While other firms are reducing their footprint, AXA is looking for a suitable new space in Singapore
While most companies are reducing their office footprint amid the COVID-19 crisis, insurance group AXA will be moving staff out of its corporate tower in Singapore for a different reason.
The eponymous AXA Tower – one of Singapore’s most iconic buildings – will be redeveloped by its owners, which include Alibaba Singapore. The plans have led AXA on a hunt for a new office space.
The insurance firm is now in the middle of finding “a suitable space that will meet [its] needs,” said Chief People Officer Hayley Yap.
As an anchor tenant, AXA occupies five floors in the building. But with workplace health protocols in place – such as the staggered return to the office – only 15% of staff are reporting to work on site, Yap told The Straits Times.
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Long before the pandemic, the company had already been offering employees a work-from-home option. The health crisis only accelerated its adoption on a massive scale.
AXA’s relocation plan is only the latest move to stir up Singapore’s office rental industry, which has seen rent in the central region fall 4.5% between July and September, according to the latest figures from the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The displacement of AXA and other tenants, however, could spark new demand in the sector.
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Is the office dead?
Elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region, other business districts are also slowly reawakening from their months-long slumber in the COVID-19 crisis as more employees are emerging from their work-from-home setup and heading back to the office.
In Australia, for example, the National Australia Bank became one of the first major employers to call staff back to the office. NAB is hoping to have buildings at about 40% capacity, HRD reported.
“By returning to the office, we want to start again unlocking the benefits of in-person collaboration, such as better innovating for customers, learning from each other, problem solving together, mentoring and building our high-performance culture,” NAB told 34,000 employees in an email.
While HR leaders work to regain some normalcy in their on-site operations in 2021, they will need to convince employees that their workplace is “COVID-19 secure,” according to one HR leader who spoke to HRD.