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With Singapore's Workplace Fairness Act set to come into force at the end of 2027, organisations have a window to review their people practices. Jonathan Yuen and Doreen Chia, Partners at Rajah & Tann Asia explain the key legal obligations, common compliance pitfalls, and the HR policies employers should prioritise now.
The Workplace Fairness Act (WFA) is slated to take effect at the end of 2027. While fair employment practices have long been expected under the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP) and the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), the WFA will give statutory force to these obligations and create a formal route for employees and jobseekers to bring workplace fairness claims.
There is much an organisation can do, during this lead time, to identify legal risk, strengthen documentation, train employees, and embed fair decision-making practices into everyday HR processes.
Core obligations under the WFA
The WFA imposes 3 core obligations on organisations.
First, the WFA prohibits the making of employment decisions based on protected characteristics which are defined to be age, nationality, sex, marital status, pregnancy, caregiving responsibilities, race, religion, language ability, disability, and mental health condition. The prohibition applies to a wide scope of employment decisions, including hiring, performance appraisals, decisions relating to promotion and training, and dismissal. Discriminatory job advertisements and company policies are also prohibited.
Second, the WFA requires employers to comply with certain prescribed requirements before applying for a work pass for a foreign job applicant. This includes publishing a job advertisement that is published in the prescribed manner and for a prescribed length of time and considering, in good faith and in a fair and objective manner, all responses to the job advertisement.
Third, the WFA requires all employers to develop a formal grievance handling process in which the employer will inquire into and review grievances raised by employees, inform employees of the outcome of the review, keep a written record of every inquiry and review, keep the complainant’s identity and information relating to the inquiry or review confidential. Employers are required to inform all employees in writing of the grievance handling process.
These principles already exist in the Tripartite Guidelines and Advisories, and the WFA will give these principles statutory force. In the event of a WFA complaint, under the proposed dispute resolution framework, parties are expected to attempt internal resolution and mediation before adjudication, with claims up to and including S$250,000 to be heard by the Employment Claims Tribunals and higher-value claims to be heard in the High Court.
How should your organisation prepare for the WFA?
As a first crucial step, organisations should start by reviewing their policies and documentation in respect of the full employment lifecycle. High risk flashpoints include recruitment, performance management, promotion, training and career development decisions, and dismissals.
These will need to be handled with particular care and the organisation’s policies and documentation in respect of these areas should be reviewed and strengthened as a priority, to reduce systemic risk to the organisation.
With the policies and documentation in place, organisations should then review their HR practices to ensure that the systems and documentation are being used diligently,appropriately and in compliance with the WFA. It is a common misconception that the WFA only requires organisations to have written policies. In practice, a policy that is not understood or followed may do little to reduce legal risk — many complaints arise not from a lack of policies, but from poorly documented decisions or policies that are simply not followed. In order to effectively reduce risk to the organisation, these policies must be followed on a day-to-day level and organisations should not only adopt a “check-box” approach to compliance.
Another common misconception is that it is solely HR’s responsibility to ensure compliance with the WFA. The wide scope of the WFA means that WFA issues may arise in many forms and across the entire organisation, even when employees believe that they are acting in good faith, such as assuming that a caregiver cannot travel for work, that an employee with a mental health condition cannot take on a promotion or that an older worker will not want training. To strengthen the whole organisation’s readiness for the WFA, all employees should be aware of their obligations under the WFA and be given the necessary training and resources to understand how the WFA applies to them.
It is also a common misconception that characteristics not listed in the WFA are irrelevant. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices has made clear that the TGFEP will continue to apply and to address workplace discrimination based on other characteristics.
This means that the WFA should be seen as a baseline legal framework, and not exhaustive of an organisation’s obligation to ensure fair employment practices.
Moving forward
Practical readiness should begin with a WFA readiness audit. Organisations should map existing policies against the requirements of the WFA, review and refresh policies and templates and train all employees on what to expect when the WFA comes into force.
Ultimately, organisations that start their WFA readiness preparation early will be better placed to defend complaints, maintain trust with employees and demonstrate that fairness is not merely a policy statement, but a lived management practice.
ALSO READ: Preparing for the Workplace Fairness Act: Assessing your organisation’s readiness
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