Reducing business downtime critical to company’s productivity

SINGAPORE: Reducing business downtime through proper Work Safety Health management is critical to a company’s productivity, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Manpower Hawazi Daipi.

Mr Hawazi said this at the Singapore Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Conference 2012 on Thursday.

He said in Singapore, businesses lost almost a million productive work hours due to accidents, and that companies pay around S$70 million in work injury compensation yearly.

Mr Hawazi said every work accident could lead to prolonged work stoppage that could stretch into months.

Also important, he added, is building a progressive culture where Work Health Safety is everyone’s responsibility, down to the very last worker.

Key discussions such as Work Safety Health culture in the current economic landscape and ageing workforce were addressed at the conference.

Mr Ong Sin Tiong, assistant director of the National Trades Union Congress, presented statistics that showed Singapore will have a large resident workforce above age 40 by 2015.

He said organisations need to look towards sustainable re—employment and how they can prepare to become an age—friendly workforce which will allow them to stay competitive.

He added that organisations can consider initiatives such as job and workplace re—designing, continuous innovative process changes and improving prevalence of Workplace Health Programmes.

The third Singapore Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Conference will be held in 2014.

— CNA/cc