But before you go tell your boss to piss off and devote your life to getting one of these careers, know that there is a downside to each.

#6.
Video Game Play Tester
The Dream:

This is the job every boy wants when he’s 13, and it is, in fact, real. Video game developers and companies will actually pay people to play video games all day, as that’s the only way to track down bugs before release. And yes, “before release” means not only do you get paid to play, you get to play the games months or years before anyone else.

Did we say we dreamed of it when we were 13? Hell, this is the job we want now.

The Reality:

It’s sort of like getting a job testing various sex lubrication formulas, only to realize that the goal is finding out which ones make your dick break out in an angry rash. The entire point of play testing is to find the parts of the game that are horrible, frustrating and broken, and play them over and over and over and over.

The life of a games tester is ruled by strict guidelines from the developers which condemns you to playing the same small section of the same game for your entire eight hour shift. Each time you hit a glitche, you write up a small treatise describing exactly how you found it. They’ll try to fix it, you’ll go back the same spot and play it over and over again to make sure. This goes on for weeks.

Also keep in mind that sometimes you won’t even get to play games, but, rather, will be asked to test the hardware itself which includes such life-affirming assignments as turning the console on and off hundreds of times while carefully timing and documenting how long it takes to power-up each time.

Also, the “perk” of being able to play games long before their commercial releases is quickly corrupted when the realization hits that the further ahead of the release date you are, the more unfinished and irritating the product is to play.

Unfinished levels, features that are only halfway implemented, rampant bugs and glitches mean that by the time the game actually makes it to shelves, the very thought of it will make you break into a cold sweat and scream “FUCK YOU!” every time you pass an EBGames (if you don’t do that already).

#5.
Brewmaster
The Dream:

Brewmasters are the head honchos of the beer making world. They create and decide which recipes to use, which beers to brew and bring to the market and strictly oversee the entire production process from grain to bottle. They also have the definite perk of often tasting the fruits of their labor as it’s produced to ensure “quality control,” or as we like to think of it, the ability to drink beer on the job without having to create a secret compartment under your desk to store it in.

The Reality:

As we mentioned, brewmasters are responsible for every step of the brewing process, at all times, to make sure that every bottle of beer is produced equally and without fault. Because of this, they often work 10 hour days, seven days a week, year round, constantly monitoring the brew and adjusting the recipes when needed.

Because brewmasters are working with unpredictable, natural ingredients like barley, yeast and hops, any slight variation of each has to be compensated for at each step of the brewing process so that the finished product always tastes the same to consumers. That means the brewmaster must keep an eye, and tongue, on each batch of beer at all times during it’s production making the job extremely tedious and foul tasting, especially when you consider what a half-brewed beer tastes like.

Brewmasters and brewers work in factory-like conditions that often exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, are potentially dangerous and, because of the malted barley and roasting of hops, a stench not unlike the odor of urine continually hangs in the air.

Also, much of being a brewmaster is spent keeping the gigantic tanks and intricate pipe systems spotlessly clean of any dirt or grease build-up so as not to contaminate the beer. And to top it all off, malting of the barley produces rootlets that drip off and create a heavy, dense paste; a byproduct that is often sold as animal feed, which must be scooped out and stored away by, you guessed it, the brewmaster.

But after all of your hard work, drenched in sweat and body crevices lined with itchy malt waste, you get the distinct pleasure of tasting the sweet, ice cold beer that you produced for the final time, as it’s bottled. Except, when it’s bottled, it’s noticeably warm and if there is even a slight variation of the taste from normal, the entire batch must be thrown away, dooming you to start the whole process all over again. Cheers!

#4.
Concert Promoter
The Dream:

Concert, or event, promoters are completely responsible for every aspect of staging a great concert from it’s initial planning, to final production. That means they get to work out how big and flashy the show will be, what cities it will take place in, how much money to sink into it and exactly which bands will play. All of that gives them an inside view of the music business and allows them to dictate exactly how and when a concert will be staged.

