I have always been aware that English language has been a weakness of mine. It was fortunate that I had failed the QET and had to take the Es1102 module because I do not think that there would be any other course available at this level that would go through such basic concept of academic writing again. From the start, I viewed this course as a platform to gain more understanding of the requirements of academic writing. This course has indeed improved my understanding of academic writing. Learning what constitutes a thesis, was probably one of the greatest takeaway of this module. Previously, my concept of a thesis was simply an agree or disagree statement, which was very different from what was taught in this course.
The takeaways mentioned are those that can be applied in the academic setting and are indeed valuable as it may help in our grades. However, more importantly, this course also imparted life lessons that are much more valuable than grades or credits that we students place so much emphasis on. Brad was able to teach this course in a relaxed environment while still maintaining teaching standards. It showed that we do not have to stress ourselves up for everything concerning academic studies. Indeed, grades are important and there is a need to maintain a certain standard for it. While it may not always be possible to adopt the more relaxed approach while maintaining academic grades, we can learn to tone down a little and only then can we enjoy the process of learning. At least, to me, the important thing is to enjoy the learning process.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Essay draft 3
In today’s world, many activities are interconnected and integrated. Commercial activities in one part of the world have to keep in pace with those in other parts of the world. Singapore is not spared from this effect of globalization. Ministry of Manpower (MOM) (2005) reports that many services in Singapore have to provide round the clock service 7 days a week and businesses in Singapore are affected by events of countries in another time zone. This has caused operations of companies to be perpetually active even after office hours, eroding the clear divide between work and after work. There is thus an invasion of work into personal time, which is supported by the Robert Half’s 2011 survey that reports, 69% of Singapore employees still pay attention to work after office hours (Robert Half, 2011). From this, it is clear that many Singaporeans do experience a loss of work-life balance.
The Singapore government has put in place measures to mitigate the loss of work-life balance in working Singaporeans, but its success is limited. In this context, the successful attainment of work-life balance is contingent upon individuals to play a more active role in gaining the trust of employers so as to utilize existing measures and setting the boundaries between work and life.
The tripartite committee of MOM, National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) was set up by the Singapore government in the year 2000. This tripartite committee is responsible for setting up the Work-Life Strategy. Under the Work-Life Strategy, schemes such as Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) and Family Care Leave aim to help working Singaporeans achieve work-life balance. Although there were successful cases of use of FWA to promote work-life balance such as Kleen-Pak Products Pte Ltd and Singapore General Hospital (MOM, 2013), these cases are rare and few. The reality is that 7 in 10 employers are unsupportive of flexible work arrangements (Chew, 2013).
Yeo (2012) asserts that the underlying problem is the difficulty of employers in trusting employees to maintain work competency if they spend lesser time in the office. It is thus common for employers to judge employees’ productivity based upon the time they spent in the office. Employer’s distrust of employees’ productivity has resulted in the limited implementation of FWA in workplaces. This sustains the problem of loss of work-life balance. The onus is on individuals, to solve this issue of trust in order to achieve work-life balance. The Institute of Singapore Charted Accountants (2009) reiterates the role of employee in achieving work-life balance, where employees need to initiate the discussion with the employers and come to a middle ground on the issue of employer’s expectation of work quota and the ability of employee to achieve that quota. Discussion between employees and employers on work quota is vital for the issues of trust and productivity as it would be clear that productivity of employees is based on achieving the work quota instead of measuring productivity based on time spent in the office, and the only way for employee to gain the trust of employers is to meet the work quota despite being on FWA.
Employers are unsupportive of implementing FWA in their workplace despite encouragement by the government through financial incentives that help to defray the cost of implementing FWA and financial rewards (MOM, 2013). It is apparent that even financial rewards are unable to entice profit-driven companies and employers to implement FWA. Therefore, formal means of achieving work-life balance may not be successful. As a result, work-life balance can be achieved by individuals via informal means. TED Talks (2010) mentioned that, individuals have to be responsible for setting the boundaries of work in their lives. Therefore, an informal means of achieving work-life balance that can be employed by individuals would be the adoption of certain practices in their lives, such as abstaining from any work-related activities for an hour a day, and using that time to engage in personal activities. Despite the small amount of personal time being set aside, it should contribute to a better work-life balance because according to TED Talks (2010), “with the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your live”.
In conclusion, despite the Singapore government implementation of initiatives and financial encouragement for employers to promote work-life balance in Singapore, the unwillingness and unsupportive attitude of employers towards these initiatives has limited the success of existing initiatives. Therefore, individuals need to play a more active role in committing to set boundaries between work and life and gaining the trust of employers in order to utilize existing initiatives to attain work-life balance.
