the four days of family care leave provided by his employer as \u201cbarely enough\u201d.<\/p>\n
His mother has a medical appointment every month and he has to take annual leave to accompany her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s what annual leave is for,\u201d Wayne, who is married and has no children, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m using my annual leave for caregiving and I can\u2019t take a proper break, it\u2019s a matter of time before the stress gets to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
TRUST AND FLEXIBILITY ARE KEY Some single Singaporeans said that the additional workload will be manageable if employers planned for absences properly and parents do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--KhEO0cIw--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/08\/25\/istock-2285995949.jpg?itok=_nas41zO","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1889,25334,1600,727,112,2142,951,1451,1537],"class_list":["post-79559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-boost","tag-childcare","tag-debate","tag-leave","tag-parents","tag-rest","tag-sparks","tag-work","tag-workplace","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}