They also enjoy the enviable perks of experiencing tons of concerts from backstage, partying with the bands themselves after the show and getting lots of those cool placards that VIPs get to wear around their necks.

The Reality:

How about this: During the concert season from March to October, the job typically requires 70 hour work weeks with absolutely no guarantee of any kind of paycheck. See, a promoter’s salary is entirely based on how well the show they put on does, and whether or not it makes any profit. In the same league as being a professional gambler, a promoter can make as little as minimum wage (or less) depending on the concert’s success after spending hundreds of hours planning and executing it. Also, because the occupation is very competitive and job openings are sparse, only the very few, absolute cream of the crop actually succeed and end up making any money.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, that enviable perk of being able to meet and party with the bands we mentioned earlier is actually kind of a curse. It turns out that a lot of bands have very specific tastes and demands that must be met before they agree to go out on stage. These lists of requests are called “riders” and can involve tedious tasks such as sorting the band’s M&Ms by color. Even after fulfilling all of bizarre stipulations on the list, concert promoters are responsible for the band’s needs during and after the show as well.

So you end up not really hanging out with Aerosmith so much as acting as their servant by delivering their chicken tikka and Indian rugs, and pointing them to a local chiropractor. As if they’d really want to hang out with you anyway.

#3.
Stay-at-Home Dad
The Dream:

Stay-at-home dads, otherwise known as “househusbands,” are becoming increasingly more common and accepted in Western society as more women eschew traditional gender roles and obtain independent and lucrative jobs.

Compared to stuffy office work or hard labor, the seemingly faux responsibilities of keeping the house tidy, and the kids fed, seems like it’d be a breeze that leaves lots of time for relaxation, masturbation and catching up on our soaps.

The Reality:

The first perceived perk of leaving a traditional job to be a househusband is that there is no longer a boss to deal with and you are now able to dictate your own schedule and tasks, on your own time. But in reality, the exact opposite is true. A stay-at-home dad has the most demanding, most obnoxious, rudest boss possible: a child. Babies and toddlers make unreasonable demands and give out impossible deadlines to meet at all hours of the day (and night). In fact, the job never ends. There is no time clock, no shift whistle and no drinks with the guys after work.

“Sorry guys, can’t go out. Old Man Baby is being a real ball-buster, again.”

This is an occupation that requires 13 hour days, for every single day of the year, and includes the necessity of being on call at all times, much like an emergency surgeon. Except surgeons make over $300,000 a year while househusbands only make what is essentially free room and board.

Although, even if you do manage to keep the job of househusband and turn it into a career, your wife is likely to fire you anyway… from the relationship. Apparently traditional gender roles exist for a reason, as many women instinctually lose respect for and attraction to their husbands because of the still deep-seated belief that men should be the protectors and supporters of the family. Shockingly, a grown man wearing an apron, holding a dustbuster in one hand and a dirty diaper in the other just ain’t sexy.

#2.
Professional TV Watcher
The Dream:

You might be calling bullshit on this job, but we assure you, it does exist, and it just might be the greatest occupation ever. What other job allows, nay, requires you to watch TV all day while paying up to $12 an hour to do so? This “too good to be true” job is required by certain television productions including late night talk shows, news satire programs like The Daily Show, and other productions that focus on using clips and quotes from the world of television for comedic purposes.

Even companies like the Neilsen Service that keeps track of the ratings for every single television show hire professional couch potatoes to ruin their eyes for money.

The Reality:

The problem with watching TV all day, every day, is that you have to watch TV all day, every day. While eight straight hours of television every day for seven days a week may sound great if you’re assuming you’ll be tuned into shows you actually like, the reality is far harsher. With so many TV shows currently roaming the air waves, the odds of you being assigned to watch a show you enjoy are miniscule, especially if you’re working for a comedy-centric clip show.

As with the video game tester, you’re specifically watching horrible, grating TV as part of the job (since the best clips to make jokes about come from the worst, most horrible television shows ever broadcast–we’re looking at you Tyra Banks). It’s your job to watch every excruciating minute of them. We hope you really like LA based reality soap operas.

Say hi to your new best friends.

