Some media coverage of the recently announced Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement (FWA) Requests, especially in the foreign press, may have given the impression that Singapore is moving to a four-day work week, and that in the process we are somehow going to be working less or lowering our productivity.

Of course, this is not the case. The guidelines are not mandatory or prescriptive. What the guidelines do is open a line of communication between individuals and employers to start a conversation about FWAs.