Below is the email sent to me from my aunty who’s a manager at a large business firm in Singapore. I hope this helps people to have a better understanding of Singapore’s workplace culture:

“I will list down some of the characteristics of Singapore work place as follows;

-Very common to have multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-religion work place especially in bigger companies.

-Generally english speaking although among the chinese workers there is a high usage of mandarin in their communication both on work related and non-work related issues. Malay are used among malays colleague. But official communication are mostly done in english.

-Work place are generally fast similar to hongkong or tokyo.

-Official working hours are 44 hours per week, mostly done in a 5 days week basis for white collar office work. Therefore official work hours generally start between 8-9 am in the am and end 5-6pm in the afternoon. But it is very common for people to leave their work place at least 1-2 hours after the official end of work hours without any kind of compensation or benefit paid by the company for this extra hours spent.

Blue collar manaufacturing work normally work on the 8 hours shift work and they generally get overtime pay for any additional time put in in their work place.

For people in the financial, international trades and IT related sector, its is expected that you might have to put in very long hours outside of your official work hours as and when you job calls for( and this is very common, for example, and investment analyst might have to put in 12-13 hours per days when they are working on projects and this might continue for months if they have continue projects). Compensation for this extra hours work are meal/transports allowance and year end bonus.

-Work place relationship are generally professional in nature. Its not a common practice for co-workers to engage in weekly/regular after office hour socialization (like drinking or dinner type of gathering).

Company paid outing/oversea tour/events etc as part of employees benefits sometimes needs lots of persuasion and supervisor pressure in order to get participation. General to hear people commenting “they prefer company pay them the cash and the days-off for them to plan/organize their own tour either with their own selected colleagues or with their own family members”.

Having said that, people are generally friendly and warm in their work place. Most of the time, they identify themselves with their company and team spirit are generally positive.

-Work place are competitive in nature. semi annual and/or annual Individual assessment are made, job tenure and bonus are determined basis this assessment.

-I would say that workers in generally are well trained and have positive work attitude. Meritocracy is widely practice in work place. Seniority is respected but not a big factors in consideration for promotion.

-Continuous learning is encouraged both by the company and government. Company and government have lots of study cost assistance scheme to help worker defray part or all of their continue education costs.

-Although permanent employment contract is still the majority of employment term. More specific tenure contract( ie 2-3 years tenure and subject to mutual re-negotiation and renewal upon expiry of agreement) employment type of arrangement is being used. As such, job hop is getting more common as both employer and employee are always on the look out to find their best opportunities. Similarly, it is becoming very common for groups of people to move across to competitors in the same industry. You can say a mercenary type of work culture exist in some of the industry especially in the finance and international trading related industry.

-The job market is competitive. Most company are doing away with expatraite terms for their expat employees as it appears there are lots of expat wanted to work in Singapore.

As a result, its is becoming a common sight to see expat live among the normal Singaporean in the government housing estate, going to the same hawker center for meal and wet market for their grocery shopping, taking buses/MRT.”

In tutorial, we discuss the understanding of cultures and the cultural difference between people. Personally, I am born in Australia but parents are from two different cultural backgrounds Vietnam and China. Thus, because of the differences in family cultural background and the Australian culture, there is a difficulty from the culture conflict. In the Australian family structure, children speaking openly about their personal thoughts is consider acceptable, and the communication between parents and children is of mutual understanding and communicated in a way similar to conversation between friends. In the contrast, the Asian family structure is very different, the children’s thoughts are insignificant and the parents are more stubborn and controlling over the children.

The Malaysian culture is very similar to the Chinese culture, where in family the husband is dominant and the wife is only a subordinate. The general culture is sexist and discriminative towards women. This family structure can also represent the workplace, where it is an advantage to be a male over a female when it comes to higher pay positions and other business jobs. However, in business, a big difference in the western culture and the Australian culture is trust issues. Trust gain in the Malaysian culture from long-term friendship or family relations, it is something that can only be developed over time. However, the Australian culture people are easier going and trust can be gain from simple good conversation skills and having similar interests. Understanding this concept, sometime we might feel that there is a lack of trust between the two people. However, a key problem is, there can still be friendly and close conversation even with the trust issues, creating confusion for people with an Australian culture. In Asian culture, the workplace is similar to their family, because the culture is family orientated after a few years of working with the business and eventually developing trust, then treating of the employee is similar to a family member. However, like all other nations, we are rapidly becoming a global culture and these traditional cultures are slowly changing or disappearing. One important aspect about the Australian culture that is much better than Asian is discrimination in social classes. In the Australian society, everyone is equal; unfortunately, in the Asian culture there is a lot of discrimination, where upper class members can highly arrogant and snobbish.

