Workplace Fairness Act 2025 — employer obligations — Eligibility and requirements checklist
Little Big Employment Agency (EA Licence 19C9790) works with a panel of corporate and employment law firms; this article is general information, not legal advice.
The Workplace Fairness Act 2025 creates statutory protection against workplace discrimination on defined characteristics and requires employers to run fair processes for hiring, promotion and dismissal. Under the Workplace Fairness Act 2025, employers must review job adverts, grievance handling and records so that decisions are based on merit, not protected characteristics.
What the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 covers
The Workplace Fairness Act 2025 gives legislative force to long-standing Tripartite guidelines. It prohibits discrimination on protected characteristics, including age, nationality, sex, marital status, pregnancy, caregiving responsibilities, race, religion, language, disability and mental health condition, across the employment life cycle.
The Act works alongside the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices framework, and enforcement is administered with the Ministry of Manpower. It focuses on process fairness rather than mandating specific outcomes.
Employer obligations under the Workplace Fairness Act 2025
Employers are expected to ensure job adverts do not specify protected characteristics, to base selection on skills and merit, to provide a grievance-handling process, and to protect employees who report discrimination from retaliation. Records must be kept to show that decisions were made fairly.
Group employers reorganising their corporate structure should coordinate policy across entities; our guides to corporate structuring for employers and setting up a Singapore holding company are useful context, and our note on what every Singapore employer must do now under the Act gives a practical checklist.
Who must comply and the numbers
The framework applies broadly, with implementation phased and certain thresholds for smaller employers during transition. Employers should budget 20 to 40 hours to review adverts, handbooks and grievance procedures, and S$3,000 to S$10,000 where external policy and training support is engaged. Penalties for breaches are administered by the Ministry of Manpower and can include corrective directions.
Step-by-step compliance
- Audit job adverts and templates for prohibited criteria.
- Update the employee handbook and recruitment scorecards.
- Implement or refresh a grievance-handling and anti-retaliation process.
- Train hiring managers on merit-based selection.
- Set up record-keeping for hiring, promotion and dismissal decisions.
- Review annually and after any rule change.
Common mistakes
The recurring failures are adverts that specify nationality or age, informal grievance handling with no audit trail, and dismissal decisions that lack documented, merit-based reasons. Section 3 of the Employment Act 1968 already frames core employment protections, and the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 layers fairness obligations on top, so employers cannot rely on old habits.
Building a defensible hiring process
The practical heart of compliance is a hiring process that can be shown to be merit-based. That means job descriptions tied to genuine requirements, structured interviews with consistent questions, scorecards that rate candidates against the same criteria, and a record of why the chosen candidate was selected. Where a protected characteristic is relevant only through a genuine occupational requirement, that reasoning should be documented rather than assumed.
Grievance handling is the other pillar. Employees need a clear channel to raise concerns, an assurance against retaliation, and a documented process for investigating and responding. An informal, undocumented approach is precisely what the new framework is designed to move employers away from.
Interaction with existing employment law
The Workplace Fairness Act 2025 does not replace existing protections; it layers onto them. Core statutory entitlements, notice, salary, leave and wrongful dismissal protections, continue to apply alongside the fairness obligations. Employers should therefore review the employee handbook holistically so that fairness policies, disciplinary procedures and dismissal templates are consistent with one another.
Employer readiness checklist
- Audit adverts and templates for prohibited criteria.
- Introduce structured, scorecard-based selection.
- Stand up a grievance and anti-retaliation process.
- Train hiring managers and keep training records.
- Document hiring, promotion and dismissal decisions.
Related guides
For further reading, see our guide to corporate structuring for employers, our note on setting up a Singapore holding company, and, on this site, what every Singapore employer must do now under the Workplace Fairness Act.
Authoritative sources
Refer to Ministry of Manpower and ICA for the official position.
FAQs
What does the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 protect against?
Discrimination on defined characteristics including age, nationality, sex, marital status, pregnancy, caregiving, race, religion, disability and mental health condition.
Do small employers have to comply?
The framework applies broadly, with phased implementation and transition thresholds; employers should confirm their timeline with current MOM guidance.
What must employers do first?
Audit job adverts and selection criteria, then update grievance handling and record-keeping to evidence fair decisions.
Are there penalties?
Yes. Breaches are administered by the Ministry of Manpower and can result in corrective directions and other sanctions.
Need help with this? Call, SMS or WhatsApp +65 8501 7133, or email [email protected]. Little Big Employment Agency (EA Licence 19C9790) works with a panel of corporate and employment law firms; this article is general information, not legal advice.