NORMALISING CAREER BREAKS
Mr Tan said that going away for four to six months should not affect an employee’s career, as it does not take away their competence and contributions. It would not prevent him from climbing the ladder at Providend, he added.
However, Mr Tan acknowledged that if an employee is away for a prolonged period of time, he has to accept the trade-offs.
“The other colleagues will then take over the role … doing everything that you’re supposed to do for the next two to three years. Then … the trade-off is that this person might be promoted faster than you,” he said.
However, Singapore needs to create an environment where a parent who decides to take a break does not experience a “career penalty”, said Dr Kalpana Vignehsa, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore Institute of Policy Studies, whose research interests include the lived experience of parenthood;
“(Firms should) make it normal to take a short break and come back, and not try and normalise that people are going to be penalised in the workplace for taking that time to focus on young families,” she told CNA’s Singapore Tonight.
She added that there could be a “use it or lose it” system to encourage fathers to use their paternity leave amid low take-up rates.
“We have to make it really normal and easy for fathers to take that leave, to focus on caring for their children,” she said.
She pointed to the experience of Nordic countries that equalised parental leave and found that fathers gain from playing the role of primary caregiver.
“It has long-haul benefits for (fathers) – their relationship with their children, their relationship with their spouses … family bonds that come from actually spending that time. I would love for us to also have that in Singapore,” she said.
