Study: SG Employers Getting Out of Touch With EX
- By DWFTrends editors
- June 21, 2022
The Microsoft Work Trend Index report, "Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work," revealed that 60% of managers in Singapore feel leadership at their companies is out of touch with employee expectations. On the other hand, 78% of Singaporean managers say they don't have the influence or resources to drive change for their team.
The 2022 Work Trend Index surveyed 31,000 people from 31 countries, including Singapore, and analyzed trillions of productivity signals in Microsoft 365 and labor trends on LinkedIn. It offered the following five ways workforce management and expectation have changed.
1. Employees are making work decisions based on what is personally important. At 52%, more than half of Singaporeans prioritize their health and wellbeing over work. A quarter of employees left their jobs last year, but many more plan to do so. 63% of Gen Zs and millennials in Singapore are likely to consider a job change in the next year.
2. Managers are caught in a juggling act for meeting the expectations of both employees and leaders. Even though most leaders in Singapore (51%) plan on bringing back full-time in-person work, their team members feel otherwise. More than half (53%) want to work remotely or hybrid. This outcome left managers feeling disempowered.
3. Workplace is not rewarding enough. Nearly four in 10 (38%) hybrid employees in Singapore find it challenging to know when and why they should come into the office. Although only about a third of leaders (30%) have created team agreements for hybrid and remote work setups, many others are trying to find ways to encourage flexibility within their organizations.
4. Rebuilding social capital in a hybrid world will be a considerable challenge. Half of the Singaporean leaders (49%) say that relationship-building is the biggest challenge they face when they have employees who work remotely. However, because more Singaporean workers are thinking about working remotely next year, companies cannot rely solely on the office to rebuild their social capital.
5. Flexibility doesn't mean always being available. The flexibility of hybrid work has made it possible for people to work more efficiently. Microsoft has found that the time people spend working on Teams has increased by 13% or 46 minutes per day, 28% over the weekend, and 14% after work hours.
Lee Hui Li, managing director at Microsoft Singapore, shared, "The past two years prompted many of us to review our priorities and how we navigate work, especially when flexibility and well-being become non-negotiables for our people. Today, we are not the same people who went home to work in early 2020. Hence, leaders must embrace these new expectations with the right tools and reciprocal policies in place, so they can set their people and their business up for long-term success as they build a resilient, digitally inclusive economy."