The rules that decide how a courier's people work

Our workforce includes employed van drivers, hub staff on fixed and part-time contracts, and riders who accept work through our app as platform workers. Each arrangement carries different duties on pay, injury cover, retirement contributions and representation, and those duties differ between Singapore and Malaysia. I keep a single register of how every group is engaged, who allocates its work and which obligations follow. When a manager proposes a new arrangement, I ask what problem it solves for the rider or employee, not only for the cost line. I take legal advice on classification rather than reach conclusions myself. What I add is a clear account, for the chief executive and the board, of what each model asks of the people inside it and what the company would owe if the arrangement were later found to be something else.

Riders and drivers in Singapore and the Klang Valley work in heat and humidity for most of the year, on roads shared with lorries and buses. Safety policy can meet official expectations on rest, shade and water while the product design quietly pushes people to skip all three. I review pace with operations whenever we sell a new delivery window: how many drops an hour it assumes, what happens to pay when a drop is late and whether the app timer stops when someone takes a break. Our safety team owns incident investigation and road-safety training. My part is the pay rule, the roster and the incentive, because those are often where risk is created. I also insist that heat reviews cover indoor sortation floors, which can be hotter than an open road.

About 1,100 of our hub staff are foreign workers, employed under Singapore's work-permit system or Malaysia's foreign-worker arrangements. The rules on levies, housing, medical cover and repatriation differ, and so do the practical risks. In Malaysia I focus on overtime, hostel conditions and who holds identity documents; in Singapore, on dormitory transport times and shift handovers. Workers keep their own passports, wages go into bank accounts and hostel inspections are carried out by HR rather than by the hostel operator. I meet elected representatives at each hostel twice a year without hub managers present. I am careful not to treat welfare as a substitute for pay. Many of our colleagues came to earn and remit money, and a decision that improves rest while cutting income has to be explained to them honestly.

Parcel volumes rise sharply around 11.11, 12.12, Chinese New Year and the weeks before Hari Raya Aidilfitri. A hub that staffs for the average month will rely on overtime and agency labour at precisely the moments fatigue matters most. I plan peak rosters with operations from a rest model outward: the minimum rest days and breaks first, then the shifts and part-time cover needed to meet forecast volume within them. We publish peak rosters six weeks ahead and protect religious observance and festival leave in the rota rather than through last-minute swaps. I track fatigue near misses alongside throughput so that a strong peak cannot be reported without its human cost. Commercial teams now see roster capacity before they agree peak-volume commitments with large marketplace customers.

Our six workshops maintain about 900 vans and the company-owned motorcycles used for training and relief. Experienced technicians are scarce, and bus operators and dealerships recruit them actively. In 2022 we lost almost a quarter of them in a year. I replaced a grade structure that rewarded years served with a pay ladder linked to certified skills, including high-voltage work on electric vans, and opened a workshop academy for apprentices from technical institutes in both countries. Senior technicians are paid an allowance to teach. I also changed breakdown rosters so that night call-outs rotate across the whole team rather than falling on the most capable people. Attrition fell to 13% in 2025. The remaining risk is concentration: only nineteen technicians are yet certified for high-voltage work.