The difference in culture also determines the expectations of business transactions where proposals and business agreements are signed between the two parties. In the Asian culture, the direction of the agreement depends upon the public relation office or person in charge of handling the proposal. The client has the expectation that this male member is required to pay for an expensive dinner and/or the late night adult entertainment after the dinner. These incentives can swing from a successful proposal to complete failure. However, in the Australian culture are much more professional and a simple lunch from someone with good communication skills can conclude a successful proposal. This may be a major difference in dealing with business but it can be also beneficial to employee dealing with the client. This benefit is the fact that all these additional expenditures are under company expenditure rather than personal. (The information about client handling is from my uncle who is a tire sales businessperson in China; and a close friend of mine whose father who owns a denim jeans franchise in Malaysia.)

The link below has lots of information about Singapore and its workplace culture. It outlines various information including family and personality of its people.

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/singapore.html

Group Discussions

Fortunately, we have a group that multicultural with people coming from all different backgrounds, allowing us to have a more rich understanding of other cultures in the world.

Bec explained how she was use to the Australian culture and still finds the aboriginal culture strange or unusual, telling us when speaking with elders we should not look at them in the eyes because to the elders it a sign of disrespect.

Fred explained how women in Sweden are less torrent of the dominant male culture in Australia. Creating understanding there is more gender equality in Sweden, where the male and the female are as equals, therefore sharing of housework is have to even. If, male’s do not do there share of the housework, generally the female would leave.

Kris explained how she was uncomfortable with her Dutch relatives, where she felt uncomfortable because the relatives would invade her personal space because of the chummy culture in the Netherlands. In the European culture, generally the personal spaces does not exist, where hugs and kisses between men or women are considered friendly and greeting gestures.

For international students who want to understand more about the Australian culture the links below is a good website.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/careers/students/jobs/work-culture.html

http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=1596&languageId=1&contentId=-1

Communication skills are very important in our everyday life as well as at work. I find the subject of interpersonal communication extremely interesting. It is amazing how powerful good communication skills can be. Just saying something differently or listening with more empathy can change the way people talk to you and treat you, it can make a situation completely different.

This week our group discussed the concepts of assertive communicative behaviour and what our thoughts were. Assertive behaviour involves having respect for yourself while maintaining respect for everyone around you. I feel it is very difficult to obtain an effective balance, there is an art to getting the middle ground between being passive and aggressive. For myself and most other people it seems it be a work in progress.

We discussed the obstacles that arise when you attempt to be assertive in the work place. One of the prominent difficulties was the intimidation that is often the case in an employer - employee relationship. This can be very difficult to deal with, being assertive isn’t always welcome and there is also the fact that people have different perspectives. To one person it may be perceived as assertive while to another person it could be seen as aggressive.

To overcome this and many other obstacles there is sufficient information available and courses to try to perfect the art. A few of the guidelines are;

• To use “I” statements to avoid blaming.
• Listening with empathy rather than with sympathy, to put your self in another person’s shoes.
• Give appropriate feedback to demonstrate your understanding of what the other person is saying and,
• Body language is an integral part of effective communication.

**Just a note for Julia: Article was written by Krista.**

Hi,

This is my first entry, which i know is abit late in the semester. Assignments. Tests. University life is in general quite hetic.

This entry is about a talk that was given during our TLC lecture on Monday. It was a very interesting lecture for many reasons. However, it stood out to me because the talk was given by an recruitment consultant from Ernest & Young. Yes, EY. A firm which i have wanted to work at since i started studying Accounting.

The speaker was named Karly George, a Senior Recruitment Consultant.

The talk was on Assessment centers.

