Singapore’s Workplace Fairness Act (WFA) was passed by Parliament on 8 January 2025 — a landmark shift that converts the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) guidelines from voluntary best practice into statutory obligations. For Singapore employers, the question is no longer whether to comply, but how, and by when. The WFA is expected to commence by the end of 2027, giving firms a preparation window that is narrowing faster than many realise.

This guide explains what the WFA requires of employers, which employees are protected, how the new dispute resolution framework operates, and what your HR team should be doing right now — well before the commencement date arrives.

What the Workplace Fairness Act Does

The WFA converts Singapore’s existing fair employment framework into hard law. For decades, the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices issued by TAFEP carried moral weight but no legal teeth — employers who breached them faced reputational risk and MOM scrutiny, but no direct civil liability. The WFA changes that fundamentally.

Under the WFA, it is unlawful for an employer to make an adverse employment decision — including hiring, promotion, training, pay, or dismissal — on the basis of any of the 11 protected characteristics:

  • Age
  • Nationality
  • Sex
  • Marital status
  • Pregnancy status (including past, current, or intended pregnancy)
  • Caregiving responsibilities
  • Race
  • Religion
  • Language ability
  • Disability
  • Mental health condition

Notably, sexual orientation and gender identity are not included in the protected characteristics list. The WFA also does not prohibit all nationality-based considerations in hiring — employers may still use nationality as one factor when it is a genuine occupational requirement, and the COMPASS framework’s nationality diversity criterion continues to apply. The WFA adds a discrimination-prohibition layer on top of COMPASS, not a replacement for it.

The Workplace Fairness (Dispute Resolution) Bill, passed on 4 November 2025, creates the procedural architecture for enforcing these rights — including a new Workplace Fairness Tribunal where employees can bring claims without needing to engage a lawyer for straightforward cases.

Key Employer Obligations Under the Workplace Fairness Act

1. Merit-Based Recruitment Practices

Employers must ensure that hiring decisions are made on merit — qualifications, experience, and aptitude — rather than on any protected characteristic. This means:

  • Job advertisements must not reference protected characteristics unless a genuine occupational requirement applies (for example, specifying that a role requires Mandarin fluency for an operational reason is permissible; specifying “Chinese only” is not).
  • Interview questions must not probe protected characteristics — asking a candidate about their marital status, whether they plan to have children, or their religious observance schedule is prohibited.
  • Selection criteria must be documented and applied consistently. Employers are expected to retain interview notes, scoring frameworks, and assessment records to demonstrate that decisions were fair.

Employers who currently rely on informal hiring practices — a word-of-mouth network, a preference for candidates from particular universities or countries — should begin auditing these practices now. Practices that are difficult to justify on merit grounds will become legally vulnerable once the WFA commences.

2. Written Grievance Process (Section 27 Obligation)

Every employer — regardless of size, subject to the small employer exemption below — must establish a written grievance process that meets the statutory requirements. Under Section 27 of the WFA, this process must:

  • Inquire into and review each grievance raised by an employee
  • Inform the employee of the outcome in writing
  • Maintain written records of each inquiry and review for a specified retention period
  • Protect the confidentiality of the grievance and the identity of the employee raising it, except where reasonably necessary to disclose

Critically, the WFA prohibits retaliation against any employee who raises a grievance or assists in an investigation. An employer who demotes, reduces pay, or terminates an employee who filed a discrimination complaint faces liability under the Act independent of whether the underlying discrimination claim succeeds.

If your company does not currently have a documented grievance procedure, this is the single most urgent action to take. A policy that exists only in a manager’s head does not satisfy Section 27. For practical guidance on what an HR compliance framework should look like for Singapore employers, the Singapore HR Manager’s MOM Compliance Calendar 2026 sets out the broader landscape of obligations including the WFA’s interaction with MOM filing deadlines.

3. Record Retention

The WFA requires employers to retain grievance records for a specified period (the exact retention period will be set by subsidiary legislation before commencement). Best practice in the interim is to align with the existing Employment Act framework: retain records for at least five years. More importantly, companies should begin building the habit of documenting hiring decisions and grievance outcomes now, so that the record-keeping discipline is embedded before it becomes legally mandatory.

4. Non-Discrimination in All Employment Stages

The WFA applies to the full employment lifecycle — not just recruitment. Adverse decisions on the basis of a protected characteristic are prohibited at the point of:

  • Hiring and selection
  • Terms and conditions of employment (pay, benefits, hours)
  • Training and development opportunities
  • Promotion and progression
  • Dismissal or retrenchment

This means that a performance improvement plan targeting employees of a particular age profile, or a retrenchment exercise that disproportionately impacts a particular nationality, could give rise to discrimination claims under the WFA if the employer cannot demonstrate that decisions were made on legitimate, non-discriminatory grounds.

