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"Employees don’t become advocates because they are told to — they become advocates when they genuinely believe in what the organisation stands for and experience that consistently in their daily work," Jared Tay, Director, HR, reflects.
At St Luke’s ElderCare (SLEC), stable employee engagement did not necessarily mean employees were ready to advocate for the organisation. When the organisation’s employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) reached -five in 2023, it highlighted an important distinction: employees could be committed to their work, while still not feeling sufficiently connected to recommend SLEC as a workplace.
For Jared Tay, Director, HR, St Luke’s ElderCare, the finding prompted a deeper shift in thinking. Rather than viewing advocacy as something that could be generated through communications or campaigns, the team looked at how employees experienced the organisation every day – including the way leaders showed up, values were recognised, and employee feedback was followed through.
The outcome was a more intentional employee advocacy approach rooted in leadership activation, organisational listening, and values-led recognition, earning the team the silver award for ‘Best Employee Advocacy Programme’ at the Employee Experience Awards 2026, Singapore.
Following the team's win, Tay reflects on why advocacy has to be earned through daily experience, the importance of consistency across a healthcare organisation, and why action – rather than listening alone – will shape the next phase of EX.
Q Tell us about the biggest insight or lesson that influenced your EX approach this past year.
The most defining insight for us was recognising that engagement does not automatically translate into advocacy. While our engagement levels remained stable, our eNPS dropped to -five in 2023 — revealing a critical gap between employees feeling committed to their work and being willing to actively recommend the organisation.
This jolted our mindset significantly. We realised that advocacy is a higher-order outcome — one that must be intentionally engineered through lived experience, not simply driven through campaigns.
As a result, we moved from focusing on engagement initiatives to building a holistic advocacy ecosystem grounded in:
- Values-driven recognition
- Leadership activation
- Organisational listening with visible follow-through
The lesson was clear: employees don’t become advocates because they are told to — they become advocates when they genuinely believe in what the organisation stands for and experience that consistently in their daily work.
Q How did you bring leaders, managers, and employees together to support the execution and success of the initiative?
We took a deliberate approach to alignment, ensuring that advocacy was not seen as an HR initiative but as a shared organisational responsibility.
First, we activated leaders as catalysts through a structured leadership programme, equipping them with capabilities in empathetic leadership, authentic communication, and psychological safety. This created consistency between leadership intent and day-to-day employee experience.
Second, we institutionalised Ǫuarterly People Leader Conversations, which provided a platform for leaders across the organisation to:
- Surface ground realities
- Align on workforce challenges
- Co-create solutions
This strengthened both responsiveness and consistency.
Third, we expanded townhalls and communication platforms to bring employees closer to leadership. These sessions were designed not just to inform, but to enable open dialogue and transparency—building trust and shared ownership.
Finally, we reinforced alignment through values-based recognition platforms, where employees at all levels could see and celebrate behaviours that defined our culture.
"Together, these mechanisms created a connected ecosystem where leaders, managers, and employees were aligned in both direction and experience, enabling advocacy to emerge naturally."
Q What challenge behind the scenes tested your team the most, and what did it teach you about building stronger employee experience programmes?
The most significant challenge was ensuring consistency of employee experience across diverse teams and operational environments, especially within a demanding healthcare setting.
In such environments, it is easy for well-designed initiatives to become fragmented in execution. Differences in leadership styles, operational pressures, and local team dynamics can dilute impact.
What tested our team most was bridging the gap between strategy and lived experience.
This required us to:
- Double down on leadership alignment
- Create structured platforms for ongoing dialogue
- Build discipline around closing feedback loops visibly
The key lesson was that employee experience cannot rely on isolated programmes — it must be reinforced through systems, leadership behaviour, and organisational rhythms.
It also taught us that credibility is built in the “last mile” of execution. Employees form their perceptions not based on strategy documents, but on their day-to-day interactions with their managers and leaders.
Q As you reflect on the journey, what this recognition at the Employee Experience Awards 2026 mean to you and your team?
This recognition is deeply meaningful because it affirms that our efforts to embed advocacy into the fabric of our organisation are making a real impact.
More importantly, it is a recognition of our people — our caregivers, nurses, therapists, and corporate teams—who embody our values every day and bring our mission to life.
For the team, this is not just an award submission outcome; it represents:
- A 25-point shift in eNPS, from -5 to +20
- A workforce that is increasingly proud, aligned, and willing to recommend SLEC
- A transformation from engagement to genuine belief and advocacy
It also reinforces our conviction that employee experience, when done right, is a powerful driver of organisational trust, resilience, and reputation.
Above all, it motivates us to continue strengthening the culture we are building — one where employees don’t just stay, but speak about the organisation with pride and conviction.
Q Finally, as employee expectations continue to evolve, what is one area of EX you believe HR teams will need to rethink in the year ahead?
HR teams will need to fundamentally rethink how employee voice is translated into organisational action.
Collecting feedback is no longer the differentiator — most organisations are already doing this. The real shift lies in how quickly, visibly, and meaningfully organisations respond.
Employees’ expectations of the building blocks of Employee Advocacy:
Going forward, EX will need to move from:
- Listening → to demonstrating action
- Feedback collection → to feedback accountability
Organisations that succeed will be those that institutionalise the discipline of closing the loop consistently and visibly, so employees see a direct connection between their voice and real change.
"Because ultimately, voice builds trust — but action builds belief. And belief is what drives advocacy."
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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