As an employer, you stand to benefit as part of your workforce goes remote. Recent studies have shown an increase in employee productivity when teams work from home. 

As you reduce your office real estate footprint, you will also get to enjoy substantial cost-savings. That’s why nearly 84 per cent of companies expressed an intention to increase their work-from-home capacity even beyond the pandemic. 

However, your employees also face a different set of risks when working from home, compared to working from the office.

And under the law here in Singapore, you owe a duty of care towards your remote employees to take all reasonably practical measures to keep them in a safe and healthy work environment.

This duty of care applies whether your employees work in the office or at their homes. And it also applies to companies of all sizes – from startups and small-medium businesses to the largest enterprises.

How am I responsible for my remote employees?

Singapore legislation and common law require you to provide a safe work environment for your employees and not put them in harm’s way.

And note that the term “workplace” isn’t limited to just offices but to any premise where your employees work, including their homes!

The duty of care you owe to your employees includes the following:

• Conducting risk assessments to identify hazards and implement effective risk controls.
• Taking reasonable practical measures to make sure that their work environment is safe.
• Ensuring safety measures are taken for any machinery, equipment, or process used at the workplace.
• Developing and implementing systems for emergencies.
• Ensuring your employees are provided with sufficient instruction, training and supervision to work safely.

Failing to carry out this duty of care can result in fines of up to S$500,000 for the first time offenders to S$1 million for repeat offenders.

Also Read: Work from home risks every employer needs to be aware of

How can I fulfill my duty of care in a practical way?

Carrying out your duty of care to your remote employees does not have to be difficult or expensive. We suggest a simple five-step approach.

Step 1: Create a work from home policy

Even if you have only a few employees working from home, this is the first step you should take. A thoughtfully drafted work from home policy will help to align your company’s expectations to your employees’ responsibilities.

And more importantly, it also helps to prevent disputes if anything happens when working from home. An effective work from home policy should include the following:

• Your policy brief and purpose
• Who’s eligible to work from home 
• What the approval process like like 
• What’s the frequency employees can work from home 
• How are employees expected to communicate with onsite staff 
• Is there an expected response time 
• What are their productivity measures and markets 
• Will the company provide or subsidise work from home setups 
• What equipment and tech support can employees expect
• The dress code 
• What remote work locations are available
• Channels for feedback 

Here is a template you can use to get started. 

Step 2: Review your employment contract template

We recommend reviewing your template employment contract and making changes, if necessary. Singapore labour law requires the employment contract to mention the employee’s place of work.

So if your company allows employees to work permanently or partially from home, you should also mention this inside the employment contract.

Also Read: Why remote working is the future for startups 

Step 3: Conduct risk assessments at the workplace

Workplace risk assessment is an integral part of health and safety at the workplace.

A proper risk assessment helps both you and your employee to identify potential hazards that could potentially cause harm to your employee. 

Once you’ve identified the risks, you can then evaluate it, find appropriate measures to control it and communicate this to your employees.

Often overlooked areas of potential risks when employees work from home include:

• Poorly set up workstations that can cause postural issues 

• Wires, cables, rugs or mats that are a trip hazard 

• Overloaded power strips that pose a fire risk


You can conduct a risk assessment in two ways.

The gold standard, which is expensive and time-consuming, is to have an in-person or virtual assessment done by a professional who is trained in workplace safety and/or ergonomics.

An alternative cost-effective method is to have your employees fill in a self-assessment checklist with photo submissions of their home workspace and receive workplace safety training.

Step 4: Evaluate and fill in the gaps revealed by the risk assessment

A properly designed self-assessment checklist and photos should allow you to assess whether there are potential risks or hazards at your employee’s home workplace.

If the gap exists, you should proceed to advise your employee to remedy the issues and train employees on how they can work safely.

For instance, this photo reveals that the employee is working from his bed and on an ironing board. 

This should immediately raise a red flag – employers can then choose to provide a proper work desk and chair or a stipend to purchase one, according to the remote work policy. 

Do note that while it is your employee’s responsibility to comply with your policy, it’s also your responsibility to ensure that these policies are clearly communicated to them.