The Singapore government has put in place measures to mitigate the loss of work-life balance in working Singaporeans, but its success is limited. In this context, the successful attainment of work-life balance is contingent upon individuals to play a more active role in gaining the trust of employers so as to utilize existing measures and setting the boundaries between work and life.
The tripartite committee of MOM, National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) was set up by the Singapore government in the year 2000. This tripartite committee is responsible for setting up the Work-Life Strategy. Under the Work-Life Strategy, schemes such as Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) and Family Care Leave aim to help working Singaporeans achieve work-life balance. Although there were successful cases of use of FWA to promote work-life balance such as Kleen-Pak Products Pte Ltd and Singapore General Hospital (MOM, 2013), these cases are rare and few. The reality is that 7 in 10 employers are unsupportive of flexible work arrangements (Chew, 2013).
Yeo (2012) asserts that the underlying problem is the difficulty of employers in trusting employees to maintain work competency if they spend lesser time in the office. It is thus common for employers to judge employees’ productivity based upon the time they spent in the office. Employer’s distrust of employees’ productivity has resulted in the limited implementation of FWA in workplaces. This sustains the problem of loss of work-life balance. The onus is on individuals, to solve this issue of trust in order to achieve work-life balance. The Institute of Singapore Charted Accountants (2009) reiterates the role of employee in achieving work-life balance, where employees need to initiate the discussion with the employers and come to a middle ground on the issue of employer’s expectation of work quota and the ability of employee to achieve that quota. Discussion between employees and employers on work quota is vital for the issues of trust and productivity as it would be clear that productivity of employees is based on achieving the work quota instead of measuring productivity based on time spent in the office, and the only way for employee to gain the trust of employers is to meet the work quota despite being on FWA.
Employers are unsupportive of implementing FWA in their workplace despite encouragement by the government through financial incentives that help to defray the cost of implementing FWA and financial rewards (MOM, 2013). It is apparent that even financial rewards are unable to entice profit-driven companies and employers to implement FWA. Therefore, formal means of achieving work-life balance may not be successful. As a result, work-life balance can be achieved by individuals via informal means. TED Talks (2010) mentioned that, individuals have to be responsible for setting the boundaries of work in their lives. Therefore, an informal means of achieving work-life balance that can be employed by individuals would be the adoption of certain practices in their lives, such as abstaining from any work-related activities for an hour a day, and using that time to engage in personal activities. Despite the small amount of personal time being set aside, it should contribute to a better work-life balance because according to TED Talks (2010), “with the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your live”.
In conclusion, despite the Singapore government implementation of initiatives and financial encouragement for employers to promote work-life balance in Singapore, the unwillingness and unsupportive attitude of employers towards these initiatives has limited the success of existing initiatives. Therefore, individuals need to play a more active role in committing to set boundaries between work and life and gaining the trust of employers in order to utilize existing initiatives to attain work-life balance.
Friday, 1 November 2013
Critical Reflection Draft
The essay process provided a platform for us to put to use the things that we have learnt in es1102 so far, such as thesis writing, getting information out of sources, in-text citation doing up a reference. Like all other essays, it also allowed us to practice our writing skills so as to improve the common mistakes in our usual write-ups, such as run-on sentences or grammatical errors.
The essay topic was on globalization, a very broad topic. To me, it was a good thing as it gave me the flexibility to choose something that I was more interested in to write on. This made the essay writing process less mundane and also provided more motivation to do the write-up. The difficult part of the essay was to source for reliable information that could support my stand. There were many factors to consider for the reliability or sources, like the source of information and also how current were the information. This process was something I had to get used to as I do not have much prior experience for sourcing of information as during my JC days, information was readily fed to us. Another difficult part of the essay was to make the conscientious effort to give credit to sources in out citation and references which I did not enjoy.
At least the essay process exposed me to the essentials of academic writing before I had to do my other written assignments thus have a better understanding of the requirements of academic writing.
The essay topic was on globalization, a very broad topic. To me, it was a good thing as it gave me the flexibility to choose something that I was more interested in to write on. This made the essay writing process less mundane and also provided more motivation to do the write-up. The difficult part of the essay was to source for reliable information that could support my stand. There were many factors to consider for the reliability or sources, like the source of information and also how current were the information. This process was something I had to get used to as I do not have much prior experience for sourcing of information as during my JC days, information was readily fed to us. Another difficult part of the essay was to make the conscientious effort to give credit to sources in out citation and references which I did not enjoy.
At least the essay process exposed me to the essentials of academic writing before I had to do my other written assignments thus have a better understanding of the requirements of academic writing.
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