By Jamie Ee Wen Wei and Gabriel Yue

Work-life balance is fast catching on in Singapore, as more companies here recognise that family-centred policies make for happier, more productive workers.

Human resource (HR) firms say they are seeing more companies adopt practices that help their staff juggle work, home and private lives.

The figures bear this out.

The yearly Singapore Human Resource Awards, for instance, is seeing higher participation, said Mr David Ang, executive director of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, the event's organiser.

This year's submissions to vie for the various awards have doubled from last year. There was also a 20 per cent increase in the number of companies that took part in the quality work-life category this year, as compared to last year.

More companies are also dipping into a multimillion-dollar scheme called the Work-Life Works! (WoW!) Fund to promote work-life measures in the workplace. It was started in 2004 by the Government with an initial sum of $10 million. The fund was topped up by another $10 million last year.

In 2006, only about 160 companies had tapped it.

As of this year, however, more than 400 companies are using this subsidy. Most are small and medium-sized enterprises.

The fund supports pro-family programmes such as training HR staff, implementing flexible work arrangements, and building nursing, family or day-care rooms in the workplace.

The Manpower Ministry, which administers the fund, is confident that within the next few years, as many as 1,000 locally based companies will be on the scheme.

Apart from this pull factor of incentives, there is also the push factor of the declining birth rate and a tightening labour pool.

HR gurus say companies will be missing out on a large pool of potential workers - such as mothers - if they are not more family-focused.

The cost involved is usually offset by the pay-off of 'increased productivity and employee engagement', said Ms Su-Yen Wong, managing director for Asean of Mercer, a leading HR consultant firm.

Organisations that have embraced work-life policies agreed with this assessment.

KK Women's and Children's Hospital, for instance, has seen its resignation rate decrease from 13.7 per cent in 2005 to 12.2 per cent last year.

Its productivity index is consistently over 98 per cent.

Staff absenteeism in Dutch bank ABN Amro has dropped by about 25 per cent since it adopted work-life strategies in 2003.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 20, 2008.