But it gets worse. It turns out those guys watching Oprah for eight hours a day have it good compared to the poor schmucks that work for the Nielsen Product Placement service. What is that? Well, you know when you spot a can of Coke or the Nike swoosh in your favorite TV show and curse underhanded corporate marketing techniques? Some people do that for a living.

They go to work to sit in front of a TV and literally count how many instances of product placement there are in various network TV Shows. How much of that could you stand before you were unable to watch TV at home without muttering “Toyota… Ford… Toyota again… ” during every car chase on 24.

#1.
Food Taster
The Dream:

This isn’t the job they had back in the old days, when a food taster was a person employed by rulers and other powerful leaders to screen meals for poisons (though some are paranoid enough to demand that even now). Food tasters today are most likely found working for food manufacturers to help them develop new products, or make sure existing foods taste as they should.

Almost every company in the food industry employs tasters who are paid to sample anything from wine to chocolate on a daily basis to ensure proper consistency. Some companies even allow the tasters to suggest and influence new recipes, essentially turning them into chefs who also get to eat the gourmet meals they create instead of having to serve them to the loud, non-tipping douchebags at table eight.

The Reality:

Modern food tasting is a science first and foremost, and is treated as such. All tasting takes place, not at a cozy intimate table for two, but in a sterile booth flooded with only red light, where meat is shoved through a hole in the wall.

Some tasters are more fortunate than having to taste underdone meat for a living and are able to enjoy making love to cheese and chocolate with their tongues for science. However, even when dealing with such delectable treats, tasting fatigue sets in quickly (essentially the tongue gets “fried” and can’t taste anything anymore for a little while), especially when one considers the large sample sizes some tasters have to work through which can sometimes number into the hundreds of morsels.

And then there are the alternative foods and food projects that aren’t so mainstream, but need testing as well. Companies have employed tasters to sample various types of mushrooms, measure escalating levels of “rancidity” in expired foods and even ingest flavored birth control pills.

Some people even make a living eating pet food. Yes that’s right. Since dogs and cats evidently can’t discuss the finer aspects of their palates well enough, it falls to borderline lunatics to give the stamps of approval before the kibble is served. One such taster, Simon Allison, even has a favorite dish: “organic luxury chicken dinner with vegetables for cats”.

If you’re not suitably grossed out by that, keep in mind that many of these foods include “animal by-products”, which can include feathers, animal fur and diseased, cancerous organs determined to be unfit for human consumption.

Then again so can all the other candidates. So how do you prepare for a job interview and just what do you have to do to stand out of the crowd?

Here are some top tips to bear in mind and which will help you impress on the interviewer that you are the right person for the job.

1. Be Prepared:

There is no excuse for not preparing properly for a job interview. You will have had at least a few days warning and quite possibly a lot more time. Research the company, review your CV and practice your answers until you can deliver them smoothly and naturally.

2. Focus on your strengths:

Remember that the organisation knows that you CAN do the job and they want you to confirm this to them during the job interview. Don’t let any negative experiences or a gap in your career for example, negate all the great work you have done.

3. Step into the Interviewers Shoes:

What exactly is the interviewer looking for from you? Imagine yourself in the interviewers place and try to get a feel for what they need from you. Once you can do that effectively you will be able to build a relationship with them from the first moment of the interview.

4. Listen:

Focus on the interview questions being asked and if you are not sure of the meaning of the question, check with the interviewer. This is a two way conversation and the interviewer will respond favourable to being engaged like this. Obviously don’t do this with every question.

5. Relevant Answers:

Keep your answers relevant to the interview question and do not ramble. You may have an interesting story to tell or a great skill but if it is not required in the job don’t mention it.

6. Body Language:

Smiling, maintaining eye contact, a relaxed focused posture, restrained gesticulation are all examples of good body language which will work for you in the job interview.

7. Ask Questions:

You will be given an opportunity to ask questions usually at the end however you do not have to wait until then. As in any conversation there will be an appropriate time when you can interject and ask relevant questions. Be aware that questions about salary, working hours, holidays etc should not be asked at this stage.

