HRSINGAPORE Community

Dear HR Community

We are a social service organisation and we will be hiring covering officers on a temporary basis.

These covering officers take over the role of some of our full-time employees who may be away for an extended period of time for one reason or another.

As we have never done this before, we wish to know if we need to give them any employee benefits and if so what kind of benefits should we provide them.

Thanking you in advance for your kind advice and replies.
Han

HR Poll: Do you provide benefits to temp staff?

Yes: 62.50%

No: 12.50%

Sometimes: 21.88%

Not sure: 3.13%

REPLIES & COMMENTS: 

Extend benefits to temp staff like “staff purchase” depending on the period of employment. - Judy

During my time with other organisations, we have extended benefits like involving them in internal team welfare activities such as department lunches and appreciation meals or lunches. Other than that, we do not extend full-time staff benefits to temp staff. - Janice

If the temps are under your direct payroll, employee benefits such as annual leave, sick leave, and public holidays shall depend on their contract duration (e.g. 3 or 6 months) and their eligibility under the Employment Act. - Leeann

Yes - since the full-time employee may be away for an extended period, we would consider giving the temp staff certain benefits such as festive season cookies, medical, etc as a gesture of appreciation based on their good performance. - Elaine

If you are referring to temporary, fixed-term contracts, they should usually be treated as employees, which means incl. benefits. for some benefits though, it is very costly and complex to manage for short periods, therefore you can define in your policy that these would be only for "permanent" employees. Some insurers may also have that in their contract with you, certain insurances would only be for permanent staff. Therefore, I think it is up to you to define, which benefits would make sense to extend to temporary employees, but I would try to be clear in the policies to define which group of employees would receive what. Contractors (temporary resources hired through a third party) should never receive benefits. - Danielle

We provide the same benefits as per permanent staff except for the VB and there will be a completion bonus for 12-month contract staff. - KL

If they are temporarily filling someone's position but for a longer period of time then they deserve to get the benefits. - Eisha

We do provide these benefits (e.g. medical, insurance as annual & medical leaves as well as transport) for certain temp/contract staff based on the duration of employment and their position. - Hazel