Flexible benefits on the rise in Singapore

Mercer’s Flexible Benefits Survey 2007 has found Flexible Benefits (Flex) to be increasingly important for rewarding employees in Singapore and to be a new way to retain talents and battle the ever increasing employment costs.

Flex uses a specific contributions approach, addressing the needs of various workforces and gives the employees a fixed amount of Flex credits based on salary, performance, tenure, age, marital status, dependents and/or career level. These credits allow employees to choose benefits that they value most.

The Mercer survey found that 97% of the respondents believe that their investment in Flex is beneficial, with 89% of the companies that already offer Flex benefits reporting that employees are happier with it.

The main objective for the companies with regards to their benefits strategy is to provide a benefits package that would cater to the various groups of employees, with health benefits being the most popular, followed by dental, optical and outpatient plans. However, even as these benefits are the ones with the highest expected increase in costs, they can still be the most increase in costs are expected, they will generally be found in most benefits plans. This shows that the employers consider the requirements of their employees seriously, and with Flex, benefit packages can be adjusted to suit employees’ needs and wants.

Half, or 50%, of the survey participants in Singapore now have plans to implement Flex within two years. Furthermore, Flex is beginning to be used in places like Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Thailand.

ABN AMRO, an international bank, has found that Flex, when used effectively, has made a difference in attracting and retaining talents and in managing healthcare costs. The scheme, with a focus on healthcare, gave every staff an annual “expenditure account” on their average healthcare cost, and unused benefits are saved for future use. Today, ABN AMRO’s staff retention rate is 20% better than the industry norm. It now has increased productivity, lower absenteeism, better employee engagement, and improved employment branding.

Items in flexible spending accounts (FSA)	% of companies who include item
Dental expenses	95%
Medical expenses not covered by core benefits	86%
Optical/vision care	86%
Travel/holiday expenses	78%
Spouse/children’s medical expenses	76%

 

Expat assignments not measured on ROI  

ECA International’s Return on Investment (ROI) survey has found that very few companies analyse, in any formal way, the results of their mobility programmes. Their latest research has shown that few HR departments are able to calculate accurately the value their international mobility programmes bring to the business.

As reported by the survey, the biggest challenges to calculating ROI appear to arise from communication or ownership issues. Twenty one percent cited difficulty in setting assessable business objectives for the assignments, with 27% saying that they had difficulty measuring financial benefits. Another 28% of respondents also said that they faced difficulty in determining non-financial benefits to the business.

Although 70% of respondents to the survey claimed to actually know that their mobility programmes add value to the business, very few cases of this appear to be based on actual facts. Only 20% of companies actually have a system in place to help confirm this, and for those who lack ways to measure the value, 69% base their knowledge on anecdotal evidence, such as: “Since international mobility is increasing in the organisation it must be successful” or “because senior management have their own experiences internationally”.

The survey also found that only 3% of HR professionals are asked to justify their international mobility programme, and 65% are never questioned on it at all. But being able to demonstrate in the value of mobility programmes added to the business will raise the profile of the international HR team. It can also provide the aptitude for considered debate as to the future use of international assignments, especially during times of recession when the mobility would be scaled down due to large costs.

 

Challenges in calculating ROI

Difficulty in setting assessable business objectives for assignments         21%

Difficulty in measuring financial benefits                                                  27%

Difficulty in determining non-financial benefits to the business                   28%

 

 

Singapore slow to use mobile technology

Singapore – While Singapore is perceived to be very advanced in terms of mobility adoption, Singapore executive-level consumers, or “prosumers”, are less proactive and involved with mobility technology compared to their counterparts in cities such as Bangkok and Mumbai.  

According to a recent study on business mobility commissioned by Nokia, companies in Singapore may have adopted a high level of business mobility solutions in the workforce by implementing their IT infrastructure with virtual private network (VPN) or wireless local area network (LAN) and relevant security policies.

Some of the top 5 mobile solutions used by Singapore companies include mobile email (92%), access to internet on mobile device/phone (82%), mobile calendar and contact information synchronisation with corporate network (78%), applications to view office documents (72%) and mobile access to files and sharing (56%).

