Singapore Companies Rapidly Bringing the Future of Work to Life: Aon Survey

• 75% of surveyed organisations
  have made decisions on return-to-office timelines but only 25% of the companies
  have a return date.
• 33% of companies expect
  returning workers to spend only two to three days per week in the office
• Key
  issues shaping future-of-work definitions are addressing talent availability
  concerns, rethinking company cultures and digitalisation

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 2 June 2021 – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional
services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions,
has released the results of a new global human
resources (HR) pulse survey focused on the steps companies are taking to bring
the future of work to life.

 

Aon conducted its pulse survey from April
20-28, 2021, with a total of 1,451 human resources leaders and professionals
responding globally. Complete study results, across multiple geographies
and industries, are available here. 

 

“The ongoing disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated
the need for an agile and resilient workforce,” said Peter Bentley, Global Chief Commercial Officer &
Future of Work Leader for Human
Capital solutions at Aon. “The focus on flexible working, while not new, has
resulted in an unpacking of additional ‘future of work’ initiatives as highlighted
by our survey findings. We see this trend continuing and driving positive
momentum as companies build a more flexible, healthy workforce and invest in
developing existing employee potential to drive innovation and performance.”

 

Companies
plan for return to the office, but not everyone and not every day

 

In Singapore, 75% of surveyed organisations
have made decisions on return-to-office timeline but only 25% of the companies
have a return date.

 

However, companies do not expect everyone to
return to the office. Forty-nine percent of surveyed organisations expect fewer
than 75% of office workers to return onsite once the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

 

Additionally, flexible or hybrid working
options are on the rise, with 33% of companies expecting returning workers to
spend only two to three days per week in the office, and another 17% of
companies opting to give employees a choice in terms of how much time they
spend in the office.

Supporting vaccine adoption through
incentives

 

As workers head back onsite, companies are taking a
proactive and supportive approach to vaccine adoption; however, they are largely
stopping short of mandates. Only 5% of surveyed organisations in Singapore currently
plan to make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for employees where allowed by law,
with another 9% of organisations actively considering this approach.

 

Meanwhile, 34% of organisations in Singapore are offering
incentives to employees who receive COVID-19 vaccines, most often in the form
of paid time-off to receive and recover from injections, and 46% of companies
are actively educating employees on the benefits of getting vaccinated.

Future-of-work strategies
and inclusion and diversity efforts are tightly linked

 

Focused on the future, almost three in four
surveyed companies (70%) in Singapore have one or more teams or taskforces
defining, managing and implementing the future of work. In addition, 80% of
organisations say they now have a clear and consistent definition for what the future of work
means for their business or expect to have a definition in the next six months.

 

The three most prevalent issues shaping
future-of-work definitions in Singapore are addressing talent availability
concerns, rethinking company cultures and digitalisation, cited by 93%, 86% and
80% of companies, respectively.

 

Looking more closely at inclusion and
diversity efforts, 44% of surveyed companies in Singapore state HR teams are
most responsible for leading programmes in this area. Additionally, 86% of
firms have created or are planning to create inclusion and diversity metrics
or goals to track progress, with diversity encompassing diversity of thought as
well as employee demographics.

 

Efforts to rethink location-based
compensation continue

 

With remote work on the
rise, 69% of surveyed organisations in Singapore have adjusted, or are
considering adjusting, geographic pay differentials as a result of the pandemic.
Among companies actively adjusting
pay based on shifting employee locations, 87% are re-examining pay rates using fresh
market data and 39% are adding more granularity to the geographic zones they
consider.

 

However, making adjustments of this
nature isn’t without challenges. Top concerns for Singapore organisations include
the difficulty of adopting and maintaining market-aligned pay rates across
numerous locations (72%) and employment-related concerns and work policies (67%).
In both cases, surveyed companied cited these issues as moderately, very or
extremely challenging.