Step 5: Ensure you are sufficiently covered for work-from-home related liabilities

If your existing business insurance doesn’t cover liabilities when employees work from home, it’s worth considering adding insurance to protect you and your employees in case of any work from home mishaps.

These insurance could include:

• Specialised work-from-home insurance This covers work-related injuries more likely to happen at home, such as ergonomic injuries, mental health support and accidents (trips and falls).

• Cyber insurance This covers any losses from cyberattacks which have increased due to more people working from home. 

• Property insurancee This covers damages to the company’s assets outside of the office premises and includes monitors, laptops, phones, chairs, etc.

• Employer or D&O liability insurance This covers the employers for any claims made by the employees, for instance, relating to health and safety injury claims

At the end of the day, other than it being a legal requirement, showing your employees that you care is also good for business. 

It helps to increase employee retention, improve their productivity and increase their engagement levels.

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To learn more about how to keep your employees safe and avoid legal liabilities, join our webinar with Esevel founder, Yuying Deng.

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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2020 has taken a huge toll on the workforce. In the USA, at the beginning of the pandemic, more than 20m lost jobs, though the numbers started looking better post-July, and employment is on an upward trajectory at present. Though the ones in jobs didn’t have an easy time, either.

Lack of remote work infrastructure and overnight adjustment to this working style came with its own set of challenges. Businesses worked hard the entire year to find the right model for continued uncertainty in bringing the workforce back to normalcy.

This dilemma alone has led to a record investment of US$1 billion+ in Q2, which is greater than the 13-quarter average of US$841 million.  

HR tech is considered white-hot, because companies operating in talent-constrained environments seek to invest in tools to help them better recruit, develop, and support their workforces. A record amount of capital has gone into AI solutions for talent recruitment.

However, the pandemic has shifted the quest to find solutions in the other overlooked areas of HR that require urgent attention and breakthrough solutions. It is hence safe to say that the next wave of investment in the HR space will likely be focused on the solutions in the areas listed below.

Self service technologies

The post-pandemic era will see a rise in the demand for employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-service (MSS) tools to make HR information more accessible.

Historically, ESS and MSS tools being purchased are seldom fully rolled out to the organisation. Mainly because organisations perceive this as putting too much burden on managers to accomplish tasks. The MSS tools were generally shelved and instead, a shared-services centre with HR administrative services was made available to the line managers.

Also Read: In October, logistics tech startups continued to gain investors’ attention as the world struggled through a pandemic

This approach is obsolete now and will not work well with the remote working era in the foreseeable future. The industry will be vying for interactive self-service tools in the area of on boarding, performance monitoring, and employee training and development.

The industry is yet to be disrupted by a comprehensive technology that will take away a lot of manual, repetitive tasks from the administrator’s hand.

Human capital management solutions

Although the majority of organisations have flat organisational structures and teams, much human capital management (HCM) solutions haven’t been built to support those structures. Post pandemic, the future of work lies in flat working structures that unlock the potential of dynamic teams.

As business strategies and teams grow more agile to keep pace with recurring change in companies, HR technology must adapt as well, including providing employees with more user-friendly and efficient experiences. The industry will see a rise in the demand for HCM solutions to deliver improved levels of system uptime and scalability.

For instance, a rise in remote working and gig working will lead to changing needs for remuneration cycles. HCM solutions with a more personalised, easier payment methodology will be of interest to many. 

Work redesign

Historically, companies have mitigated skill imbalances by redeploying staff continuously across teams, unbundling job roles into specific competencies by training and development modules.

Organisations are focused on redesigning jobs as one alternative to thwart the recruit from a shrinking supply of “purple unicorn” candidates in the job market. Investment in the skill set enhancement of the active employee will be top on their agenda.

In the remote work era, organisations will be looking for solutions that are leveraging technological systems and tools to reduce in-person dependencies and creating a virtual learning environment. 

Also Read: Propseller raises US$1.2M in seed funding to ease property sales through a combination of tech, property agents

Data privacy

The expectation of employees today is that internally they’ll be treated more like customers, and that includes how their personal data is handled. Many expect more transparency and control over their data.

To a certain extent, it’s up to HR to ensure that the policies and technology systems being used will provide the right level of transparency, as well as the right level of protection for employee data.