• Stay Detached While Conducting The Interview

During the perfect interview the interviewer must be dispassionate, at least to some extent. Make the interviewee welcome by all means, and engage with them in order to see how they conduct themselves. But at the same time try to keep a part of yourself distant from the question and answer process as the interview progresses. That part should be checking how perfectly the person matches the personality traits and skills that have been identified for the role.

This will also allow you to counteract the often quoted fact that interviewers make their mind up in the first ten seconds. You may well be unable to stop yourself form making a quick subconscious decision as to how much you like the person. Learning how to conduct an interview while remaining dispassionate will enable you to get over that and assess whether the person is the perfect match for the role, which after all is why you are both there.

• Asking and Listening

The interviewer must listen. Make notes if necessary but try and keep them brief and give the interviewee your full attention. Occasional nods and the odd ‘yes’ will give them confidence that you value what they say. This will encourage them to open up during the interview, and the perfect listener will use this to learn more.

Ask a mix of open and closed questions, depending on the situation. A key tip when conducting a job interview is to ask mostly open questions. Occasionally closed questions will be necessary, particularly if you think you have picked up on a potential problem area and want to delve deeper.

• Don’t be scared of silence

If you have asked a question and there’s no response, in a work environment the natural thing to do is to re-phrase and repeat the question. Although the perfect interviewer would not leave a job candidate hanging out to dry unnecessarily, try not to jump in to fill the silence straight away.

Give them time to think about their response and you may find that you get even more detail in return. Of course, only do this if you are sure that it is a question that you have asked in the right way, and that they should be able to answer.

Learning how to interview also means learning how to communicate effectively and using silences is a very useful skill.

• Perfect Preparation Reaps Benefits

Employers should prepare to conduct a job interview by reviewing the job description and the job specification. Preparing relevant questions which should be about the skills, qualities and behaviours required and can explore how the applicant would deal with the practical problems that the person might face in their new post. Situational questions such as ‘tell me how you have dealt with a similar situation in your current post’ will elicit more than asking very general questions.

Remember that in most of today’s organisations a job interview needs to be a two-way process. It’s as much about the interviewee finding out whether the job and the company are right for them as the other way round. Consider what you want to say about the company and make sure the interviewee has ample opportunities to ask questions too. Those questions may well give you valuable extra insights.

Finally, if you have lots of interviews try to arrange them with five or ten minute gaps between each one. This will give the perfect opportunity to run through each interview in your head, and make notes about the interviewee’s conduct, before the next person comes in and your focus shifts to them.

Ask legal interview questions that illuminate the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses to determine job fit. Avoid illegal interview questions and interview practices that could make your company the target of a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit

Illegal Job Interview Questions

Illegal interview questions include any interview questions that are related to a candidate’s:

• Age
• Race, ethnicity, or color
• Gender or sex
• Country of national origin or birth place
• Religion
• Disability
• Marital or family status or pregnancy

Especially in the course of a comfortable interview during which participants are relaxed, don’t let the interview turn into a chat session. Seemingly innocuous interview questions such as the following are illegal.

Sample Illegal Job Interview Questions

• What arrangements are you able to make for child care while you work?
• How old are your children?
• When did you graduate from high school?
• Are you a Singapore citizen?
• What does your wife do for a living?
• Where did you live while you were growing up?
• Will you need personal time for particular religious holidays?
• Are you comfortable working for a female boss?
• There is a large disparity between your age and that of the position’s coworkers. Is this a problem for you?
• How long do you plan to work until you retire?
• Have you experienced any serious illnesses in the past year?

Indicators to show that you are asking illegal questions:

Example 1: An interviewee is late for the interview and he start to give an excuse that his grandfather is sick and is admitted to the hospital. You start to ask “So what happened to him”? If you are the interviewee’s friend, then you are allowed to go further into it. If you at the perspective of an interviewer, then better not probe further. This will lead you to ask about his family status and everything.

The point is, are all these crucial in you choosing this interviewee as your employee. The interviewee have brought all is merits to the interview, showing that he’s all ready for the job that he’s taking.

