Managers, if you find your minions workers chafing under your whip, read this.

A recent survey by Hay Group Insight of eight Asian countries found 29% of Asian workers frustrated generally due to overwhelming red tape and a lack of opportunities to grow - professionally, not literally - in their cages cubicles.

Other culprits: impotent work systems, feckless managers, and restrictive offices. Companies suffer too. Disgruntled employees are big liabilities and even cause business to fizzle out.

What your workers really want are challenging tasks with the resources to complete these successfully. Instead of just engaging and motivating your subordinates, take time to tweak existing office processes that promote productive performance. It would also help to loosen up a bit and grant them the freedom to make decisions that actually matter.

Most importantly, where your presence will not help at all, stop breathing down necks and get out of the way. If you insist on being a dictator, try politics instead. ; )

WHAT'S CHANGING?
From Oct 1, employers here will have to pay the Skills Development Levy for all their workers. Currently, they only have to do so for workers earning less than $2,000.

Instead of the existing rate of 1%, the monthly levy that employers have to pay will be 0.25% of the first $4,500 that a worker earns or $2, whichever figure is higher.

HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOU?
Employers may soon have to pay the levy for all their workers, but the reduction in rate per worker will serve to ease the transition.

For employees, the amendment is a good sign, as an increasingly educated workforce means that continuous upgrading and training should not only apply to lower-skilled workers.

The latest fiasco to rock our little red dot: Lee Bee Wah's shock sacking of table tennis team manager Antony Lee.

The decision comes about a week behind Singapore's first Olympic medal after almost five decades, barely a day after a coachless Gao Ning crashed out of the Games in 24 minutes to a relative nobody, and just before a jubilant Team Singapore returns home.

MP Lee Bee Wah, who is also president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA), had already taken an unforgiving stance early on. She said: "We cannot accept such things happening in such an important tournament," referring to the Gao Ning incident.

But no one expected the guillotine to fall so soon on Antony Lee, with Head Coach Liu Guodong also on the chopping board. With no proper inquiry conducted and no official reason given except that it being best for the STTA chief's "new team" to choose their manager, due process is conspicuously absent in the swift dismissal.

Further raising eyebrows: Ms Lee's inexperienced but heavy hand after only a month at the helm of STTA, and her denial that the Gao Ning incident had anything to do with the team boss' sacking, who apparently was due to go in a decision made before the Olympics.

When asked to comment, Singapore National Olympic Council president Teo Chee Hean said: "I assume that she has the facts of the situation to make the decision that she did."

Well, we know what assuming makes out of you and me.

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