6 In 10 Singapore Staff Feel Unsafe Returning To Office

Office Finder Team

August 26, 2021

Singapore

SINGAPORE – A survey conducted by Randstad shows that 61 percent of workers here still feel unsafe returning to their workplace given that the government has yet to vaccinate a large percentage of the population against COVID-19, reported Singapore Business Review (SBR) on Thursday morning (26 August, SGT).

The Dutch multinational HR consulting firm also discovered that while 70 percent of employees in Singapore plan to return to their office once the global health crisis is over, this rate is lower than the 85 percent recorded in Malaysia and Hong Kong as well as the 92 percent seen in mainland China.

In Hong Kong, Randstad found out that 71 percent of staff have been asked to carry out their jobs in the office despite the continuing threats posed by the coronavirus outbreak. However, 48 percent of the workers polled in the Chinese territory want to continue working from home (WFH) until more people there have been inoculated.

Meanwhile, Randstad Singapore said changing the traditional 9-6 work hour arrangement to a flexible work set-up will likely be difficult.

“The hybrid workplace will not be an easy transition. However, having been able to find work-life harmony from working from home these past months, many employers and employees have both agreed that hybrid work is the way forward,” said Randstad’s Managing Director for Singapore and Malaysia, Jaya Dass, in an interview with SBR.

Aside from that, a recent research carried out by Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group indicated that executives in Singapore are falling behind its neighbours in Asia Pacific in terms of providing support to their employees.

In the city-state, merely 43 percent of the surveyed executives said they have provided flexible work hours in addition to hybrid work set-ups compared to 50 percent in the region. While 33 percent of them provided physical health support and 36 percent offered mental health support, this is still lower than Asia Pacific’s 43 percent and 46 percent respectively.