Just last Friday, the Singapore government announced a set of stricter measures to limit social interactions and movements outside homes to stop rising COVID-19 cases in Singapore. This includes workplace closures from Tuesday, 7 April 2020 to Monday, 4 May 2020.
Although the insurance sector is classified as essential service and will not be subjected to service suspension during this period, we are doing what we can to stem the spike in local COVID-19 transmission.
Starting 7 April until 4 May 2020 , we will further optimise our work from home (WFH) arrangements by limiting on-site staff to only those who are carrying out essential insurance services (policy inception, claim servicing, policy renewal and servicing), as well as, essential support services such as mailroom, scanning and follow-up activities.
With these arrangements, 90% of Income staff will be working from home during this time, and we ask that you do so responsibly by paying close attention to the following points.
- Staff assigned to WFH should not return to the office. If you need to do so for urgent matters, you must obtain approval from your Manager prior to returning to the office.
- You must take and report you temperature twice a day. This is an MOM requirement under the current situation, and records must be kept for necessary contact tracing purposes and submission to the MOM.
- Observe regular work hours and leave requirements, i.e. apply for annual leave if you need to attend to personal matters or medical leave if you are unwell so that you can rest. Please also consider taking your Mandatory Block Leave during this period if your work load or schedule permits.
- Continue to maintain high levels of productivity and engagement through regular team check-ins. Meetings/discussions should be done via video-conferencing so that we e-meet one another on a frequent and regular basis.
- Remain compliant with Income’s Acceptable Use Policy which governs the use of Income’s IT systems and data, even when working from home. Do not send company documents to your personal email accounts, and always be mindful of PDPA regulations.
- Our VPN bandwidth has been increased substantially to support staff working from home. However, please avoid mass transfer of large files to shared folders as this will significantly slowdown the network and cause a lag which will affect all users.
- ‘Care-packs’ and face masks will be distributed to staff working at the office for their personal use. As our branches will remain open to serve customers, face masks will also be distributed to our frontline staff for their personal use and protection.
- All other measures highlighted in previous advisories to staff on matters such as deferment of travel, MOM entry approval for work pass holders, 14-day monitoring requirements, and to avoid coming to the office if you feel unwell, remain in place.
- This staff self-help page will provide you with quick references for:
- IT-related matters such as changing of passwords, internet connections and use of Skype and Avaya;
- Online COVID-19 staff forms for temperature reporting, travel declarations and 14-day monitoring period;
- Past staff advisories
These ‘Circuit Breaker’ measures that we are embarking on as a nation are unprecedented, and it is good that Income had decided to stress-test our business continuity capabilities to cope with such a situation ahead of time. We will continue to keep you updated on the steps Income is taking to safeguard our staff and to stay compliant with prevailing measures and regulations.
The government’s call is clear – stay home, and stay safe. We can each be a circuit breaker in the spread of COVID-19 to protect our family and friends. Let us pull through this together!
Chen Boon Khing
Head of BCM Workgroup
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