Are Fractional roles the bullshit jobs of Singapore's future?

 

One highlight of this week is attending SMU's seminar, hosted by the Center for Research on Successful Aging (ROSA), and I've decided to write about it in two parts.

The first part is exciting news about fractional jobs, and it wasn't even on the seminar agenda. Minister Indranee Rajah discussed a fairly creative policy idea the government is working on: over the next few years, parents with children will have much more leave to take on childcare or caregiver roles. One problem is that companies will be short-staffed more often. 

So the government looked at older workers and retrenched staff in their 40s and 50s, suggesting they take on fractional roles in companies so younger Singaporeans can start families.

This idea was met with strong enthusiasm because, on paper, it is brilliant. But as of now, there are no policy details. Can older fractional workers handle the tools and work of younger workers who need to go on leave? Will taxpayers have to pay to let companies onboard these older workers? Can a fractional worker cover for more than one company? These are questions the really smart folks at MOM would need to address, but I think we should be open-minded about fundamental changes to how we work in Singapore.

I'm also quite glad that I may need to reassess my idea of fractional employment.

I've always thought that fractional jobs are bullshit jobs for people who cannot convince someone to employ them fully. I dare to say this here because I have an Adjunct role in a tertiary institution, so I'm fractionally employed myself. I might be impressed by someone if a fractionally employed person actually has a contract with more than one party; then it's not too different from a Gen Z or Millennial who is overemployed.

I also face a real difficulty when I am fractionally employed. Every role has a learning curve and unique tools that I often have to master without pay. In my role, these include attendance-taking apps and the systems that let me do the work, so I get paid on time. Working for multiple organizations would multiply these unpaid administrative tasks. I expect the taxpayer to support the worker as they move up the learning curve, at least to the point where they can function as a replacement headcount for a regular employee.

With structural support for fractional employment, we will not just see the elderly and retrenched take on these roles; I expect people at all stages of life to take them on to redesign their lives. 

For the FIRE movement, fractional roles strongly appeal to folks pursuing Barista FIRE or mothers with young children who want more time with their kids. 

For me, to assess the sincerity of decision-makers, I would like to see the following:

a) Some kind of incentive for companies to get tax breaks to fractionally hire (or even fire) older workers above age 45 that includes some in-house or corporate training.

b) Some kind of legal recognition that hammers out the rights of fractional workers. Our current system, which distinguishes between an employee and a contractor, may need a third category to make it easier to hire fractional workers while still preventing exploitation.

Finally, we need to accept that gaming fractional employment relationships should become the norm in Singapore. I currently provide training in the public and private sector. I often reuse the software I pay for to produce investment content for Polytechnic students, and I use my pedagogical training to refine my ERM slides.

Whatever it is, I hope we support this policy, since it'll probably make fractional employment less of a bullshit job in the future.