Mathia Nalappan, VP, Asia Pacific, Nokia Enterprise Solutions, said business mobility is on the rise in Asia and both organisations and prosumers are embracing the trend. And the vast majority of prosumers surveyed across six cities, including Bangalore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai and Singapore, agreed that their work/life balance had improved with the use of smartphone or personal digital assistants (PDAs).

However, half of the respondents in Singapore have indicated that there is no visible improvement in their work/life balance. Furthermore, the study also found that the local workforce is not taking the advantage of such mobile work solutions and is falling behind in terms of prosumer readiness.

Despite the low uptake on mobility devices, Nalappan believed that organisations should still proactively push and encourage the use of mobile devices as it will gain them competitive advantage by increasing response time, have access to timely information for quicker decision-making, improving productivity and employees from different parts of the world are also able to collaborate better and easier.

Nalappan added: “However, for employees who may have a concern that they are expected to be contactable 24/7 and the need to work longer hours with the mobile devices in place, it is crucial for organisations to have appropriate HR policies to support and address the work-life balance challenges likely to be experienced by the growing mobile workforce.”

 

Major reasons cited for the lesser usage among Singapore business-level executives

Unable to switch off work (54%)

Expected to be available at all times (44%)

High subscription fees (42%)

 

Higher employee engagement, better financial performance?  

Employee engagement can help bolster the financial performance of a company, a WorkAsiaTM research study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide found.

From the WorkAsiaTM findings, it found that engaged employees tend to understand their organisation’s business goals, steps required, how their contribution generate results, as well as having a strong desire to participate in the company’s success.

The study also helped pinpoint the areas of improvement so as to encourage employee engagement and productivity, thus increasing the company’s financial performance. The top three drivers of engagement among Singapore-based employees would include customer focus, compensation and benefits, and communication.

"The WorkAsiaTM study tells us that forward-looking organisations are replacing one-size-fits-all offerings with programmes that target their most valuable employees. These efforts enable them to create a more productive and stable workforce," said Russell Huntington, director for Human Capital Group, Asia-Pacific.

 

Key findings	High engagement	Low engagement
Agree that decisions made by their organisations are done with customers’ best interest in mind	94%	36%
Agree that management of their companies do a good job of justifying major decisions	88%	17%
Agree that they are paid fairly as compared with other people in other companies who hold similar jobs	74%	17%
Agree with the HR effectiveness at their company	67%	11%

Facebooking at work

A study by IT security and control firm Sophos found that one in seven employees indulge in their Facebook addiction during work.

Among the respondents polled, visits to the site only once or twice a day stand at 37.2%. Another 8% also admitted to using it up to 10 times a day, and one in seven (14.8%) confessed to be logged in to Facebook almost permanently during work.

"The results show that more than one-fifth of these Facebook users are actually Facebook abusers.  They're seriously struggling to tear themselves away from the website when they should be concentrating on their jobs - disturbing news for all organisations that are still allowing employees uncontrolled access," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

Culey added, "Several trade unions have spoken out in the site's defence, suggesting that employers should put more trust in their workforce, and clearly the majority of people are using the site in moderation.  The problem is that a 20% addiction rate equates to an awful lot of loafing, while there's also the likelihood that the abusers could ruin it for the other rule-abiding users."

The results justify employers’ fears that such sites will negatively impact business productivity. It has been estimated by employment law firm, Peninsula, that 233 million hours every month are lost in UK as a result of employees indulging in social networking sites.

Some organisations such as Lloyds TSB, Transport for London and Kent County are reported to have already blocked access to Facebook for users.

"So far there seems to have been a furore at every organisation that has decided to block Facebook access, but there's a real danger that if companies don't take action, this problem could spiral further out of control," continued Cluley.

"Many companies are now aware that Facebook brings with it a series of security concerns, particularly the risk of employees inadvertently revealing sensitive or confidential information to the wider world.  When combined with the threat of an accompanying productivity slump, they may well decide that social-networking at work is simply more trouble than it's worth."

 

How often do you Facebook at work?

Once or twice a day                                                       37%

Up to ten times a day                                                     8%

Virtually all the time                                                       15%
Only access Facebook from home, never at work             40%