- SMEs in Singapore are facing many challenges in providing flexible working.
- The experience in Canadian small businesses inspires SMEs how to implement flexible work.
According to the Conditions of Employment Report released by the Ministry of Manpower, 53 percent of firms surveyed offered at least one flexible working arrangement, such as part-time work, flexible hours, or teleworking.
However, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still tend to lag in adopting workplace flexibility for a number of reasons. So what are the challenges that SMEs in Singapore are facing?
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The challenge of SMEs in Singapore
A survey by credit and business information bureau DP Information Group found out that more than one in four SMEs in Singapore have difficulties hiring the staff they need. The Singapore employees said that they would like to have remote work and work flexibly.
Another study by the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore showed that 83% of employees said they were more concerned about work-life balance and 81% wanted to spend time with their families.
Therefore, remote work allows employees to satisfy their needs. Moreover, 42% of employees who prefer flexible work arrangements would consider quitting.
However, many of the SMEs in Singapore cannot smoothly provide remote work to their employees. There are lots of reasons why SMEs cannot solve these challenges.
Reason for the hindrance on a flexible working implementation
The first reason is that SMEs do not support their employees to have remote work because it costs a lot of money to buy some software for the employees to work, such as virtual meeting software and online working platforms. This will increase the SME’s operation cost.
The second reason is that directors of the SMEs thought that it needed extra manpower to monitor the remote work’s employees. It would cost extra money for hiring people.
The final reason is that directors thought that it needs much time to monitor the remote work’s employees. If the managers need to take lots of time for monitoring the remote work’s employees, it would affect the work efficiency of management.
Based on the above reasons, the SMEs’ directors thought that their companies do not have enough extra resources to support their employees in remote work.
Since the SMEs could not support the flexible work that the employees needs, the result is that they have already faced hiring challenges and impacting their productivity levels.
To support SMEs in Singapore to implement flexible working, SNEF(Singapore National Employers Federation) provide several pieces of advice for those companies.
The experience of implementing flexible work: Canadian small businesses
Recently, Singapore Government is suggesting all Singapore companies follow FWA. FWA is a new set of tripartite (Policymakers, employees, and unions) guidelines and the aim is to require employers to consider flexible work arrangement requirements fairly and properly by 2024.
The meaning of a fairly and properly flexible work arrangement is that reminding the directors to decide on the working method should be balanced between the needs of the companies and employees, not only benefits one side.
More Details on FWA: Advises to Singapore companies from The SNEF
Within the report of FWA, there is a survey about the experience of Canadian small businesses. The results of the survey revealed that over 80% of Canadian companies provide at least one type of flexible work arrangement.
Additionally, the report has included focus group discussions with Canadian owners and managers of small companies on the motivations and challenges in providing flexibility at work, it was found that:
- When employers support the work-life needs of employees, the employees usually reciprocate with better work performance and commitment;
- Employers said that their employees respect the flexibility and support given to them and generally use it judiciously;
- While the companies trust their employees to use flexibility wisely, the employees are also vigilant that it is not abused.
This reflects that if the SMEs in Singapore are implementing flexible working, the fact is it can increase their productivity levels and attract new talents to join.
The most important thing is that the report showed that implementing flexible work has lots of advantages, it is not like SMEs’ directors who thought that there were lots of disadvantages.
But is remote work the only flexible working mode for SMEs in Singapore? And do SMEs implementing flexible work really cost lots of money?
The suitable flexible work for SMEs: Hybrid working and Hybrid office
In fact, remote work is not the only way to reach the flexible work that the employees need. Of course, it also does not need lots of money for the SMEs to implement flexible work. If the SMEs can implement flexible working in their office, they can also attract new talents to join or retain their talents. For example, SMEs can implement hybrid working in their offices.
Hybrid work is an approach that takes into account the individual’s needs, whether they’re at home or at the office. It allows the employees to decide their work location and workflow by themselves. Thus, flexible working hours allow Singapore employees to spend more time with their families.
Some data shows that most workplaces had vacancy rates of 20-50% prior to the coronavirus pandemic and 40% of an office’s dedicated desk space sits unused on a given day.
This shows that a large workspace is unnecessary for an office and the empty permanent desks are wasting the office resources. Therefore, hot desking and room booking services are very suitable for the SMEs office and become hybrid offices.
Becoming a hybrid office can help SMEs to save operations by reducing the workspace. Also, hybrid offices allow employees to work flexibly, and SMEs can retain their talents.
Many organizations see hybrid work as the evolution of remote working, allowing employers to better integrate remote working into overall business processes while providing comparable work experience for remote workers.
More Details on Hybrid working.
What setup is suitable for the hybrid office?
A hybrid office should use a comprehensive office management system, which helps Singapore employees use office resources efficiently, such as rooms, desks, and office equipment, and support them to have remote work and virtual meetings with their colleagues in the office.
If you are the company director in Singapore, using the management systems can help you consider how to reduce the operational cost such as reducing the office workspace and fulfilling the expectations of both employees and administrators.
ONES is one of the famous all-in-one smart office systems that can help you to easily implement hybrid working at ease. You can easily perform virtual meetings, desk-hoteling, and digital office management with our Room Booking, Desk Booking, and Visitor Management features.
ONEs Software now has a dedicated page to introduce a series of hybrid working measures to help you solve problems. You may wish to go to https://ones.software/sg/hybrid-workspace/ for further reference.
Contact us: hello@ones.software, or visit ONEs Software official website for more information: https://ones.software/sg/.