Example 2:

A young guy came for an interview with his results for A Levels. He happened to be a retainee during junior college. However, if you further probe the reason behind his retake of A Levels and about his results. It’s getting too personal and also it’s out of topic.

It’s an interview and you should accept the way he is if you are willing to let him take up the job. 

Don’t sidetrack during an interview! as you may have other better candidates that are waiting outside!

Don’t ask questions that need the interviewee to probe further into their personal life!

It is not easy to understand how much power has been unleashed through this. And that this has reached hands of the commercial entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur, i.e. the business commune, is willing to invest money in to the IT area. And more and more opportunities have been researched and opened. Opportunities to whom? To those who have ideas. 

 How do they implement their ideas: through wizards of technology : the s/w engineersTherefore, it has escalated the situation, and the gap between the Demand for qualified and competent people who convert data in to gold has increased. Greed is there as the opportunity is there. Opening of opportunities has lead to scramble. But it is a technical and a specialized expert manpower that matters. The supply was already limited and with ever-growing opportunities the gap between demand and supply has increased. The world is opening its wings and as more people realize the power, the mad rush increases to get some people on to their sides, which means pinching people by the have-nots from the haves. Companies, I mean here. 

And let us accept this. Period. So much so for the employers side. As for the employee is concerned he gets another opportunity to exploit (or best utilize) his or her skill on the computer and the IT boom. For the Software Engineer the situation has created More options

• More venues to satiate desires
• More work to do
• More opportunities
• More places to work in and because of this the attrition rate is spiraling at over 40% in many companies.

In the past, the situation was always that of demand led the supply by far. Thus there is an increased flight. Talk to any Software Engineer; Search his pocket: to discover three offers, Tickets to fly and so on!!! Hold the flying man! Poof! Gone! Smaller Companies have been stripped of manpower and skeletoned and there are no hands to work! (I mean brains to work). Thus they can’t earn enough to survive and an easier option for them is to look for larger fish and lure them to eat them up. Advantage 1 is hidden in this. These companies have quickly realized this and have offered stock option plans to their employees so that when they get eaten up, the employees make at least a ton of money each. And the employees wait for the ultimate to happen. And this has become the formula number 1 for the retention. But that will hold people for some time only. As the smarter of the people have started looking at companies that are bought or potentially will be bought by bigger of the bigger fishes. And faster than their own! Employer Folks, please remember that one formula is not enough to retain employees. The old funda of salary hikes has got a new twist. Give pays hikes faster. Half the industry is now giving hikes twice a year. That is Formula 2 for retention.Culture is the funda 3, environment funda 4, work funda 5 is the other. Funda 6 is to build a niche around your company’s name. An aura! But remember Bund Mutthi to lakh ki, khul gai to khak ki! . Therefore, manage things very carefully. Add gusto by pegging to big names, big customers. 

Grow. Keep growing your Company in terms of numbers. That is Funda 7. People perceive a shrinking software company as a closing company. While growth in a growing Company infects enthusiasm and people join in hope. The interviewers themselves are very enthusiastic. That’s what fetches more confidence into the interviewed person. Confidence that something good is happening. Others already in the Company hang on to see what new things are coming. This means automatically: a higher retention! Funda8 is to keep an eye at business. Keep having a lot of projects and new ones trickling. Money will automatically come and so will prosperity and so no one will leave. Immediately. Give them what they want!!! . All s/w guys at one time or the other want to go to US. Why lose them to market. Send them where they want to go. How is some thing that you need to figure out? There is no short cut to success. So you must have the right size of investment. Have a right number of people employed in the US to market your work force. I reiterate that there is no short cut to success. I agree all that requires vision. And money. Where do you get the money? Capitalist! Venture Capitalist to be precise. Why will they buy your idea? Because you will sell it to them. How? Simple. Through an impressive business plan. And that is the next funda, number 10. So get a sharp IIM guy to make a good plan. Remember that a good bhel puri is one, which has all the components, and in the right ratio and in the right quantity. Given at the right time keeps it crisp and does not become soggy. Please remember that there is a minimum size of sustainable business. And when you have the right size of manpower, each part of the organization is well catered for. The company will keep growing. It will bring about enthusiasm. And remember, as enthusiasm is infectious people will get enthused and in their enthusiasm, that we HR guys technically call motivation, the employees will stay on. 

