What is different when working in Singapore?

[Melq]

Hi everyone!

Moving and working in Singapore for a European bank ... what would you tell me ... how should I prepare myself?
How is business done here? What is expected from a manager? From an employee? What are the rules? Is it more like China or more like America? How do meetings look like? Is hierarchy as important as in China (like the most important person has to enter the meeting room first, etc)? What is the business etiquette? How are meetings run? What is easy to understand? What is difficult to adjust to?

Any feedback or comment is appreciated! Thank you very much,
Mel

[Small fry]

Just a little thing but very important, is when you 'exchange' business cards - and they all do OFTEN, never put it away until they have left.  Also do read it in front of them, they will read yours and for gods sake, never never (as a colleague of my husband's did) write on the back of it in front of them.  Ultimate insult.

Just a wee tip.  I'm sure the professionals will help you with important stuff  

[SG biz vet]

If we told you the answers to all that, it wouldn't be any fun now would it?!

More time required to reply yo each question than I am willing to spend right now.

Suffice it to say that it is more like America than China, if those are the two choices to compare to.  However, don't be fooled by the English signs and language everywhere.  It's still Asia and the people very much think in a different way.  In some ways, SG is more difficult because Westerners feel so at home here that they assume everything is the same.  It isn't.

[Manager]

It's hard to explain without a reference point that we both know. But here are some candid comments. I know the locals will flame me but so what.  My baseline comparison is an office environment in an American company.

1/  Singporeans in general lack initiative.  You have to tell them specifically what to do and how to do it.  You also have to allow extra time for it to get done and then be prepared to ride everyone's butt daily if you want any chance of meeting deadlines.
2/  Making mistakes is jumped on here.  People do not take initiative because they do not want to make mistakes.  If they make mistakes the boss is expected to punish the offender.  Not to do so is considered unfair to those that did not take initiative and therefore did not make a mistake and therefore did nothing wrong.
3/  Singaporeans like to talk about their long hours in the office and incredible work ethic.  I just don't see it.  My building does not populate until (9:00AM or later.  I have been in the office since 7:00.  My building empties at 12:00 noon and no one comes back until 2:00-2:30.  I eat at my desk.  Most people are gone at 5:30.  That's when I usually leave.  I have stayed till 8:PM and it is rare to find anyone there after 6:30.  I reckon we ae getting 6-7 hours production from our staff.  When they are in the office they are often on the phone with friends and relatives. Being late is common and no big deal.  All sick days and personal days will be consumed throughout the year even if no one is sick.  They bring notes from their doctor to work explaining they were sick.
4/ You are an expat and therefore you are on a huge package.  In their mind definitely should be working 18 hour days and success depends on you not them. But btw - whatever they are paying you, you are not worth it.
5/  Office meetings and such.  Very hierarchical.  Someone makes a presentation with little spirit or imagination.  The contents are known by the boss because the only way that the stuff in the pitch is happening is because the boss ordered it to happen. The boss then speaks people listen.  Very top down.  He will tell everyone to work harder, he will have great theories of the universe and will "scold" people to do better and work harder.  He will have an enormous flair for pointing out the obvious, especially quotes from business 101 like, "The customer comes first." The "deputies" may be asked to add comments at the end of the meeting but like "Minnie-Me's" they usually spout off something like, "Yeah, What the boss said."
6/  There is little brainstorming, arguing or pushback.  They are very good at pointing out the downside and the risks.  But no one knows how to go forward while mitigating the risks.
7/ There is little communication outside the departmental stovepipes. Hence working across teams to meet deadlines is near impossible.  The boss is the forcing fiunction acroos departments.
8/  Singapore education is great.  But it is primarily book knowledge with little imagination and creativeness allowed.  If it is in the book then that is how it is done.  If it is not in the book no one will do anything until someone writes a book.  Then they will do what's in the book even if the book is wrong.

So - Very negative but there are definitely many, many exceptions ( at the end of it all Singapore is a city/country that is doing very well) and definitely some ultra talented, aggressive and creative people.  You will find that most of these people have studied or worked abroad.  They are great people and are dying to work for a foreign company where they can show thier talent.

[peeps]

I dunno - that doesn't sound anything like my workplace (US MNC), perhaps yours just isn't very good at hiring qualified/talented locals.

[Melq]

Thanks to everyone for your comments. It seems to me that preparation and flexibility on my side is needed ... Thanks!

[Ya Basta]

To Manager,
A highly accurate depiction. Just one correction on education. For the very reasons you state,  Singapore education is NOT great...far from it.  "Education" here is about "etting the right answer for the teacher, to match the answer in the back of the book, or for the test. It is less "education" and more"schooling." Students are highly risk averse, lack initiative, and are unable to problem solve in the most fundamental of ways. However, give them a problem with a pre-disclosed solution algorithm and they will solve the problem. Perfect for this outsourcing society. Horrible if you want a flat organisational structure.

