December 2, 2024
The great return to the office: Is flexible work a priority or a perk?
SINGAPORE – Even as Singapore workers look forward to better work-life balance under the Tripartite Guidelines On Flexible Work Arrangement Requests that take effect from Dec 1, the great return to the office seems inevitable.
Sixty-one per cent of workers aged 18 and up are now working from the office, up 7 percentage points year-on-year, according to data from Blackbox Research’s platform SensingSG, which polls 1,500 Singaporeans and permanent residents aged 18 and up every three months.
In contrast, 27 per cent of respondents still enjoy hybrid work arrangements, down 7 percentage points year-on-year. Only 5 per cent now work mainly from home, down 2 percentage points year-on-year.
“We expect to see a continued gradual decline in remote and hybrid working in 2025,” says Mr Glenn Wray, Blackbox Research’s head of strategy.
The new guidelines stipulate that Singapore employers must “fairly consider” formal requests from their staff for flexible work arrangements (FWAs). Besides telecommuting, these may include staggered hours, flexi loads, job sharing and compressed working hours.
Bosses can reject such requests for business reasons, such as cost and feasibility.
The Ministry of Manpower’s employment conditions data shows a steady decline in companies offering scheduled FWA, from a high of 90.5 per cent in June 2021, when Covid-19 raged, to 68.1 per cent in June 2023.
However, such flexible arrangements are still higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 52.7 per cent in 2019.
Judging from recent workplace movements, workers still enjoying hybrid arrangements today will find themselves trading their shorts for suits more often in 2025.
“We are definitely seeing an increasing trend in organisations looking to return to the office (RTO), or increase the number of days in the office,” says Ms Kirsty Poltock, a director at recruitment firm Robert Walters Singapore.
“A common trend is that more and more organisations are looking to move to four days in the office and one day of work from home (WFH). However, there is still a proportion of employers who are offering three days in the office with two days of WFH.”
Global multinationals and tech giants, once seen as shining examples of progressive employers, have been steadily calling for workers to spend more time on-site, citing gains in collaboration and culture.
In the most recent high-profile case, American technology giant Amazon announced in September that all its employees must work in the office five days a week from 2025, up from three days currently.
Amazon chief executive officer Andy Jassy has denied that the move is a “backdoor layoff”.
KPMG’s CEO Outlook, which polled 1,325 CEOs between July and August, paints an even more extreme scenario – 83 per cent of bosses expect full RTO within the next three years, up from 64 per cent in 2023.
Eighty-seven per cent of respondents said they were likely to reward employees doing in-person work with favourable assignments, pay rises or promotions.
The professional services firm surveyed companies with annual revenues of over US$500 million (S$670 million) across 11 markets, including China, India and Japan, and 11 industry sectors. Singapore was not included.
Closer to home, super app Grab told staff in late October that they would have to work five days in the office starting Dec 2.
In response, some workers are “coffee badging” – a buzzword coined by American videoconferencing device maker Owl Labs in 2023 to describe those who show up in the office to grab a coffee and be counted, and then leave to work elsewhere.
To counter this, some companies across different industries overseas have been tracking their employees’ locations through electronic tapping in and out of company badges or other means.
These include Big Four accounting firms EY and PwC (the latter’s United Kingdom staff were affected), as well as Citigroup, a global investment bank and financial services company, according to a September report in business and tech news website Business Insider.
Longstanding friction between employers and employees over RTO demands can have adverse effects, experts say.
“It is important to distinguish what is a policy and how it is enforced. We are seeing many companies struggling to police their policies. In multiple instances, the mandate is not being enforced,” says Mr Ravin Jesuthasan, senior partner and global leader for transformation services at Mercer, a US-headquartered human resources consultancy.
“Leaders assumed that the level of discontent from employees being made to return to the office full time would go down, but the noise level just kept getting ratcheted up.”
Ms Shulin Lee, 41, managing director of legal recruitment firm Aslant Legal, says many workers she has spoken to, even those outside the legal profession, “feel silenced” and are afraid to ask for flexibility, lest they be labelled slackers.
“Now, companies are facing a serious retention problem. The best talent doesn’t just have options – they’re actively seeking workplaces that respect their ability to excel without being chained to a desk,” she adds.
Some smaller companies in Singapore are increasing their in-office days as their business needs change.
Local firm Ellerton & Co Public Relations & Marketing will move into a 1,000 sq ft shophouse office space in Boat Quay in December. Its employees will work there three times a week.
The 10-year-old company had given up its former premises near City Hall MRT station during the pandemic in early 2022 in favour of working from home.
