What is the difference between Contract of Service and Contract for Service?

A contract of service is an agreement whereby one person agrees to employ another as an employee and the other agrees to serve his employer an an employee. The employer would need to contribute statutory retirement pension / fund and provide relevant statutory benefits such as annual leave and sick leave.

A contract for service is an agreement whereby a person is engaged as an independent contractor, such as a self-employed person or vendor engaged for a fee to carry out an assignment or a project for the company. Under such an arrangement, there is no employer-employee relationship, and the person is not covered by a country Employment Act.

(source: Guide on Employment Laws for Employers, Singapore MOM April 2010) 

What They Don't Teach You in College: "Dip vs Degree"

This is just some of my research work from the Internet. No really my own piece of work. Enjoy reading it.

What They Don't Teach You in College: "Evaluation of Foreign Educational Credentials"

In this article - I would like to share with you about company that can help HR professional conduct evaluation on the candidates' educational credentials. When designing your job advertisement targeted at foreign country, you can inform the applicants to use the following website to get their educational credentials validated to the USA standard.

World Education Services (www.wes.org tel: 212-966-6311)

Educational Credential Evaluators, Inc. (www.ece.org, tel: 414-289-3400)

Common Mistake Done By In-house & External Recruiters (Headhunters)

Common mistake are:

1. Never feedback / up-date the candidates about (a) the progress of job application and why their application was rejected. 
2. Officially informing the candidates that their applications is rejected because their clients budgeted (company) remuneration package is below the candidate current package.
3. Asking the candidates to consider the job officer at same rate or lower.
4. Asking the question (a) "reason for leaving" and (b) "last salary" for past jobs. This questions should only be applicable on the candidate's last company / organization.
5. With the new generation "Y" coming to the workforce; the dynamic labour market and business environment - the term "job hopping" is not applicable anymore. A change in minds is required ... any one who has a track record with a company for 2 years is good enough nowdays!
6. Advertising the jobs as 'strategic' but during interview asking orperational questions that doesn't probe the candidate's competencies in strategic issues and planning.
7. In an international / overseas recruitment project - recruiters fail to understand the education system of the targeted country where the candidate is educated .... e.g.,  (i) associate diploma = general degree; (ii) associate degree = diploma; (iii) general degree = non-honor degree; (iv) Professional Diploma = Degree; (v) Professional Certificate = Diploma.
8. When interviewing an experience candidate with more that 10 years of working, interviewer should focus on identifying the relevant experiences; job competencies; and value-added knowledge and skills to the organization. Focus less on academic / educational qualifications.

Emerging HR Practice in Singapore: "No Medical Certificate" Required!!

Since last year March or April 2010, my company started practicing "no medical certificate" if you need to take half day or one (1) sick leave. This is one of the positive action taken by the company management. I just hope the employees don't "miss-use". I guess it worked well for my organization is because it is a regional management office and most of the employees are of middle and senior management staff category who 'clocked' more eleven (11) hours a day.

In recent month, I received a few emails and calls asking if my company was into the "no medical certificate" practice for one (1) day sick leave. I happily mentioned to them "Yes" but some of them were 'skeptical' about the practice.

For the 'skeptic' ... I shared with them the following ...

• in India and Indonesia - most companies only require the employees to produce "medical certificate" if they are taking medical / sick leave more that 2 days (meaning 3 days).
• why no medical certificate required? The countries I mentioned above, medical facilities are not easily accessible and it can be expensive for low wages employees to seek medical treatment and ask for medical certificate.
• practice self-healing or medication. Feedback from our employees: sometimes they are just dizzy or having a mild flu. They only need to rest at home and self medication e.g., taking 'Panadol' (Paracetamol).
• company policy / precaution - since our management office is small, we always advise  our employees that if they are having flu, please stay at home - don't come to office and spread it to other... maybe this is why in Singapore during the flu season it became an epidemic! 
• can be a 'cost saving' effort. If every time our employee need to take medical / sick leave and the management impose them to submit a medical certificate from the company doctors ... ask yourself ... who is paying for it ... end of the day ... it is still the company bearing all the cost and if it is a co-payment scheme ... at least 80% of the cost is bear by companies.