As more data-privacy laws are enacted to join the likes of the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act, HR leaders, and technology solutions will play a growing role in helping to strike the right balance to win employees trust.

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For many of us who are excited about the advent of 5G, it would be hard to believe that there is still a section of the population out there, who struggles for basic needs such as electricity, 3G, open borders for travel and safe working environment.

But for the residents of Gaza, this is a living reality. For, they have long acclimatised to the deprivation caused by the incessant conflicts between Palestine and Israel dating back to the 1940s.

Needless to say, this has largely affected the tech ecosystem in the region, which has witnessed airstrikes being launched in the middle of a startup pitching competition and startup offices being blown up— incidents that are part of their daily lives.

For a country that has been imprinted with the title “warzone”, it can be challenging to find financial resources and access to global payment gateways, despite having a growing talent.

It is not that investments are completely absent in Gaza; some amount of startup funding still comes in, especially from investors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. However, investors tend to prefer having physical contact with the founders — a criterion that is difficult to fulfil, because of the travel restrictions imposed on the residents.

Regardless of the piling problems, locals have remained largely resilient and continue to show persistence by bringing new ideas to the table. Even during extraordinarily abnormal circumstances, creativity blossoms but lacks expression because of limited access to resources.

Also Read: Meet the Southeast Asian startups participating in the Expara VirTech Global Accelerator programme

In this article, e27 highlights the efforts of Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) — the only startup incubator in the city — that provides opportunities for young Palestinian entrepreneurs to kickstart their own startups.

Founded in 2011, GSG is the result of a collaboration between global NGO Mercy Corps and Google for Startups. Since its inception, it has not only been helping founders to launch successful companies but has also been running programmes to help local individuals upskill.

Currently, GSG runs three programmes: 1) an academy that helps to teach and train individuals to become online freelancers, 2) Codeacademy, which helps individuals learn to code, and 3) GeeXelerator, an accelerator programme for early stage startups.

This article is largely focussed on GeeXelerator and its works.

How the programmes are run

According to GeeXelerator’s co-ordinator Yousef Elhallaq, the latest cohort received over 600 applications from idea-staged startups, of which 12 have been selected. The programme is currently being run virtually due to the pandemic.

The equity-free programme runs for 16 weeks wherein startups are provided with mentorship and funding to build on their ideas.

The first four weeks are dedicated towards the idea and market validation and the next few weeks on building an MVP and finding the right marketing strategy to get the product out.

An amount of US$1,000 will be provided to each startup in the third phase, which they can spend on marketing. At the end of the programme, the two top startups will be provided with a grant of US$10,000.

As for the selection process, the founders are asked to send a two-minute video to introduce the idea and the team, from which the best are chosen.

“There is no one strong criterion for founders to join the programme. Basically, we are looking for people who have the passion, skills and knowledge about the sector or the idea. We also focus on the scalability of the idea. The other factor is that the team should have at least one technical founder, so they can build their product during the programme,” Elhallaq added.

The GSG advantage

Access to payment gateway: Access to global payment gateways like Gpay and PayPal is hard in Gaza. So GSG has collaborated with global payment platform Stripe to make it easier for individuals associated with the accelerator to receive payments.

Access to global mentors: Even though travelling to Gaza is extremely difficult and requires a special visa or travel permit issued by the Israeli or Egyptian embassy, GSG has access to an online community of mentors from global companies, such as Google, Apple and Facebook.

Access to travel: Individuals are not allowed to leave the Gaza strip, therefore GSG allows founders to go on a field trip once a year to neighbouring countries to get more exposure.

Simpler to register a company: Thanks to its good relations with the government, GSG has made company registration easier for founders, which otherwise is a cumbersome process.

Innovation in a mysterious market

While Palestine might not have the best resources, Elhallaq shares that the region has one of the highest educated population in the world — about 90 per cent of all the residents in Gaza are university graduates.

A large part of innovating in Gaza involves self-learning because of the lack of global resources, which is also part of the reason why GSG runs programmes to upskill individuals via Codeacademy, so that they can bring their idea to life or get them matched to other co-founders.

Hakini is one of the startups being incubated at GSG. Founded only three months ago, the firm focuses on increasing access to mental health resources and service in the Arab world and has already acquired 150 users.

