With Sue’s current job role and responsibility for the whole spectrum of HR in Asia Pacific, the most challenging aspect of her job at the point of the rapid growth of Skyscanner is to manage the accelerated recruitment drive combined with the logistics required to accommodate these additional head counts in both the Singapore and Beijing offices. While the timezone difference does not create a problem between Beijing and Singapore, it does pose a challenge when communicating with the Edinburgh office and its 7-hour time difference, and it will be even more complex with the opening of Skyscanner’s Miami office. However, managing to complete her job within the time constraints rewards Sue with a sense of accomplishment.
When I asked Sue about her views on the challenges that are commonly faced by working moms in Singapore, she admitted that help from the government in terms of getting the foreign domestic workers and the fact that there are full-time childcare options available do indeed lessen the burden of working moms. But even with help at home and also from the support mechanism built within trustworthy family members, Sue understands the importance of being able to detach herself from work once she comes home. The most important challenge being that as a parent, you need to be there with your children, especially when they are young, get sick, in school or going through important phases (like examinations) and yet also juggling all this with commitments at work.
Sue’s experience in Skyscanner is that the company is very forthcoming about flexible working with employees and has laid out guidelines which allow both parties to achieve a healthy work-life balance. While employees have the benefit of flexible working, they are of course expected to perform and deliver as per required (including collaborate with the peers and other people) and yet able to spend the time with your family. “What I like about them is they don’t see the physical presence in the office as the utmost importance and this is very traditional for a lot of companies, be it Singapore or foreign companies from the US and UK. Basically, I think that part of a healthy approach is to give employees an autonomy to decide and manage their own work life balance. Giving the opportunity for the employees to manage this on their own and still be able to say “I can do both” is very fulfilling and very attractive as far as I am concerned.” Sue said.
The flexible working has affected her life quite tremendously as she is the mother of two children – aged 7 who just entered Primary 1 school and aged (barely) 19 months – and with kids at young age, there will be times when they fall ill easily until their immune system is built up. The policy enables her to make a decision if she has to work from home or at slightly modified time due to her family needs. The policy also empowers her to become a better mom and also a better person by giving her the sense of fulfillment of being able to juggle work and home commitments, yet is able to deliver both at her utmost best at the same time without having to give up any one of them. Her concern for other working parents based on her peers’ stories is that they have to make a hard decision to choose between the two, and most of the time, the choice will go to the family commitment. However, after some time, when the children have grown up and they need to return into the workforce, they enter a huge transition again with the consequence of having to take a huge pay cut or take a back seat in their career. She concluded our session by adding, “I think the fact that I’m being given the opportunity to manage it, it’s good for me as an individual, as a mom, and as an employee. Obviously, that works out very very well where I’m concerned.”
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