With these sharing, I would like to stress that for the 'no medical certification' policy to be successfully accepted by company management and the HR community ... the key word is 'trust'.

Website for Job Descriptions

For the past few days, I have been drafting some job descriptions and it trigger me to write a short article on this topic.

Over the years, I have always find it useful to make references on the following website for some JD "juice" ... please click the hyperlink to visit the following website

• O*Net Online: http://www.onetonline.org/

• The Job Explorer: http://www.thejobexplorer.com/Job_Description/A-Z_Listings.html


Website: "SME Toolkit Singapore"

Singapore, 07 June 2011 - Yesterday, I don't know what I click in the Internet and ended-up to this website page known as "SME Toolkit Singapapore". It was a blessing for me, another HR related website to my collection. The website has other non-HRM topics like:

1. Accounting & Finance
2. Business Planning
3. International Business
4. Legal & Insurance
5. Marketing & Sales
6. Operations
7. Technology
8. Workshop

Note: Do remember, you need to register (it is simple and free!) to enjoy the access to tons of templates and samples. Please click the hyperlink to visit the website: http://singapore.smetoolkit.org/singapore/en/category/1384/Compensation-Benefits

Emerging HR Practices in 2011

Recently, I attended Singapore HR Summit 2011 - Productivity & Workplace ROI. One of the interesting topic that was presented by one of the international speaker was two (2) "emerging HR practice" ...

1. 'Sleeping' .... in Europe, organization is allowing their employees to take a nap or have a 'sleep session' between 20 to 30 minutes. According to the presenter, research finding indicated that a 15 minutes nap / sleep can increase productivity as much as 15% to 30%.
2. 'Removing the practice of conducting yearly performance appraisal session' ... according to research, there is no evidence that performance appraisal session improve employee's performance. Please don't take it that by removing the yearly performance appraisal session - the organization does not care about managing performance. What they are arguing is managers should be managing and providing positive feedback to their subordinate on 365 days a year.
3. 'Free food' ...  there is a trend that large organizations (Google, Microsoft Corp, etc.)  are provide 'food' as part of their employment benefits. Some provide breakfast and other provide lunch! The presenter link the logic of providing 'food' benefit to "Maslow Hierarchy of Needs" ... sound logic!

Exhibit 1: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Employee Engagement Models

In addition to my previous article on "Video Session: Employee Engagement" - listed below are some samples of the Employee Engagement models available from the Internet ....

 

[Resource: http://www.davidzinger.com/zinger-employee-engagement-model-4011/ ]

[Resource: http://www.bpanz.com/page/Services/Employee_Engagement_Model/]

[Resource: http://was2.hewitt.com/bestemployers/anz/pages/driving_engagement.htm]

 

[Resource: http://www.boston.com/jobs/nehra/062308.shtml]

 

[Resource: http://www.employesurveys.co.uk/employee_engagement_section/employee_engagement.php]

 

[Resource: http://www.themeetingmagazines.com/index/Default.aspx?tabid=1152]

[Resource: http://www.humanext.com/employee-engagement-for-change.html]

 

[Resource: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/05/09111348/5]

[Resource: http://www.ennovaconsulting.com/Employee%20surveys-951.aspx]

Video Session: Employee Engagement

If you don't feel like reading, then this page will be good ... no no it is great for you ... all the video links talk about "Employee Engagement" ... check it out .... it is a great way to increase your knowledge ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxoOWUCedo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JbWInqfKLk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4HS70RJEI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7grVYxaobQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3itayJYK2ek&feature=related

HR Process: Conflict Management and Workforce Relations

HR Process: Survey, Research & Feedback