Prioritizing People: Singapore’s Push for Safer Workplaces by 2028

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently announced plans to reduce the city-state’s workplace fatality rate to less than one fatality per 100,000 workers by 2028.

Singapore has already made significant strides in this realm: since 2004, the fatality rate for the same number of workers has dropped from five to just under two. But places like the Netherlands, the UK, and Sweden have set the standard at less than one fatality per 100,000 workers.

To help realize this goal, the government is implementing new rules and incentives for companies to prioritize workplace safety and creating support centers where small businesses can access resources to maintain workers’ health and meet new benchmarks. It’s been made clear that employers, workers, and the government must work together for this project to be a success.

This is a teachable moment for progressive organizations. Singapore’s proactive leadership didn’t rest on its laurels when its workplace fatality rates dropped—it wanted to see them fall further and align itself with other progressive nations. It also didn’t allow potentially daunting upfront costs, ongoing management needs, and the general complexity of this project to be an insurmountable roadblock.

Every lofty goal is reached from a humble jumping-off point, and Singapore has taken its leap in the name of responsibility, sustainability, and innovation. They’ve outlined ultimate goals, put manageable plans into action, and done so with the knowledge that the government can’t accomplish these goals alone. This big-picture approach to solving a serious problem is one we’ll keep in mind as we set our own ambitious goals for the future of DISA and our industry.

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