A year later, it allowed employees to use co-working space Crane as an additional working and meeting space whenever they needed it. In the third quarter of 2024, it asked them to work from Crane’s Claymore Connect branch on Tuesdays and Thursdays in anticipation of the move back on-site.
The need for a physical office was driven by the company’s growth. It had six staff in 2021, which will increase to 13 by December, spread across Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, says Mr Oliver Ellerton, 40, its director.
Besides facilitating ad-hoc meetings, in-person work is crucial for juniors who make up about half the staff strength now, compared with its more top-heavy hierarchy a few years ago, he adds.
“In an industry such as public relations, which has become much more complex over the years, having physical guidance from seniors in an office environment is absolutely key for a 22-year-old executive who’s just starting out. You can’t replicate that on Zoom,” he says.
But employees can ask for flexibility to attend to urgent duties at home, he adds. The company encourages them to switch off after 6pm and leave work behind during holidays.
Ms Karishma Kataria, 38, a director with Ellerton who became a new parent during the pandemic, says hybrid arrangements helped her balance work with being there for her three-year-old, who is in full-day pre-school. She recognises the need for an additional day in the office as the agency is growing.
“What’s important is that the work set-up accommodates employees who may be at different life stages or from different age groups. For parents like me, it’s simple things like the ease of school drop-offs and pickups. With the flexibility to do those things, more days a week in the office is fine,” she says.
Similarly, Singapore eCommerce Centre is planning to double the number of in-office days from one to two days from Jan 2. The company, which markets health supplement brand Nano Singapore, started operations in the thick of Covid-19 in May 2020.
It employs 18 people across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, and is still hiring.
Its employees, considered essential workers during the pandemic, had to adapt to the fluctuating social distancing restrictions then, so the founders invested in digitising their enterprise resource planning systems to allow for remote work.
By 2023, its work arrangement was four days of remote work, and Mondays in its 220 sq ft Ubi office, says co-founder Eugene Sim, 43. Mondays are “very hectic days” full of meetings, one-to-one discussions and bonding over meals.
The second in-office day will allow for more engagement among staff and help the company become more nimble, he says. He envisages more learning sessions via informal chats and lunch meetings to make it worth the commute.
Mr Sim admits his staff’s initial response to the upcoming extra office day was “oh, no”. Some had committed to exercise classes or scheduled medical appointments for their elderly parents in the mornings. But they are “willing to see how this pans out”, he says.
As a boss, he feels there is quicker problem-solving and innovation when people meet in person rather than online or via e-mail. “Things move faster because you don’t make guesses based on just the tone of voice or the chat. You see everything as a whole, so there are fewer misunderstandings,” he says.
At the same time, as the head of a wellness company, he is mindful of his employees’ mental well-being.
“The team has to feel it is thriving and growing. That’s how the organisation grows,” he says.
“To me, this is about change. We experienced change during Covid-19 with the transition to our one-day work-from-office policy. Now, there’s an opportunity for us to take a look at how this change can evolve, and we are trying to have very open communication with the team.”
Having had a taste of telecommuting during the pandemic, many employees around the world now crave more control over their work lives.
Mr Wray from Blackbox Research observes: “All the data Blackbox has uncovered, not just from SensingSG, but also in many studies of business and employee sentiment, illustrates that there remains an overwhelming desire for – and expectation of – continued flexibility in the workplace.”
Ms Feon Ang, managing director of professional network LinkedIn Asia Pacific, chimes in: “Across the globe, we continue to see the share of applications (demand) to hybrid and remote job postings outstrip the share of remote and hybrid job postings (supply) on LinkedIn.”
For instance, 28 per cent of paid job postings on LinkedIn Singapore offered flexible work options in July 2024, down from a high of 39 per cent a year ago. But hybrid roles still attracted 30 per cent of applications.
“LinkedIn data also shows that employers who offer flexible work enjoy a sizeable hiring advantage – including access to a larger talent pool, more applicants and higher retention,” she says.
Eight out of 10 professionals in Singapore consider flexibility as one of their top priorities at work, according to LinkedIn data, she adds. Gen Z workers, who will comprise almost 30 per cent of the global workforce by 2030, are particularly strong advocates of it.
An in-house legal counsel says she is grateful that her employer of two years allows staff to work from home on two days. Her caregiving obligations have increased as her parents are now in their 70s and one of them has dementia.
“This enlightened attitude gave me a great boost of confidence, autonomy and self-empowerment, and has allowed me to feel more motivated towards my role as well as less guilty in the various aspects of my life where I want to achieve,” says the 40something Singaporean, who is married with no kids. She declined to be named as her company has not authorised her to speak.
In contrast, her previous employer was not receptive to flexible work arrangements, which affected her attitude towards the job.