The Small Employer Exemption

Businesses with fewer than 25 employees are expected to be exempt from the WFA’s requirements at the point of commencement — or subject to a reduced set of obligations. The Government has stated that it will review this exemption threshold within five years after the WFA takes effect.

This exemption provides breathing room for micro-businesses and very small SMEs, but it is not a permanent reprieve. Employers approaching the 25-employee threshold — or those who expect to grow beyond it — should begin preparing their HR processes now. Retrofitting a compliance framework after the exemption lapses is significantly harder than building it proactively.

The Workplace Fairness Tribunal

The new Workplace Fairness Tribunal, established under the Workplace Fairness (Dispute Resolution) Bill, provides employees with a dedicated venue to bring discrimination claims. Key features of the Tribunal include:

  • Claims can be filed without legal representation for straightforward cases, reducing the barrier for employees to bring complaints
  • The Tribunal operates as part of the Employment Claims Tribunals (ECT) framework — a system Singapore employers are already familiar with for salary and employment disputes
  • Employers found in breach can be ordered to pay compensation, reinstate an employee, or take specific remedial action

The practical implication is that discrimination claims will become significantly easier and cheaper for employees to pursue from 2027 onwards. Employers who are currently exposed — who cannot document their hiring decisions, who lack a grievance process, or who apply practices that systematically disadvantage protected groups — face materially higher legal risk than they do today.

Interaction with COMPASS and Existing MOM Frameworks

The WFA does not override the COMPASS framework for Employment Pass applications. Under COMPASS, nationality diversity at the firm level is a scored criterion — employers receive points for having a workforce that is not overly concentrated in any single nationality. This remains lawful because COMPASS is an MOM-administered points system applied to pass applications, not an employer-initiated adverse employment decision.

However, the interaction between COMPASS and the WFA requires careful handling. An employer cannot instruct a hiring manager to reject a qualified candidate because “we have too many [nationality X] already” — that is a discriminatory instruction in the hiring context. The correct approach is to manage COMPASS scores at the organisational level through compensation benchmarking and pass strategy, not by discriminating against individual candidates. Employers who conflate the two risk WFA liability while potentially missing the COMPASS points they were targeting anyway.

The WFA also sits alongside the existing Employment Act’s protections against unfair dismissal and retrenchment without notice. Singapore employers already face obligations under the MOM compliance framework for levy payments, pass renewals, and IR21 filing — the WFA adds a discrimination-law dimension that requires its own separate track in a company’s HR governance.

What HR Managers and Directors Should Do Before 2027

The WFA’s commencement date is expected by end of 2027 — but building a compliant HR function takes time. The companies that will be best positioned when the Act takes effect are those that begin now. Here is a practical action checklist:

  1. Audit all active job advertisements. Remove any language that references protected characteristics where no genuine occupational requirement applies. Check your internal job brief templates and external postings on platforms like MyCareersFuture, LinkedIn, and JobStreet.
  2. Review your interview question bank. Train hiring managers to avoid questions about age, marital status, pregnancy plans, religion, and related characteristics. Replace subjective screening criteria (“good cultural fit”) with documented competency-based frameworks.
  3. Draft and implement a written grievance policy. Ensure it covers the Section 27 requirements: inquiry, written outcome, confidentiality, and record retention. Have Legal or HR Counsel sign off on the policy before it is issued.
  4. Establish a documentation habit. For every hiring decision, promotion, or retrenchment, document the criteria applied and the evidence assessed. A standardised scoring sheet for interviews is a minimum.
  5. Review D&O and employment practices liability (EPL) insurance. Discrimination claims can be costly. Boards should confirm that EPL coverage extends to WFA-type claims.
  6. Engage your corporate service provider. The WFA’s commencement will likely require updates to employment contracts, HR policies, and staff handbooks. Begin that project early — legal and HR vendors will be under pressure as commencement nears.

For employment pass holders and foreign professionals working in Singapore, the WFA adds an important layer of protection. Nationality-based discrimination in hiring, which has historically been difficult to challenge, will become a statutory wrong once the Act commences. For employers who sponsor Employment Passes, the obligation to treat foreign professionals fairly at every stage of employment is now a legal duty, not merely a best-practice aspiration.

For guidance on pass sponsorship, levy obligations, and MOM compliance across your foreign workforce, the team at Singapore Employment Agency — the licensed MOM agency of Little Big Employment Agency Pte Ltd (Licence No. 19C9790) — can support your HR and immigration needs. For broader corporate structuring, payroll, and employment advisory, Raffles Corporate Services provides end-to-end solutions for Singapore-based businesses.

— The Editorial Team, Little Big Employment Agency

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