Singapore Ministry of Manpower resolves disputes faster with Pega

The Business Issue

The Singapore Ministry of Manpower plays a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s workforce – by balancing the needs of businesses with the rights and well-being of workers. Focused on ensuring a sustainable and inclusive labor market, they oversee everything from employment regulations and workplace safety to wage fairness and skills development.

In a fast-evolving economy like Singapore’s, the Ministry faced increasing complexity in managing employment disputes. Singapore's workforce consists of both local and foreign workers, with approximately 30% of the workforce being non-citizens. The traditional process for lodging complaints – manual, paper-based, and highly time-consuming – created delays and inefficiencies for both workers and Ministry staff.

Moreover, the evolving labor landscape, with a rise in gig economy workers and new types of employment issues, further compounded the complexity. The process required extensive officer intervention, including manual case registrations and lengthy mediation procedures, which often led to bottlenecks and dissatisfaction among all parties involved.

Recognizing the need for a change, the Ministry sought to leverage AI and digital tools to create a more streamlined, autonomous dispute resolution process that would cater to Singapore’s increasingly tech-savvy workforce while maintaining a fair and transparent system for all.

The Solution

In response to these challenges, the Ministry developed an AI-powered self-service platform that would completely transform the entire dispute resolution process. The platform, built on the Pega Platform™, integrates a suite of cutting-edge technologies designed to reduce the need for manual officer intervention, streamline workflows, and improve the overall user experience for both employees and employers. Key features of the solution include:

• AI chatbot support: The platform allows employees to lodge complaints through an AI-powered chatbot. The chatbot guides users through the process, minimizing errors and ensuring that all necessary information is correctly captured, saving users time and reducing the need for officer corrections.
• Automated mediation facilitation: The platform incorporates officer knowledge into a rules-based mediation process, enabling employees and employers to resolve disputes without the need for court intervention. Guided negotiations help both parties reach consensus through structured responses.
• Proactive conflict prevention: Pega Customer Decision Hub™ proactively identifies potential disputes and sends automated alerts and recommendations to employers, helping them mitigate conflict before it escalates.
• Seamless integrations: The platform integrates with external systems such as Singapore's national digital identity solution, SingPass, for secure digital signatures and Zoom for virtual mediations – enabling a more flexible and user-friendly experience for all parties.

The Ministry also conducted extensive workshops and pilot testing to ensure that the system was user-friendly and aligned with its vision of a fully autonomous employment dispute resolution service.

The Results

The deployment of the new AI-powered platform has transformed the employment dispute resolution process, yielding significant benefits for both the Ministry of Manpower and Singapore's workforce as a whole:

• Enhanced efficiency: The platform has led to a 500% increase in self-service resolutions, dramatically reducing the need for officer intervention. Employees and employers can now resolve most disputes without requiring mediation.
• Time and cost savings: Automated processes, from case submission to scheduling, have saved both time and operational costs. Officers no longer need to manually schedule meetings or verify information, enabling faster dispute resolution.
• High settlement rates: Approximately 77% of cases are now settled before reaching mediation – significantly reducing the caseload and speeding up resolutions. Of the 900 cases lodged per month, 700 are resolved through guided negotiation.
• Improved accessibility: The platform offers multilingual support, ensuring that Singapore's non-English-speaking foreign workers can participate fully in the process. This has helped increase engagement and fairness across the entire workforce.

Best of all, the Ministry of Manpower’s success has inspired other government agencies across the country to explore similar AI-driven solutions for dispute resolution – further expanding the social and economic impact of the system.