Flexible Work Arrangements in Singapore: Workforce Planning

When Grab told its Singapore employees in October 2024 that they would need to return to the office five days a week from December, the move was framed as a way to strengthen collaboration and creativity.

Earlier this month, the National University of Singapore announced that it has implemented a five-day work-from-office policy for all full-time staff. A spokeswoman added that it still offers flexible work arrangements.

These decisions, though in different sectors, reflect a wider shift. Across industries, leaders are re-emphasising the office as the centre of work life. The question is no longer whether people can work remotely, but whether organisations still want them to.

Globally, hybrid work remains common rather than exceptional. The 2023 Global Survey of Working Arrangements, spanning 34 countries, found that full-time employees now spend on average 0.9 day per week working from home – equivalent to about one day in five. Roughly one-quarter (26 per cent) of employees work in hybrid arrangements, 8 per cent are fully remote, and the rest continue to work entirely on site.

In Singapore, flexibility has become an established expectation. The Ministry of Manpower’s 2023 Prevalence of Work-Life Harmony Initiatives report showed that 58.2 per cent of full- time employees required at least one scheduled flexible work arrangement (FWA), and nearly 90 per cent of employers granted it.

Since December 2024, the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (TG-FWAR) have also required companies to handle FWA requests through clear, documented processes.

Flexibility is now an expectation, yet some employers are mandating a full-time return to the workplace.

The 2023 State of Hybrid Work report by US-based Owl Labs found that 19 per cent of full- office employees changed jobs within a year, compared with 14 per cent among hybrid or remote workers, and nearly one in three said they would start job hunting if forced into full- time office attendance.

So returning to the office full time requires better reasons than teamwork and creativity. This is especially so when hybrid work or flexible arrangements have led to individuals or teams to perform well. Gallup’s 2024 Hybrid Work survey showed that hybrid employees reported higher engagement – 38 per cent – compared with 30 per cent for those fully on site.

The challenge then is not just to decide between the office or home, but to design workplaces and workflows that address the concerns of employers and the needs of employees at the same time.

Presence v performance

One factor that might account for the changing attitudes from employers is the weaker hiring climate.

With the tough job market and hiring slowing in many sectors, organisations feel freer to assert traditional expectations without fearing mass resignations. In an employer’s market, the perceived risk of turnover declines, and mandates become easier to enforce.

Thus, performance metrics still reward visibility; some coordination tasks, especially in manufacturing, R&D labs or data-secure operations, remain inherently place-bound; and leaders worry that hybrid arrangements may create “proximity bias” favouring those who appear in person.

Employers also cite other factors for wanting people back full time at work, such as fostering teamwork and creativity.

Yet evidence suggests otherwise. A large-scale field experiment by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom at Trip.com found that employees allowed two days of remote work were just as productive and promotable as those fully on site, while turnover fell by a third.

This study also reported that hybrid arrangements improve satisfaction and reduce attrition, fostering greater stability and trust within teams – two preconditions for genuine collaboration.

Likewise, more research featured in the MIT Sloan Management Review 2025 shows that well-designed hybrid systems – where teams meet in person for ideation but collaborate asynchronously afterwards – can sustain or even enhance innovation.

Evidence shows that compulsion may boost attendance statistics but not necessarily commitment. There are other repercussions that bosses need to weigh, too.

Longer travel times and disrupted caregiving often offset any productivity gains. And the symbolism matters – requiring presence can be read as a declaration that management trusts visibility more than performance.

Many organisations have demonstrated that performance and flexibility can coexist when hybrid work is treated as design and not indulgence.

DBS Bank continues to operate a 60/40 hybrid model in 2025. Employees spend about 60 per cent of their time in the office and 40 per cent remotely, supported by redesigned workspaces and digital platforms.

Recent employee profiles in the news highlight how this structure allows life-stage flexibility – such as for caregiving – without productivity loss.

Citigroup has likewise reaffirmed its hybrid stance. While some Wall Street peers tightened attendance, Citi confirmed in 2025 that it would retain its two-days-remote policy, describing flexibility as “a competitive differentiator for attracting top talent”.

Catering to a new era

Whether long-term creativity truly depends on compulsion – or on well-designed systems of collaboration – remains an open question.

When in-person presence is genuinely necessary, employers must do more than issue attendance directives – they need to reframe the workplace for the new era of work.

That begins with clarity of purpose: explaining why certain roles or functions require physical co-location, whether for on-site client engagement, data security or specialised equipment. Presence should be a design choice, not a default.

Evaluation systems must also evolve. Instead of equating performance with hours spent at a desk, organisations should measure the quality, timeliness and impact of outcomes.

If physical attendance is expected, then work conditions should compensate for the additional demands it imposes – for example, by offering staggered start times, flexible end-of-day arrangements, or practical support for caregiving responsibilities.

Finally, even under stricter attendance rules, fairness and process matter. Under Singapore’s TG-FWAR, employers who decline requests for remote work must give written reasons and respond within a reasonable timeframe.

Following this approach not only upholds procedural integrity but also signals respect – a quality as vital to modern workplaces as any new technology.

Data and experience alike show that autonomy, clarity and trust drive engagement far more reliably than physical oversight.

