S’pore Entrepreneur Reveals Why Employees Should Not Start Work at 9 AM or Earlier


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Last Updated on 2023-04-23 , 11:22 am

Any working Singaporean will tell you they are exhausted after being forced to be early birds and only being let off from work in the evenings.

With long work hours, most end up just crashing on the couch when they reach home and can only recharge on the weekends.

This Singaporean entrepreneur, however, makes the working world seem like a utopia and encourages her employees to start work later and end earlier.

Why You Shouldn’t Start Work at 9 Am or Earlier

The entrepreneur, who goes by @theasianmama on TikTok, started the video by saying that at 9 am, most people would be “going to the pantry, to take coffee, tea, water and eat breakfast.”

She added that this is because everyone’s day does not start as early as 9 am.

They are usually hungry and need to eat breakfast before they can start work. She said this was not “productive for the people working, and also not productive for the company.”

She tells her staff not to start work at 9 am but at 10 am instead.

However, her employees should be getting ready and eating breakfast before then. “Please do not come to work to eat breakfast,” she said.

She later added that she would not get anyone to work for her until 6 pm.

When the typical person works from 9 am to 4 pm, they would “probably have been sitting by their desk for about 6 hours.”

“Their brains are fried, and they’re thinking about going home,” she said. They’re thinking about where to go after work and are no longer concentrating.

She said that based on studies, their productivity levels would be low after such long hours.

Her staff starts work at 10 am and ends at 4 pm to allow them to do “whatever they want” afterwards and “feel happy and have a work-life balance.”

She said that this enables them to stay focused on work when they come in each morning and is “more productive” for her business.

She told viewers in her caption that they should change their jobs if they started work at 8:30 am.


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She is a financial manager and runs a business selling products and providing services for mothers.

@thatasianmama Oh well… if you are reporting at 830am, change a job. If companies can be more open minded, productivity can increase, happiness index too will increase in within individuals who works in the company. Yes? #sgmummy #womenoftiktok #womenempowerment #momboss #corporatetok #productivity #asianmom #bosstok ♬ Dream Away – Ramol

Praise From Netizens

Many users in the comments agreed with her sentiments and thought that her practice was a great idea.

Image: TikTok

Some appreciated her display of empathy for those working long hours.

Image: TikTok

Others mentioned that her idea of productivity is spot on, and her approach to work-life balance was favourable.


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Image: TikTok

Some wished that all companies had this same practice.

Hustle Culture in Singapore

Hustle culture is practically synonymous with Singapore’s identity at this point, with both employees and students being notoriously overworked.

Hustle culture is when a huge emphasis is placed on productivity and success in the workplace with little regard for individuals’ health and work-life balance.

Last year, a study by the Instant Group found that Singapore was the most overworked country in the Asia-Pacific region, with employees working an average of 45 hours a week.

According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), contractual hours cannot exceed eight hours a day or 44 hours a week, assuming a 5.5-day work week.

Any extra hours worked will be considered overtime.


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The study also found that a sizable number of employees in Singapore were unhappy at 73 per cent, and 62 per cent were burnt out.

76 per cent of employees are keen on having a four-day work week.

Young people embraced the hustle culture a few years ago, what with their chiong-ing for national and university exams.

In 2021, 52 per cent of youths aged 16 to 24 embraced the hustle culture, but this seems to have changed as a study conducted in 2022 showed that Singaporean employees have the worst mental health in Southeast Asia, leading to a disregard for the hustle culture.