Employer Alliance Work-Life Toolkit

As we move towards 2010, EA will feature individuals who have spearheaded their organisations’ journey toward Work-Life integration. It is our hope that these stories will inspire others to follow in their footsteps and be the catalyst for Work-Life transformation to benefit both the business and the individual. Organisation by organisation, we can create a better Work-Life climate for Singapore.

Stories of Work-Life Movers


Stephanie Ho General Manager AsiaMalls Management	Gary Haris Senior Business Development Manager KH Security Agency Pte Ltd

Joanna Koh-Hoe President Focus on the Family	Adelene Tan Assistant Director Xcellink Pte Ltd

Cassandra Ong Senior HR manager Savi Technology	Grace Lim-Quek Head-HR & Admin HSL Constructor Pte Ltd

Adrian Wee Director F1 Recreation Pte Ltd	Francis Tan Director Human Resources, Sheraton Towers

Joanna Koh-Hoe, President
Focus on the Family

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

Around the same time when Ms Joanna Koh-Hoe became a first-time mum, she also took over the running of a local charity, Focus on the Family.

Juggling between work and personal commitments was previously not difficult for this dynamic lady. However, the arrival of a newborn “that couldn’t understand schedules and other people’s priorities” was a “whole new ball-game.”

As a result, she had to change the way she worked and lived. From the second month of her maternity leave, she began working part-time from home, keeping her working hours short so that she had enough time to take care of her baby. Her colleagues were also considerate to contact her through email, SMS and MSN so as not to wake up the infant.

After her leave, Ms Koh-Hoe took up a friend’s suggestion to take a morning off mid-week to spend “intentional time” with her husband and baby. She said, “This was the best time of the day for my baby – when he was alert and primed for interaction – as well as for my husband, who has a weekday off per week.” In exchange, she would work during the weekends or put in longer hours on the other days, working into the night when her husband and baby were in bed.

Focus on the Family is a local charity that focuses on helping families thrive. As an organisation, Focus has introduced flexible work arrangements like flexi-place and flexi-time for all their management staff and the team in charge of partnerships, projects and programmes.

Ms Koh-Hoe, who is now President of Focus, explained,

“As a charity, we work our staff as hard as any corporate but unfortunately cannot afford to remunerate them accordingly. While we manage to attract excellent talent with our Cause and Culture, many employees get to the brink of burnout or are trapped between pursuing their career’s passion and preserving their own family goals. Work-Life Integration (WLI) programmes help to meet employees’ needs and improve job fulfillment where monetary compensation cannot or will not.”

Her efforts have paid off. Ever since she took over the helm of Focus and started implementing the WLI programmes, Focus has seen higher staff morale, involvement of staff’s families as volunteers, and recommendation of the organisation as a good place to work by all the staff. In fact, their best – and most economical – recruitment is done through word of mouth by employees. “Our colleagues see Focus on the Family Singapore Ltd as their employer of choice and would love to recommend their friends to join us,” said Andy Goh, vice-president of Focus.

Ms Koh-Hoe believes that goodwill is always returned. “You can’t build loyalty from a purely monetary relationship. The employee that buys into the organisation is better able to sell the whole organisation, and not just its products and services.”

Focus on the Family is a local charity dedicated to helping families thrive. They provide family life education through talks and workshops, resources on an array of important issues and personal counselling.