We want to ensure the infocomm, media and design sectors deliver enhanced quality of life for our people. This was one of the goals outlined by Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Communications and Information, at the Committee of Supply debate on MCI’s budget on Friday, 8 March.

To deliver on this promise, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), partner government agencies and industry partners have been exploring how, by leveraging on enhancements in infocomm infrastructure and services such as the high-speed Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN), employers can afford more flexibility in when and where their employees work.

To encourage employers to adopt New Ways of Work through the use of infocomm technology, IDA launched a Call-for-Collaboration (CFC) in April last year, in consultation with then-Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Ministry of Manpower, Employer Alliance, National Trades Union Congress – Women’s Development Secretariat and Singapore National Employers Federation. Industry players were invited to collaborate and conduct pilots on innovative work practices.

The CFC was a step towards helping Singaporeans to achieve better work-life balance without compromising on their work commitments. Some of the possibilities explored include ICT-enabled home-based work and Smart Work Centres, which offers a professional work environment near workers’ homes to minimise travel during peak hours and offer flexible work arrangements.

“Our economy will also benefit from the increased level of labour force participation,” noted Dr Yaacob. “Businesses may also derive long-term cost savings in office space rental.”

The CFC garnered 14 proposals when it closed in June 2012.  After extensive evaluation, two proposals to pilot home-based work were awarded in January this year, led by SingTel and Business Gateway Asia.

Pilots will be carried out over a period of between six months to a year, in industries such as telecommunications, healthcare and education. Enabled by specially-developed ICT services, the pilots will involve jobs such as business consultants, designers, call-centre agents and tutors. Productivity and employee satisfaction will be used as proxy measures for the success of these pilot projects.

The pilots include having home-based call agents handle enquiries from home using a cloud-based call centre system, and home-based business consultants such as tax professionals, quality and risk management and business development executives sharing and collaborating with their office-based colleagues through a document management system.

Another pilot involves e-education, to allow tutors to work from home. The students can either attend their classes from home or in the tuition centre, but the tutors will conduct the instruction via e-learning, video conferencing and a collaboration tool.

Dr Yaacob cited home-grown small and medium enterprise Rasa Sayang Healthcare, which will be among those launching a home-based work pilot project. While the company provides home nursing services, nurses are still required to go to the office to get their scheduled jobs, and then travel to the patients’ homes for the actual work. They return to the office after the job to file their patient reports.

This pilot involves giving the nurses computing devices and broadband connectivity to allow them to access their schedules from home. They can thus go straight to the patients’ homes, and cut out the office time altogether, filing reports from their own homes. This saves travelling time, and should boost productivity.

In addition, said Dr Yaacob, “Rasa Sayang’s customer service staff will be equipped with proprietary customer management and call routing solutions. This allows their staff to work from home and continue serving their customers in a timely manner.”