MOST companies have been able to manage with employees going on longer maternity leave since it was extended to 16 weeks, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong has said.

But smaller companies, he noted, found it tougher to distribute the workload to other employees and needed to hire temporary staff.

Some, however, came up with creative solutions, said Mr Gan in response to a question tabled in Parliament on Monday by Nominated MP Paulin Tay Straughan.

As the query could not be responded to in the time allocated by Parliament for questions and answers, Mr Gan's reply was released yesterday as a written answer - along with several other replies that did not make it during Monday's question time.

Mr Gan cited the example of a small accounting firm which had two of its 20 employees on maternity leave this past year.

Before both women went on maternity leave, the firm made colleagues go on a job rotation so that they would be familiar with the work of the two women.

'This arrangement also helped to ensure continuity in the services provided to their clients,' he said.

Associate Professor Straughan wanted to know about the impact that the extension of maternity leave - from 12 weeks to 16 weeks - had on employees.

The new benefit began in October last year as part of a national effort to encourage Singaporean couples to have more children.

The feedback from employers, said Mr Gan, was that they were worried about operational disruptions arising from the absence of employees on maternity leave.

'They were also concerned about the increase to business costs as a result of the enhanced maternity leave.'

Such concerns could have been behind the rise in pregnancy-related complaints by employees. It rose to 119 in the first nine months of this year - up from 95 last year.

While this issue of rising complaints was not covered in Mr Gan's reply, he disclosed that most employers preferred it if their women employees did not take the full 16 weeks' maternity leave at one go.

Citing a recent survey of 300 companies by the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), he said the prevalent practice was for women to return to work after eight weeks' maternity leave. They then spread out the next eight weeks by going on a shorter work week.

About half of companies polled said they adopted such a flexible approach to maternity leave. Some 40 per cent - usually bigger companies - let employees take 16 weeks continuously, said SNEF executive director Koh Juan Kiat.

Flexible work and leave arrangements, Mr Gan said in his reply, also enabled employees to adjust back to work gradually and better cope with family responsibilities.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times.