People of TAL

Yoke Yun

Assistant Director, Engineering Cluster (Sensing and Development)

WSH Council

As a fresh graduate with the Ministry of Manpower’s Occupational Safety and Health Specialist Department, my job required me to inspect different workplaces ranging from dry cleaning factories to shipyards. Through the inspections, I interacted with senior management and workers, understood their WSH challenges, and provided suggestions on making their workplaces safer and healthier. When I saw that the workers were appreciative of how they could return home to their families at the end of each working day, I felt that I was able to make a difference through my work and this ignited my passion for Workplace Safety and Health (WSH). I vividly recall a worker from a metalworking factory who once told me, “Thank you sister, for teaching me the correct way of wearing ear plugs, you helped protect me from getting noise-induced deafness.” 

With a passion in WSH, working at the WSH Council came naturally for me. Today, my team and I work closely with industry stakeholders in the Engineering Cluster which consists of the Chemical, Marine and Manufacturing sectors. These stakeholders are representatives from the government, unions and companies and I always believe in engaging them to have a good understanding of the WSH issues on the ground before we formulate recommendations that will truly benefit these industries. 

Through my engagements, I have found respect for senior management executives who would treat their workers like family and uphold WSH to the highest of standards. I know of a Chief Executive Officer from a multinational corporation who revealed that he would get to know his workers so that he could address them by their name and remind them to be safe and healthy. Today, as a supervisor myself, I aspire to do the same, to sincerely know and care for each of my colleagues. 

Within the team, we come from diverse backgrounds, with our own set of beliefs and points of view.  To me, showing sincerity by listening to them with an open mind is important. Who knows, a good idea may just spring up during a private tête-à-tête! People management is never easy, but it makes me happy when I get to see the team achieve success and progress in their career. After all, we are all working at the WSH Council with the same goal in mind, and that is for the betterment of WSH standards in Singapore.