If you do not provide for the rights as described above, there is a shrinking spiral. While on the one hand I see growing companies grow by attracting and retaining, I also see shrinking companies shrinking by losing people to the growing ones or the newer ones which will later grow. 

If you can’t have the minimum sustainable business or investment, Sell quickly!! And let others grow and retain people. Why struggle to try to retain the unretainables

Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that an employment dispute resolution process will be set up in 2011. It involves the use of mediation to facilitate an amicable settlement between PMEs (professionals, managers, and executives) earning up to $4,500 and their employers on common employment issues.

Speech by Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister for Manpower at STF Conference on Managing Manpower Challenges 2010, 26 January 2010 at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre

Mr Lim Swee Say, Secretary-General, National Trades Union Congress;

Mr John De Payva, President, National Trades Union Congress;

Mr Stephen Lee, President, Singapore National Employers Federation;

Tripartite partners;
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

Tackling the Downturn in 2009

Exactly a year ago, I was at NTUC’s Workplan Seminar where brother Secretary-General Lim Swee Say was on stage rallying unionists passionately. He urged union leaders to work with other tripartite partners and to “upturn the downturn”. One year on, we can now look back and say that we have fought the battle well.

Economy recovering with tripartite collaboration

Retrenchments for the first three quarters of 2009 numbered just over 18,000 and the retrenchment figure for the whole of 2009 is likely to be significantly lower than the record level of 29,000 in 1998. Our unemployment rate of 3.4% as of September 2009 was low compared to many developed countries and lower than the record 5.2% in 2003. The key was tripartism – which was our secret weapon to tackle the downturn. This positive outcome would not have been possible without the trust, commitment and joint efforts among employers, workers and the unions that represent them.

Looking forward, we are now seeing positive signs that the worst is behind us and Singapore’s economy is recovering. Our GDP grew 3.5% in the last quarter of 2009, compared to a year earlier, and the economy is expected to grow by 3 to 5% this year. Even as we are on the road to recovery, we need to be mindful that it may take quite a while to see recovery spread evenly across the board. The future manpower landscape will evolve and there will be challenges ahead. It is therefore all the more crucial for us to ensure that our manpower laws, practices and particularly our tripartite partnership, remain relevant for the economy, for businesses and for workers over the long term.

Developing a “Future-Ready” Singapore Workforce

How is the Singapore workforce changing and how can we develop a “future-ready” workforce? Changing demographics such as the ageing workforce and the increasing pool of professionals, managers, executives and technicians (or PMETs) have made it imperative for companies to rethink their business strategies and restructure their operations to be future-ready. The labour movement must also evolve to keep up with the changing landscape.

Singapore’s Greying Workforce

By 2020, more than one in three Singapore residents will be 50 years and older. For this reason, we are introducing re-employment legislation by 2012. To guide employers in implementing re-employment, the tripartite partners released the draft Tripartite Guidelines on Re-employment of Older Employees for public consultation in November last year. We have received valuable feedback and views from various sources. The tripartite partners are currently reviewing the feedback to refine the Guidelines, which are scheduled to be finalised and released for implementation over the next few months. This will set the stage and prepare employers, unions and workers for re-employment.

Meeting the Needs of the Growing Number of PMEs

As our economy evolves and our local workforce becomes more educated, we are seeing an increasingly larger proportion of PMETs in the workforce. PMETs now form more than half of the local workforce, up from around 40% a decade ago. The proportion of PMETs will continue to grow in the years to come, as better educated cohorts join the workforce. We therefore need to pay greater attention to this group of employees.