Assessment centers are there to determine how suited you will be to the environment of the certain workplace at a firm (i.e. EY).

It may include: Interviews, Psycholoy and Aptitude test, presentations and group activities.

Karly was nice enough to go through a few example test for us (which were part of the aptitude tests catergory). We when through Numerical test, personality and motivation tests. Honesty i did not fair to well with the numerical tests. They were abit of a brain-buster.

However, all was not lost; she said that all the test could be practiced. She gave us a website: SHL (google it lol) & adviced us to go to the library to find books on the test mentioned above.

However, i believe that overall one of the most important advice she gave us was:

1. Research the Company

2. Research You - why you want to work for the company? how your skills align with the company? what do you want from the company?

*This advice was given because of the purpose of assessment centers which are to determine how suited you are to the hiring company. To see if your interests and the company’s interests align.

She summarized her advice, which was given throughout he talk into a few key points:

- Be prepared

- Be professional

- Be punctual

- Be energetic

- & most importantly be yourself.

*Lastly - it was abit shocking but she said that right from the time you step into the door at an assessment center you are on show. Even the secretary is assessing you; to see how you interact with the other job applicants.

Though what i have written is a basic summary. On our offical TLC website we have the powerpoint slides which you should be able to assess for further reference.

take cares readers,

Jas

We were required to do a little writing exercise during the class and were later told to discuss the way we “tackled” our assignments. Here’s a little something from our second briefing.

As we all began to throw ideas on how we did our assignments, we discovered a number of similiarities and differences.

Similar

- Doing the research first

- Grouping chunks of related information together and later sorting them out

- Brainstorming on how the flow of the essay/assignment would go

Differences

- Checking the flow of each sentence as they are being written

- Checking the errors of the sentences only after everything has been completed

- Checking the errors of the sentences after everything has been completed and left for a few hours

- Colour coding each piece of information (from the research done)/ categorising the information so that all related information are grouped together

Which is the best method? I guess its pretty much up to individuals. So which do you prefer?

The issue of gender equality is fundamental in Australian society. Gender equality refers to womens rights in the workplace. Inflation, higher interest rates and an overall rise in the cost of living has forced mothers to find employment to make ends meet. The ‘old school’ mentality that women are inferior and stay at home with the kids is slowly diminishing. A growing number of women are delaying motherhood in favour of pursuing a career and with paternal leave emerging as a realistic option, its safe to say that time are a changing. Women occupy crucial roles such as teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers and the number of women in powerful roles is increasing. Women have gone from setting the table to taking a seat at the head of the boardroom.

The evolution of the rights of women in Australia owes much to successive waves of feminism, or the women’s movement. Women’s rights have come a long way in the last 100 years but still only earn around 85% of mens average wage. Same job, same effort, same hours. Why does this ancient image remain? Partly to blame would be men occupying most of the powerful roles in unions, corporate Australia and more importantly the influential positions in government. Although legislation has passed numerous times, it has done at a snails pace.

This moral dilemma was not helped one bit when the Howard government passed WorkChoices and WorkChioces reform which did not clearly identify how far the constitution extends. Areas such as education, healthcare and childcare, fields dominated by women are a few of the cloudy industries not considered as constitutional corporations.

This oversight generates much confusion as to which businesses must comply with State or Federal law, two very different paths of workplace regulation.

From my point of view, it’s as clear as day that women should earn the same as men. Regardless of your gender, age or race or if you have the experience, skills or qualifications we are all the same. It would be immoral to disregard this issue as in an era where civil rights and racial equality have been placed at the forefront of politics. Racial equality is at the forefront of todays politics. On a global context, many countries, particularly those in the east such as Asia, the Middle East and even some African nations still have a large gap in gender equality. Women have no voice, let alone respect and equality. This appears harder to bridge with unstable governments and solid traditions making it difficult for women to break oppression. We can consider ourselves lucky that we live in such a democratic country. Australian women still face discrimination and action is needed to close the gender pay gap. As women edge closer to equality, pay equity will follow.

From breadcrumbs to breadwinners, when will women be treated equal?    

Skwirk. 2008. Changing rights and freedom. http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-56_u-490_t-1336_c-5136/women/tas/women/australia-after-1945/changing-rights-and-freedoms.