“I cannot see the younger generations below myself accepting such lack of support and understanding, as there are many more career options and ways of life being practised now,” she adds.
Women are the big losers when companies fail to practise work flexibility, because they traditionally bear much of the caregiving duties in the family, says Ms Chuen Chuen Yeo, managing director of leadership consultancy Acesence Agile Leadership.
This is especially concerning in a super-ageing society.
“With the RTO, it seems like the group most impacted are women in the workforce,” says Ms Yeo, who wrote the 2023 business book, Leaders People Love.
While she feels there is no one-size-fits-all solution, she points out that the tripartite guidelines may be potentially prone to bias.
They state that employers should explore ways to accommodate FWA requests such that “the company remains productive”.
“We cannot measure the productivity of knowledge workers from old concepts like the number of projects delivered, the number of reports produced or hours spent in office,” she says.
“For someone who is on a flexible work arrangement, will the perceived level of collaboration be lower if the assessors prefer face-to-face interactions?”
Company leaders should update their performance measurements and equip their managers to set relevant, objective goals that support flexible work while managing their biases, she suggests.
At the same time, Mr Jesuthasan from Mercer cautions against a clash of wills in the workplace.
“This is a balancing act requiring rationality from both parties. Flexible work has traditionally not been considered an entitlement for employees. It became a new normal, but it is important to remember that work is not just about what you do – you’re there to collaborate and make others better, and to help the organisation execute its mission,” he says.
Despite the wave of RTO mandates, “hybrid is here to stay”, says Ms Carol Wong, executive director at Cushman & Wakefield Singapore, a commercial real estate services multinational.
Its Experience per Square Foot (XSF) tool, which measures employee experience levels, has shown that workers who lack flexibility in location or schedule have a lower workplace experience score. This is especially so for Gen Z workers, who struggle the most with well-being, she says.
“The onus is on employers to meet their employees’ desires for flexibility to prevent losing their top talents,” she says.
Mr Mark Tham, 47, country managing director for Singapore at Accenture, says the global professional services company is sticking with its remote work policy, which was in place even before the pandemic. It has about 774,000 staff globally, but did not reveal its local headcount.
Accenture’s research has shown that people now value work-life balance the most, followed by salary and job security. “Today’s workplace is vastly different from pre-pandemic times as that period reshaped expectations around work arrangements – making flexible and remote options a priority rather than a perk,” he says.
Even when staff are required on-site, how the office operates can make or break the experience.
DBS Bank’s permanent hybrid work model has benefited from optimised workspaces, says Mr Erwin Chong, 49, its group head of corporate real estate strategy and administration. Most employees are allowed to work from home up to 40 per cent of the time, depending on their role, since 2021.
DBS reimagined the office in 2016 with a concept called JoySpaces, which served it well during the pandemic years and beyond. These activity-based workspaces, designed in collaboration with staff, offer different zones for focus work, collaboration and socialisation.
“Even as we had reduced our office space in Singapore by 9 per cent, our offices still feel vibrant and employees have regularly given feedback that coming into the office is a productive and meaningful use of time,” Mr Chong says.
“In contrast, maintaining a 1:1 desk-to-employee ratio as some companies have chosen to do could create a perceived emptiness of office spaces under hybrid models. This in turn impacts management’s perception, making them associate this emptiness with a lack of collaboration and employee engagement.”
Some co-working spaces, which offer flexibility beyond a traditional office, are also seeing more clients.
The Great Room, for instance, expanded its footprint by almost 50 per cent from 2023, including two new locations in Singapore and its first branch in Sydney, Australia. It now has seven branches here, as well as locations in Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Ms Jaelle Ang, its CEO and founder, notes that demand for flexible work spaces has grown across sectors such as finance, technology and consulting.
“I foresee that people will soon drop the term ‘co-working’ or ‘flexible working’. This way of working in a hybrid model, balancing in-office and remote work, will just be how people work. Everyone will return to the office, but no one will be there every day and all day,” says Ms Ang, who is in her 40s.
Meanwhile, local companies like Singapore eCommerce Centre and Ellerton maintain they do not foresee a full RTO situation.
“Everybody’s a knowledge worker now. I don’t see a very compelling reason to sacrifice the well-being of the team. However, if we pivot into something that requires physical presence, then things might be very different,” says Mr Sim.
Amid the inevitable wave of RTO mandates, how well the new flexible work guidelines assuage employees’ fears and hopes depends on how willing bosses are to change perceptions of how and where work is done.
Legal recruiter Ms Lee from Aslant Legal says: “Real change requires more than policy. It demands a major cultural shift – a shift away from glorifying face time, overwork and burnout as signs of commitment.