Also Read: This Surabaya-based startup is tackling depression by providing easier access to mental health services

The other is Tourud, which provides delivery services for e-commerce businesses. According to Elhallaq, establishing online businesses via social media handles such as Instagram and Facebook is very popular in comparison to setting up websites. Since Tourud takes care of delivery, it is easier for small business owners to focus on the core product.

There are a few popular startups in the region (not part of GSG), including Tashkeel3D, a 3D-printing service that provides customers with medical equipment; and Mummy Helper, a platform that gets Arab mothers to receive support on parenting.

E-commerce currently remains one of the popular sectors in Gaza, after health and education.

Supporting tech in Gaza

While this is only one side of the coin, tech in Gaza is largely under political pressure which disallows it from reaching its fullest potential. Luckily, since the world is not defined by physical borders, there are many ways for mentors, investors and founders from Southeast Asia and other parts of the world to contribute towards empowering the ecosystem in Gaza.

Here are some ways to support Gaza’s tech ecosystem:

1. Mentorship support: While GSG already has more than 300 mentors from global companies such as Apple, Facebook and HSBC, it constantly looks to recruit new mentors, who can not only share their experience and knowledge about the software development and entrepreneurship but also about freelancing and self-growth. There are no specific criteria to be a mentor, and anyone can apply to join the network.

2. Hiring Gazan talent: Through the Codeacademy platform, Gazan talent can be supported by hiring talented developers and designers at a cost that is lower than most countries.

3. Offering investor network: By connecting GSG with MENA-based investors.

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Image Credit: Gaza Sky Geeks

 

 

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As the Smart Nation push continues to position Singapore as a compelling innovation-led market for businesses and high-tech talent, the demand for software and the role of the developer based in the Southeast Asia region will evolve over the next few years.

GitLab’s 2020 Global DevSecOps Survey found that developers are already reporting new responsibilities – such as tasks normally associated with ops and security – while at the same time releasing software much faster and embracing new technologies including Kubernetes, microservices, and even artificial intelligence (AI).

The adoption of Agile and DevOps processes and practices across the software development life cycle are still somewhat immature. Enterprise leaders in ASEAN are focused on ways to provide faster releases and fixes and create innovative customer experiences.

To achieve the acceleration, they need to address the various dimensions of the changing developer role to stay ahead of the competition.

A new org chart

Goodbye, IT department and hello line of business. As the software stakes get higher and product managers continue to set software development goals, it makes sense that developers will end up embedded on business teams rather than technology teams.

A report from Forrester Research looking at trends for 2020 refers to this shift as the “dev diaspora” and predicts that after some bumps in the road it will improve productivity and release speed. The basic message: Software is critical to business success so should be located with the business rather than in the IT department.

New colleagues and culture

With developers moving “into the business” and a growing emphasis on citizen devs, it’s clear not all teams will be filled with hardcore coders. Some certainly will be working alongside citizen developers. But others may also find “team members” in unexpected places, like their integrated development environments (IDE).

Also Read: PoC to prototype to MVP: Software development 101 for early-stage tech startups

Although AI is still nascent in most enterprise development teams, some industry analysts are bullish that AI can bring speed, advice, structure, and perhaps even coding to the table in three to five years from now.

However, no matter how quickly AI ends up as part of the pro-developer work experience, it’s clear dev culture is going to have to change if “development” is no longer such a specialised skill.

To achieve a successful transformation, leaders need to figure out how to improve collaboration across different teams and encourage rapid, continuous learning and improvement, especially from their mistakes.

Yet another shift left

Security, test, and automation may have already shifted left, so now, organisations need to get ready for customers to shift left. Traditionally, developers have been largely absent from customer interactions, but that’s going to change moving forward. Developers need to be taking on a design mindset, thinking about the customer and building features together with the customer they are connecting with them as humans.

The humble growth curve

From 5G to edge computing, micro services and more, cutting-edge technologies will be mainstream soon. Developers will need to understand how to tie them neatly together. The fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT) market – predicted to offer US$31.7 billion in opportunities for Communication Service Providers in Asia-Pacific by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan – means edge computing may be coming to DevOps teams sooner than anticipated.

