Is HR prepared to handle flexi-work requests in Singapore?

Survey highlights several challenges for flexi-time, flexi-place, flexi-load arrangements

BY Dexter Tilo 12 Feb 2025

More than half of organisations in Singapore are confident that their HR and line managers are able to comply with the new guidelines from the government on flexible work arrangement requests, according to a survey.

The new Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (TG-FWAR) seek to ensure that employers will consider and respond to FWA requests properly, and took effect Dec. 1, 2024.

Under the guidelines, employers should ensure that their HR and work processes are designed to accommodate FWAs so employees under these arrangements can continue working properly.

A new joint survey by Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) found that 81% of employers are ready to implement the TG-FWAR.

In fact, 70% of them had processes in place to assess FWAR at the time of the survey, which was conducted between September 5 and 30 among 367 companies.

According to the report, more than half of employers across all industries covered in the survey also have faith that their HR and line managers can comply with the TG-FWAR.

Expected benefits of TG-FWAR

The Singapore government hoped the introduction of TG-FWAR in workplaces can help improve work-life balance and make employers more competitive in talent retention and attraction.

Most employers agreed with these gains in the joint survey, as they believe FWAs will increase the following benefits:

Employee work-life balance
Employee mental well-being
Employee retention and organisational attractiveness to potential employees

"What we can see is probably like FWA will allow us a bigger pool of employee choices, because we are now able to employ those groups of people who used to be unable to work due to whatever personal reasons," one retailer said in the survey.

Anticipated challenges, drawbacks to flexible work

However, among the main drawbacks that employers expect in introducing flexible work include:

Delay in responding to customers
Increase in operational costs
Increase in employee absenteeism

In fact, they believe introducing flex-time, flexi-load, and flexi-place arrangements can have the following challenges:

Scheduling meetings for flexi-time (63%)
Ensuring adequate staffing levels for flexi-time (52%)
Maintaining consistent communication for flexi-time (48%)
Ensuring security of company data for flexi-place (61%)
Monitoring employee performance for flexi-place (58%)
Balancing workload among employees for flexi-load (77%)
Maintaining accountability for flexi-load (61%)

The report further found that larger firms are more likely to see flexible work as a strategic advantage, while smaller firms see unique challenges in implementing them.