https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/time-relook-re-employment-older-uniformed-officers-and-their-retirement-ages
Time for uniformed services to consider hiring older workers, raise retirement ages?
Facebook / Singapore Police ForceSingapore police officers retire at the relatively young age of 55.My Airbnb hosts during a recent holiday to Gold Coast were a friendly Australian couple in their 50s — let's call them S and H.
During my two-day stay, we chatted about our countries, travel experiences, work and so on.
I found out that S is a police officer.
What surprised me most is that he became one only five years ago, having previously worked mainly in the technology industry as an IT consultant.
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He wanted a new challenge — something exciting yet stable — and the idea of patrolling the streets as a law enforcement officer for the next 10 years appealed to him.
So he signed up as a police academy recruit at the age of 50.
It helped that S, an avid cyclist, is trim and fit and could cope with the physical demands of the six-month training.
"It wasn't easy. Two other trainees around my age dropped out after failing to make the mark in some tests," said S, who passed the training to be a general duties officer holding the rank of constable.
There is officially no age limit for those who want to join the Queensland Police Service, he said, although it would discourage those close to the retirement age of 60 from joining.
The Service wants to promote diversity within its ranks and also believes that its officers need to be representative of the population to better serve the people, he added.
My encounter with S got me thinking: Why can't we do the same in Singapore so that our uniformed officers can work till they are older?
Indeed, can the civil service and other employers be more flexible in hiring workers in their 50s and even 60s?
Singapore police officers retire at the relatively young age of 55.
Before October 2013, the retirement age was 50 for officers under the Home Affairs' uniformed services holding junior ranks.
So these officers from the Singapore Police Force, Central Narcotics Bureau, Singapore Prison Service and Singapore Civil Defence Force had to retire at the very same age that S was when he joined the Queensland Police Service.
To be sure, some Home Affairs uniformed officers may get an extension of service to work until they are 60 years old.
But this depends on the organisational needs as well as the performance, conduct and fitness of the officer, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in 2013.
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The retirement age of Singapore Armed Forces regular officers is even lower, at around 50.
"Most officers and warrant officers retire around 50 years old as there are only limited vocations for re-employment across the SAF," Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said in a written parliamentary reply this month.
Member of Parliament Desmond Choo had asked what is the current proportion of SAF officers who are offered re-employment at retirement age and what measures are in place to retrain and redeploy older SAF officers.
Dr Ng did not provide a figure on re-employment but explained that as a military with physical demands required to fulfil its mission, officers and other ranks of personnel within the SAF do not adhere to the retirement age of commercial companies and civilian organisations.
To compensate for the shorter career spans, the officers get a higher pay compared to equivalent civilian jobs, said Dr Ng.
He outlined some of the programmes SAF has to prepare personnel for their second careers, adding that 80 per cent secure jobs within six months of retiring from the SAF.
But what happens to the other 20 per cent who did not find another job? At age 50, surely they are too young to leave the workforce altogether.
Did they find it hard to get a job because employers prefer younger workers? If so, then it must be tougher for Home Team officers who retire at 55.
I gather that some of them become private investigators or join ride-hailing companies as drivers.
Others take up other investigation jobs in the civil service, but these are few and far between.
The larger question is whether Singapore employers, not just the uniformed services, still see older workers through a biased lens.
At a recent Institute of Policy Studies Forum on Older Workers, Ms Low Yen Ling, Senior Parliamentary Secretary of Manpower, said that many employers have told the Tripartite Workgroup on Older Workers that they value older workers.
This is because they offer good institutional knowledge and stability.
Furthermore, studies have shown workforce diversity leads to greater productivity.
During the question-and-answer session at the forum, I cited the example of S and asked if the civil service here can be more open to hiring older workers, especially those willing to start at relatively junior positions.
Ms Low acknowledged that it is important for the civil service to be walking the talk on the hiring of older workers.
She knew of two residents in her Bukit Gombak constituency who managed to make career switches to the civil service in their late 50s, one joining the Ministry of Manpower and the other the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, adding that there must be others like them.
What the civil service and other employers can do is to publicise such recruitment more, so that over time, this will be seen as a norm and more organisations will change their attitudes towards hiring older workers, she added.
Ultimately, it would serve employers well to be "age smart" in making use of all its human resources and creating alternate career routes for their older workers in consultation with them.
These are valid points and a good place to start may be our uniformed services.
With an ageing population and increased life expectancy, there can be greater flexibility not only in granting an extension of service to older SAF and Home Team officers, but also in recruiting them.
Perhaps a fixed percentage of, say, 10 per cent can be set each year for new hires aged above 40 and extending the services of those hitting retirement ages.
If these older uniformed officers can stay fit, pass annual assessment tests and have positive work attitudes, what's the rationale for asking them to retire?
Yes, a younger force is more dynamic and allows new blood to progress faster.
But the counter argument is that it is simply discriminatory to make older officers leave purely based on their age when they can still do their job well.
And surely, their vast experience counts for something.
I asked S how he feels being older than most other patrol officers.
"Great," he said, adding that his calm temperament and age come in handy when dealing with the most common cases he comes across — domestic disputes, disorderly behaviour and traffic offences.
"People in these cases tend to listen more to an older officer."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jason Tan is associate editor at TODAY, where he oversees the Opinion section.