Edge computing will challenge developers to literally put processing power within the application (on the “edge,” in other words) rather than having to reach out to the cloud for computations. Despite the immense hype, a 5G wireless network rollout is underway in Southeast Asia. Singapore is expected to start commercial 5G from January 2021, with two 5G licenses being issued to StarHub and SingTel.

With the aim of 5G coverage of at least half of Singapore by end 2022, 5G has the potential to upend mobile application use as we know it, and thus mobile application development.

Dramatically faster download and upload times will give developers the chance to create more-feature-rich applications with better user experiences including potentially both augmented and virtual reality.

Also Read: The open source business model: can ‘free’ be ‘profitable’?

Micro services go mainstream

The GitLab survey found that only 26 per cent of respondents fully use them but they are key to the future. Distributed systems will have a greater need for tracing and troubleshooting services and as such, the interactions between services are going to be especially important.

Developers will need to know how to manage micro services in the near future. AI has often been dismissed as a promising technology breakthrough that somehow remains out of reach, particularly when it comes to software development.

However, the 2020 Global DevSecOps Survey found that close to one-quarter of developers surveyed said that an understanding of AI/ML will be the most important skill for their future careers. And roughly 16 per cent of testers said their teams are using bots right now or have an AI/ML tool in place for testing.

It’s certainly an exciting time for DevOps and developers across Southeast Asia, as organisations look to harness the opportunities from the market’s unique position to lead the region in innovation. By understanding how the role of the developer is changing and the tech coming their way, organisations can undertake the necessary process and culture shift to enable changes in the developer thought process.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Question: What’s the most important consideration when deciding, among founders, who should take on which leadership role?

Play to your strengths

“I have been involved in multiple partnerships at the founder level and have learned through experience it is always best to play to your strengths. While one person may have initially come up with the product or model, another may be more suited to lead the company as the CEO. Every role at the founder level is equally important, so assign them with the company’s best interest in mind.”

– Dustin Cavanaugh (@renewageenergy), RenewAge

Look at team dynamics

“In every team, there are dynamics that should be taken under consideration when distributing roles. In the very early stage, everyone wants to be a C-Level, but as time goes by people should be willing to drop the CxO title and take over what they can handle best.”

– Yiannis Giokas (@ygiokas), PCCW Global

Look at various life stages

“Most entrepreneurs never weigh their personal life and the overwhelming power it has over their business. Marriage, kids, grandkids and health concerns should all be factored in when deciding on leadership positions. They should also be re-evaluated as your business and you grow and evolve. The pace you worked at two years ago may not be the pace you’re at now with differing factors in place.”

– Kim Kaupe (@kimkaupe), ZinePak

Look at proven expertise

“If you have to ask yourselves which role each co-founder should have, it means that the team is likely not balanced to begin with. The co-founding team should be chosen so that the expertise of each one covers a certain aspect of the business: tech development, business development and management. It’s not about what one wants — it’s about what one brings to the table.”

– Daniele Gallardo (@472), Actasys

Also Read: Angel investors appreciate these 5 uncommon things that founders do

Think about what you want most

“As an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to build toward the future you want to create. When deciding who should take on what role, play to each other’s strengths, but also think about what it is that you all really want to be doing. Strive to create a team and an environment where you can make that happen. You founded a company to do more of the work you love.”

– Lindsay Mullen (@LindsMMullen), Prosper Strategies

Divide and conquer, then trust

“Most founding teams already have complimentary skill sets (someone technical becomes the CTO, someone more business oriented becomes the CEO, et cetera). The most important things is to have a delineation of roles so the founding team can get the most done, and then leave space for the other(s) to do work without micromanaging.”

– Fan Bi (@blanklabel), Menswear Reviewed

Look to performance as the primary consideration

“Founders spend a lot of time thinking in the abstract about who will be the CEO, COO, et cetera. Ultimately, it’s all guesswork. You just have no idea until you’ve tried it. At InGenius, we gave all the founders projects typically done by the CEO, and the person who performed best took that role. It takes a little longer than just choosing, but it dramatically reduced the chance of error.”

– Joel Butterly (@JoelButterly), InGenius Prep

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The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organisation comprising the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

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