The future of work will hinge less on where people sit than on how both sides navigate give and take.

The most resilient organisations will find equilibrium between these aims – anchoring flexibility in accountability and presence in purpose. Rather than reasserting control, the challenge is to co-create conditions where commitment feels earned on both sides.

Only then will returning to the office become a choice shared, not a rule imposed.

Kang Yang Trevor Yu is an associate professor at Nanyang Business School and co-director at the Centre for Research and Development in Learning, Nanyang Technological University.

Source:

Yu, Kang Yang Trevor Oct 10, The Straits Times 2025 Why is flexibility becoming a dirty word in the office?

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/why-is-flexibility-becoming-a-dirty-word-in-the- office?ref=search-results

Task

The objective of this assignment is to explore how flexible working arrangements impact businesses operating in Singapore. More specifically, the assignment needs to appraise, using available published information, how workforce planning is affected as businesses grapple with balancing the needs of employers and employees in flexible work arrangements. As mentioned in the news article, there are organisations which have removed flexible work arrangements when research information continues to show the benefits of such work arrangements. Some jobs in certain industries appear to be more suitable for jobs to be placed-bound as mentioned in the news article. This assignment requires recent and current secondary research on the challenges in building a flexible work arrangement framework in balancing the manpower needs of organisations in workforce planning with the needs of employees. The role of the appropriate government initiatives and policies needs to be researched and assessed.

For this assignment, you are required to:

• From reading the news article, identify and discuss TWO (2) external factors which affect flexible working arrangements. Secondary research is expected to support the discussions.
• Research and select a company, with operations in Singapore, in any ONE (1) of the FEC (Future Economy Council) Cluster and FEC ITMs (Industry Transformation Maps).

Describe the profile of the selected company.

• Nature of business
  • Geographical presence
  • Overall business strategy
  • Major competitors
  • Annual revenue/turnover and employee headcount
  • Product life cycle/Industry life cycle
  • The ITM and the FEC cluster the company is in
• Apply the TWO (2) external factors identified and discussed in Q(1) to the selected industry the selected company operates in. Discuss how each of these TWO (2) external factors will affect workforce planning within the industry. Secondary research is expected to support this discussion.
• Based on secondary research, select and describe appropriate government initiatives introduced to improve flexible working arrangements for the industry the company operates in. Evaluate how the selected government initiatives and regulations impact the selected company’s workforce planning. It is necessary to identify specific jobs in the selected organisation impacted by the appropriate government initiatives. Additional secondary research is required to complement the information in the news article.
• Formulate a workforce planning framework that the company is adopting with intentions to adopt flexible working arrangements. Support your framework with secondary research for the following steps in the workforce planning framework.

• Business strategy and talent philosophy
  • Staffing decisions
  • Demand for talent
  • Supply of talent
  • Addressing the gaps between demand and supply of talent

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Expert Answers on Above Questions on Workforce Planning

Factors affecting flexible working arrangements

The two important factors that are affecting flexible work arrangements are labour market conditions and government policies and regulations. Flexible work arrangement is often utilised by organisations when there is strong hiring demand but there are shortages of talents. Contrary to this, during weaker economic conditions, the bargaining power of employers is higher and requires employees to return to full office work. In the given article, it is evaluated that the tough job market conditions allowed employers to enforce traditional office expectations and employees were forced to work full time in the office.

The flexible work arrangement as considered by organisations is also highly affected by government policies and regulations. It is important for employers in Singapore to follow governmental policies in handling employee requests for flexible work as per the tripartite guidelines on flexible work arrangement requests. The office of government policies is on improving work life balance, productivity and labour participation.

Selected company is DBS Bank

DBS bank is a multinational banking corporation that offers a wide range of services including retail banking, wealth Management and digital banking services. The Bank corporate across entire Asia covering markets like Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Taiwan. The strategy of the company is on digital transformation and customer centric banking to provide quality services and better customer satisfaction. The key competitors of the bank include Citigroup, United Overseas Bank etc. The bank employs more than 35000 employees worldwide and generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. The industry life cycle stage is considered a mature stage because of the significant level of Technology innovation driving digital transformation and competition from fintech companies.

Impact of external factors on workforce planning

The labour market conditions in particular affects the workforce planning, and organisations like DBS considers hybrid work policies to attract skilled professionals especially in performing digital banking roles. It also assists banks in achieving reduction over employee turnover rate and better job satisfaction. Along with this, government policies require businesses like DBS to establish formal procedures for handling flexible work requests.

Government initiative supporting flexible work

An analysis of the Singapore government initiatives indicates that the government introduced TG-FWAR to allow employees to make formal requests for flexible working arrangements. The impact of this type of policies on DBS is significant as it directly affects several job roles such as digital banking specialists, IT developers, data analysts and more.

Workforce planning framework for flexible work

The most effective workforce planning framework that supports flexible work is to align business strategy with talent philosophy, and this is done by DBS which helps in promoting flexible work arrangements in attracting and retaining talent. The staffing decisions should be such that it focuses on selecting employees that are good at working in a hybrid environment. Finally it also supports proper balance between supply and demand of talent and addresses any talent gap that facilitates organisation with addressing workforce shortages effectively.

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