What is globalisation? Is it good or is it bad? Once you’ve started to ask these questions an array of new questions comes forth. Some would say globalisation is good and that we all benefit from it while others are very concerned by the consequences of a globalised world. Lets face it, we are all a part of a globalised world and we all contribute to it whether we want to or not. We shop clothes made in China, drive cars made in Germany, eat food from all corners of the world, travel, shop online, and the list goes on… Globalisation simply put, links us together regardless of national borders or other physical obstacles. The following definitions may give a clearer understanding of the topic.

Worldwide economic integration of many formerly separate national economies into one global economy, mainly through free trade and free movement of capital as by multinational companies, but also by easy or uncontrolled migration.
www.ecoagriculture.org/page.php

A process whereby an increased portion of economic or other activity is carried out across national borders
www.developmenteducation.ie/glossary/

A global movement to increase the flow of goods, services, people, real capital, and money across national borders in order to create a more integrated and interdependent world economy.
globaledge.msu.edu/resourcedesk/glossary.asp

So what exactly are the pros and cons in a globalised world? There are no clear answers but the following are just some of our thoughts on this “new world”.

Pros:

-An open economy creates innovative thinking in order to keep up with world competition, as well as giving new innovative ideas abroad.

-It is easy for people and companies to access products from other countries

-There is an exchange of cultural diversities when people and businesses meet.

-In a globalised world it is easy to travel overseas for leisure, study, or employment.

Cons:

-Millions of people lose their job due to relocation of production (especially offshore relocation).

-Workers often face pay cut demands from employers or even threatened with business relocation.

-”Overtaking” of cultures, eg. the west over the rest. Developing countries face difficulties in retaining their cultural traits.

-When moving goods long distances, i.e. to other parts of the world, local produce in some places are not used resulting in too much pressure on the environment in some and not in others.

After our first briefing, we have discovered that all the members in the team are currently studying and will, in the near future, be working in areas that will be in possible danger of “crossing the line” of ethics.

Reality Check

First, we will begin to break down the question given to us by our tutor, and explain the means to be a professional and how this relates to acting ethically.

A professional according to Merriam-Webster has been defined as “characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession”.

Ethics is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad with moral duty and obligation; a set of moral principles; the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group; a guiding philosophy; a consciousness of moral importance”.

Everyone’s view of ethics would likely differ, depending much on our educational background, upbringing, age, religion and many others. In our view, doing anything that can cause any type of harm is bad or un-ethical. However, we also understand that in the ‘world out there’, ethical standards have already been set for us to follow and are beyond our control much less contribution.

Our Conclusion from the Brief

There is not a right or wrong answer in being ethical because it varies from people’s values and, of course the profession. We looked at all the members of the group, and we felt that there will always be ethical problems in any job.

Bec explained that our view about ethics might change as we go from studying a particular course in the university to working in the adult world. As a result, we slowly fall into societies’ trap hole and become a part of it, erasing the ethics we once knew as right. Thus, there is a worry, that we would be too immersed in our jobs and in our desperate attempt to fit in, we go against the ethics that we once thought was right, we become the very demon that we once fought.

Our team member Anthony, aiming to be a profession sports marketer, sees success in his profession as manipulation of his clients to sell the product or reach his objectives. In our view, we can probably say Anthony is a typical example of professionals breaking the code of ethics.

A more complex example is Fred. We all view international aid worker as people with strong code of ethics. However, it can involve manipulation of the truth in order to send the message across to the world or public. How true is the existence of manipulation? We stop our comment on this here but in the positive sense, it can support a cause that we all strongly value. Helping people from third world countries that cannot survive on their own.

For Eliza’s case, ethics is no longer black and white, but often it can be black or white on both sides. It is not easy in the complex world of media, trying to explain it is tough on its own.

Limited by time and space, the issue of ethics and professionalism cannot be covered in as much details as we wanted in Day One of our mission brief. As our team continues to explore more about their ‘newly-found-possible-profession’, we will discuss more of the various issues that surround our life as professionals in those areas. Look out for our pages on ‘Professionalism’ and ‘Graduate Attributes (GA)’ in the weeks to come.