MOM and the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) have already started supporting more continuing education and training among PMETs. For example, the Professional Skills Programme, introduced in 2009 as part of SPUR, brings together the entire range of skills upgrading and job assistance initiatives targeted at helping PMETs.

Moving ahead, as the size of our PMET population grows, more may face employment-related issues. Currently, Professionals, Managers and Executives (or PMEs) who have employment disputes with their employers would mostly have to resort to civil litigation to settle the dispute, which can be costly and protracted for both parties. On average, about 240 PMEs seek MOM’s assistance on employment issues every year. In 2009, we received some 350 cases involving PMEs and their employers. The increase was partly due to the economic downturn. We recognise that there is a need to facilitate speedy and low-cost settlement of such employment disputes for PMEs and their employers. This will help to bring about more harmonious workplace relations. In this regard, trade unions and employer federations, which have been instrumental in maintaining industrial harmony, can play an important part in helping to resolve employment disputes involving PMEs.

Following discussions with our tripartite partners, SNEF and NTUC, I am pleased to announce that we will introduce an employment dispute resolution process to help junior and mid-level PMEs earning up to $4,500 and their employers to address common employment issues, such as salary arrears, retrenchment benefit payment and other employment-related contractual issues. This process will be in place next year. To facilitate the PME employee and his employer to reach an amicable settlement without incurring significant costs, the proposed process will primarily involve the use of mediation. It will ride on the existing strong tripartite partnership with SNEF and NTUC, who have the expertise and track record of resolving employment disputes.

How will this process work? MOM will lead the mediation session, with the support of SNEF and NTUC. Some PMEs are union members and eligible for collective bargaining or limited representation in the company. They already have established avenues to address employment related disputes. PMEs who are union members but are not eligible for collective bargaining or limited representation may make use of this proposed mediation process. If the dispute cannot be resolved through mediation, the PME employee may pursue his claims through the civil courts. In addition, he may refer disputes on salary claims for adjudication by MOM. The setting up of this new dispute resolution process involving mediation and adjudication will help save PMEs and their employers the costs of going through the civil court route by giving them the opportunity to mediate at an early stage, with assistance from tripartite partners. Through this tripartite partnership approach, MOM believes that many of such disputes could be resolved amicably.

The exact details are currently being worked out in consultation with the tripartite partners.

Pressing on to Raise Skills and Productivity

Even as we respond to the changing demography of our workforce, it is equally important to stay focused on enhancing our productivity through continuing education and skills training. Productivity gains have declined in recent years due to a heavier reliance on labour inputs to generate economic growth. We cannot grow the size of our workforce indefinitely. Companies must find innovative ways of delivering higher value products and services, redesign their systems for higher efficiency, invest in technology and train their workers. We must press on to upskill our entire workforce and raise productivity levels. This is why even in the midst of the downturn, the government has allocated $650 million to encourage companies to send their employees for training under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR). To date, SPUR has seen 4,000 companies, mostly SMEs, with 264,000 employees committed for training. SPUR funding will end this year and I urge companies which have not tapped on SPUR to make use of this opportunity to upgrade your workforce and improve your productivity.

As our economy continues to transform, Singaporeans and Singapore companies should start to prepare themselves for the changes to come. We must be future-ready. The Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) chaired by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and comprising members from the Government, the labour movement and the private sector, is reviewing the longer-term strategies for Singapore’s growth. They will be releasing their recommendations next month, and one of the key focus is on how we can raise productivity.

Working together for a brighter future

One of the enduring strengths of tripartite collaboration is that we have always been able to mobilise quickly to tackle challenges together and emerge stronger. The tripartite partners demonstrated this ability and commitment to overcome adversity during the downturn last year. We are continuing to work together as we recover from the recession. Tripartism is indeed Singapore’s competitive advantage, and will continue to be so in the years ahead. Likewise, I am sure we will work hand-in-hand to prepare employers and employees in Singapore to embrace the manpower challenges and gear up for the changes in Singapore’s workforce and economy in the decade ahead. Working together, we can then be confident of a stronger, better skilled and future-ready workforce.

Thank you and I wish all of you a fruitful STF discussion ahead.

