(SINGAPORE) As managing director and region head of Singapore, Malaysia & Brunei for Citi Private Bank, Tan Su-Shan has a packed schedule that frequently involves attending corporate events and travelling.

A mother of two, she has learnt to work around it by stopping at home en route to evening functions and taking the last possible flight out - all in the interest of spending more time with her children.

While organisations such as Citi do offer a flexible working plan which allows women across different levels to either work remotely or with flexible hours, it may not always be a solution that everyone can subscribe to.

'In my line of work, it's hard to manage people from home,' points out Ms Tan.

But for other women, struggling to balance the demands of their work with the call of their family, such arrangements can make the journey somewhat easier. They can also remove some of the impediments that women face while climbing the corporate ladder.

Almost all top female executives that BT spoke to on the eve of the International Women's Day today agreed a little flexibility could go a long way towards retaining - and nurturing - female talent.

Rachel Eng, head of capital markets & corporate department at WongPartnership LLP, explains. 'In our firm, we keep an open line of communication with our women lawyers to help them structure their work scope, work type or working conditions,' she says. The rationale for this is that it allows women lawyers to achieve their work ambitions without abandoning their family responsibilities.

Senior management need to understand that women have the added responsibility of having children and should avoid over-penalising working mothers, Ms Eng adds.

Pauline Goh, managing director of CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), also reckons that more needs to be done to establish a better work-life balance, taking into account Singapore's resource-tight labour force. 'There are certain broad guidelines which companies can establish and work out together with their employees, for example, flexible work hours. Employees also need to realise that they need to be adept to changing circumstances and contribute more during certain periods in their career,' Ms Goh says.

Policies to support a variety of working hours can benefit both women and men, points out chief financial officer for DBS Group Jeanette Wong, who also acknowledges that the challenge sometimes lies in successfully implementing flexible working hours. With regards to work-life balance, it essentially boils down to choice.

'It depends on your priorities at each stage of your life. It is a choice of attending this meeting or being somewhere else. The more you feel that the choices are yours to make, the more in control you will be,' says Ms Wong.

Tan Su-Shan	Rachel Eng	Junie Foo

Data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) shows that as at June 2007, the 66,200 women employed as managers and senior officials are roughly twice the 32,400 women who held similar positions of power in 1997. In contrast, there were 123,900 male managers and senior officials as at June 2007. Women make up about 43 per cent of the 1.92 million resident labour force.

While the proposed changes need to come from the top, women should also strive to be more pro-active.

'A woman should be confident of her capabilities and not sell herself short,' says Junie Foo, director of global corporates at Standard Chartered Bank and chairman of Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO). Commenting on wage inequality, she says that women tend to be shy or hesitant when it comes to negotiating salaries.

The MOM numbers also indicate that while 20,900 women were earning $10,000 a month and above in 2007 - a 30 per cent increase from 16,000 women in 2006 - they still lags significantly behind the 65,500 men who came under the same earning bracket in 2007.

Women's associations can also make a difference and give voice to women's needs, says Citi's Ms Tan.

'While associations are consulted in informal ways, having a more formal role might help. The importance of such associations should be recognised and they should be encouraged,' adds Ms Tan, highlighting efforts by the Association of Women Doctors (Singapore) which spearheaded efforts to eradicate a gender quota that limited the intake for female medical students to one-third at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The quota was lifted with effect from 2003.

Jeanette Wong	Pauline Goh

Ms Tan founded the Financial Women's Association (FWA) of Singapore in 2001, an organisation that serves both as a networking and self-improvement platform.

Among other things, it is a 'support system' as well as a 'relink' to the industry, she says, for women who have taken time off from working to have children.

As women see their role in the economy and society grow, the SCWO has organised a power lunch to mark International Women's Day today.

Minister of State for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua and DBS's Ms Wong will be among those speaking at the lunch.

This article was first published in The Business Times on Mar 8, 2008.