Even before the COVID-19 virus hit our shores, the Organisational Resilience team at HDB had already been on high alert, having seen how quickly the virus was taking hold of communities around the world. When Singapore confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January 2020, ensuring the health and safety of HDB staff and customers became paramount for the team.

Building a Safe Workplace

“In the beginning, when there was so much uncertainty about the virus and how it could spread, our priority was to protect our staff serving critical business functions, especially those serving on the frontline as they interact with so many people every day,” shares Loo Ying Hui, who is part of the Organisational Resilience team.

As such, measures to safeguard the well-being of staff and customers were set out promptly. These include quick replenishment and distribution of personal protection equipment such as masks and hand sanitisers and the introduction of transactions by appointment only. Elaborate standard operating procedures to deal with suspected and positive cases within the office premises were drawn up with clear protocols for contact tracing, deep cleaning and self-quarantine to prevent the spread of the virus.

Safeguarding an organisation with over 5,000 people – and the people they interact with – requires collective effort across HDB. For example, Human Resource Manager Huang Enyi recalls collating health and travel declaration data during the early days of the pandemic and before the mass roll-out of SafeEntry, to help account for the health status of all HDB staff and visitors. Many HDB staff also stepped forward to man designated customer entry points at HDB Hub, such as the Sales Atrium, to help with temperature taking and health declarations.

Constant State of Preparedness

The concerted push towards digitalisation over the last few years enabled HDB to continue delivering on its work, even during Circuit Breaker in April 2020 when unprecedented closures and restrictions were put in place nationwide to reduce the spread of the virus. Customers could access HDB’s ready suite of digital services for matters relating to homes, businesses, car parks and more, with staff ready to attend to them confidently using virtual tools.

Ensuring the continued operations of the organisation, Ying Hui emphasises, does not happen overnight. Even before the pandemic struck, HDB had been actively devising recovery plans and measures for critical functions to continue during emergencies. As such, HDB managed to equip its staff to work from home before the Circuit Breaker, which helped the organisation transition smoothly to the new mode of working.

“Past exercises on alternate site deployment have prepared us to act quickly in the initial phase of the pandemic, where some of the critical business functions were deployed at alternate sites to reduce face-to-face interactions and lower COVID-19 transmission risks,” shares Ying Hui. “Having a mindset to ensure business continuity is built into staff from the moment they join HDB so that we can remain resilient in the face of any crisis.”

This spirit of resilience carried HDB through the peak of the pandemic, when virus outbreaks in migrant worker dormitories meant there was a critical need to re-house thousands of healthy workers safely and quickly. As part of a Whole-of-Government (WOG) effort to ensure essential services could continue smoothly, HDB swiftly converted vacant HDB blocks and multi-storey carparks of BTO construction sites into temporary housing quarters and constructed a number of Quick Build Dormitories for these workers.

“It has been over a year since the pandemic began, but our fellow colleagues continue to be agile and resilient in the face of disruptions,” says Enyi. “At the end of the day, we are united in our mission of providing affordable and quality homes for Singaporeans, and a safe workplace for our staff.”