Recently, HDB decided to hold a National Conversation to engage more Singaporeans on their opinions on housing affordability and monetisation means. Click on
Most of the time, the ones who have the most opinions are your own internal staff.
When I was working in HDB, I have experienced many hardships due to arrears, rental problems and servicing their loans. Some of the customers even said that since I was a HDB staff, I should feedback to my own Director on the problems or solutions to the higher management.
What most outsiders don't realise that as long as you are a staff drawing a salary from the organisation, even having an opinion is dangerous.
In most organisations, we have a Staff Suggestion Scheme. On average, we have to submit a few each year to meet our quota and these suggestions could be something to do with cut waste or enhancing of productivity etc.
When I was a HDB staff, I submitted one suggestion that suggested that the Finance Dept should try to accept credit cards/ visa for payment of deposit.
Straight away, that suggestion was cancelled and deleted by my boss as they think that since it is outside my department, my suggestion should be more for internal department. My boss feels that since it is cross/ inter-department, other people may not like my suggestion and there are other implications.
With this mindset, it is very hard for even internal staff to voice out concerns, let alone outsiders.
We have seen how some ex-civil servants like Tan Jee Say or Dr Liu Thai Ker who openly criticised some of HDB's policies. Most civil servants are very unlikely to do that when they are in office. My hands were tied too at that time. Now that I am out, I can do that as an outsider.
CJ