However, I do not blame the students one bit. As you point out, society punishes innovation, deviation, and out of the box thinking/approaches no matter what the propaganda tries to say otherwise. They are products of this engineered society.

To the OP, China and the US share far more similarities than the US and Singapore.

[Employee2]

To Manager:
I take strong exception to the statement

<<All sick days and personal days will be consumed throughout the year even if no one is sick. They bring notes from their doctor to work explaining they were sick.>>

So what do you expect. That your employees would be in the office for 365 days a year?!! That taking a vacation is a crime?!!

Do you even know how the concept of sick leave works here? it is only considered as sick leave if you have a certificate from e regd medical practioner. Hence the "note from their doctor".

And this is only applicable for those who have medical leave over and above their regular leave.

For unlucky bastards like me who have only one kind of leave of 14 days, falling sick and not going to work means losing one day of my vacation leave.

And you want that the regular leave also should not be taken, when most of the companies here do not provide pay for leave unused at the end of the yr.

Or is it that you believe only managers have the right to go for vacations/fall sick.

Hmm, you must be a real hit with your subordinates. I'm glad that i do not have an inconsiderate dickhead like youself as my boss.

( i'm sure that you are equally generous at home, and magnamously give your maid one off day per year)

[Manager]

Re: Sick days - Our company allows 10 sick days above annual leave.  It is always consumed, by everyone.  I have had 2 sick days in 5 years.

Re: Lack of Initiative - I think both the education system and the employers are to blame for this one.  Most of our people believe that even if they work hard they can't get to the top. "Upper level jobs go to expats."  We are finally changing that and are staffing higher and higher levels with local talent.  Our people coming in at the bottom are starting to notice. Now, unfortuanately, the common profile is western educated returning Singaporeans.  It is so hard to get global perspective unless you get off this rock for a while. So we are setting a new mindset, "You can't get promoted unless you got educated and worked a bit overseas."

It's not a conscious choice. i.e. let's hire returning Singaporeans.  It's a matter of maintaining and developing our corporate culture.  We do not want to turn our company into a "local" company.  We must have global perspective and experience.

[Manager too]

I completely agree with Manager.

Our staff get 15-20 days leave, 15 days sick leave and 3 days parental leave.

Checking the records last year - expat staff took on average 3 days sick leave. 80% of local staff took 10 days or more.

Drs will sign you off sick for anything here. Go in and complain of 'cramps', 'headache' whatever and you will get a sick note. I went and got my ear syringed one lunchtime and was given a note to take the afternoon off! Most of my female team members will take one day off a month when they have their period!

[I quit]

I ended up quitting my job for a mid-sized local company because I could not tolerate my colleagues.  Yes, most of them were very nice people but they were not reliable.  They would take MC on the days that important stuff needed to be done, more often than not leaving me in the sh*t.  I was always the one who was asked by the boss to make sure this and that was done because I was the only one reliable enough to be at work when I was supposed to be at work.

OK, compared to Europe, the amount of leave entitlement is poor.  However, the medical leave entitlement is something that the locals feel they must use up as it gives them an extra 10/12/14 or whatever days off per year.  Doctors will sign an MC even if they suspect someone is faking.  Also, in this country you can "doctor hop" so the doctor you see need not know how many MC's you have had so far.  

It is all a joke!

[Blue boy]

The joke of it in my company is that they use the sick leave to take care of important things but when they are really sick (coughing, spluttering, and infectious as hell) they insist on coming to the office and making some sort of heroic stand about how important it is to get business done. Inevitable the bug they have gets passed around the whole office.

So we have a ridiculous situation that to take sick leave you have to get a doc's certificate (which any doc will give for virtuallly any reason). Now as some local companies are getting wiser to this they are implementing a policy that the amount of sick leave one takes will be considered when considering promotion opportunites for the individual. This hardly serves any real purpose at all and is typical of many of the hair brained decisions that are made in business and people managment in Sin

[No Ititiative]

I fully agree with the lack of initiative - I have only seen one example of initiative in my three years.  They are very good at A then B then C, but if B is broken or overbooked then they just stop... No atempt to fix it or move on regardless.

[Manager]

To be honest the first time someone brought me a doctor's note I thought it was a joke.  Where I come from we are all adults and don't need notes from our mommies.

But I have seen back home a person called in by the manager and told to get healthy because the team couldn't afford  him taking as much sick time as he was taking for "minor" ailments. i.e routine doctor appointments that take all day.

OTOH - I absolutely insist that anyone with a cold or flu at the "contagious" stage stay home.  It's stupid to infect the rest of the team.

[to OP]

Hi Melq, there is some great literature out there that you could read before you start work here. It will make your landing a whole lot softer when you understand more of the vaues that shape economic progress here. One great new book is Culture Matters by Lawrence E. Harrison. Large chapter on the Asian way/history of doing business. Really interesting.