Outside of corporate donations and individual giving at Microsoft, at least one employee has taken time off work and flown to Haiti to work on finding survivors on the ground. Gisli Olaffson’s day job is working with international organizations such as the World Health Organization as a Microsoft disaster management technical adviser based in Iceland. But he also volunteers, such as in China after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and has done relief work in Myanmar after a cyclone there.

In January, Olaffson took off several days to work in Haiti as part of his volunteer work with the Icelandic search and rescue team. I caught up with him in Redmond last week at Microsoft’s Public Safety Symposium, which brought together about 400 public safety officials from around the world. Attendees included people from such places as Brazil and Singapore, as well as locals such as King County Sheriff Sue Rahr.

Olaffson said his Icelandic team heard about the earthquake in Haiti 20 minutes after it happened. The Icelandic ministry of foreign affairs offered the team’s help to Haiti, and via U.S. diplomacy, Haiti accepted the offer. Olaffson said he and a team of 33 were the first foreign team to land on the ground in Haiti on Jan.13. U.S. groups landed 15 minutes later, he said.

His team spent the first day doing reconnaissance in the city to report back to the United Nations coordinating team stationed at the Haiti airport and to find locations for relief groups to set up field hospitals.

“We quickly discovered the disaster was much bigger” than expected, he said. “Several houses had collapsed. Streets were littered with bodies. It was not pretty.”

The following morning Olaffson’s team went to the Caribbean Supermarket, where a four-story building had collapsed and people trapped in the rubble were calling out for help with their mobile phones.

“We were able to save three women,” he said. “They were unhurt but dehydrated.” They found 50 to 60 bodies in the same place.

The next few days, he and his team went to a small town southwest of Port au Prince. Eighty-percent of the houses had collapsed there, and they were not able to find any survivors.

Here are more photos from the Iceland search and rescue team.

In his afternoon session on disaster relief in Redmond last week, Olaffson said his recommendation was to expect the unexpected. Expect to have no electricity, no Internet, no fuel to run generators. “Now how are you going to deal when you have nothing?” he said.

The team had only satellite phones until the mobile network started recovering. Mapping technology and satellite imagery were key to helping searchers determine which areas had suffered the most destruction. His team reported back to Iceland using Skype videoconferencing, powering the laptop with a solar panel. They also used white boards and pieces of paper.

At the end of his week in Haiti, Olaffson was assigned to help with recovering bodies at Hotel Montana, where many U.N. staff had family. Using a Facebook page, his group was able to gather information from relatives about which rooms were occupied and who was missing. While other officials reported whose bodies were recovered, Olaffson said his team used the Facebook page to inform relatives about how they were conducting the recovery. Here is the Facebook page.

Microsoft has commited $1.25 million in cash and in-kind support toward Haiti earthquake relief. Employees have individually contributed $740,000 to relief organizations, which Microsoft has matched for a total of $1.4 million.

Employers can add font types/colors, a background, bold/italics, bullets, numbered lists, and much more. This is a feature that all our employers love.

Social bookmarking is a method of sharing and organizing your bookmarks. It’s similar to bookmarking through your browser, only your bookmarks are public to others. This allows you to see other people’s bookmarks that have similar interests, and find new sites that you may have not known about before. This also allows other people to find your bookmarks which people can view and follow.

Benefits

Candidates can share a job they found interesting with a friend. They can post it in Facebook, or Twitter, or email, and easily show their friends a job that they found was a great fit. Employers will benefit from having their job positions being ‘virally’ shared throughout the internet and thus reaching wider audiences.

How does it work?

Every job posting has a ‘Share’ button allowing any visitor to publish the job details on over 40 social bookmarking sites!

Once you log on to the site, Jobsberg.com automatically detects that you’re using an iPhone and displays menus that fit iPhone style browsing. Using the iPhone, candidates can search for jobs, log into their account, apply for jobs, and much more. Employers can search through resumes, view job postings, and log into their account. It couldn’t be easier to do a quick check for new applicants while you’re on the road, or apply for a job as a candidate on the go.