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Alignment started at the top, through direct calibration with the CEO and Group Management Committee. "We made sure everyone had a voice, supporters and sceptics alike, hearing out every concern, including the toughest ones, until it was clear each could be managed,' the team says.
As organisations continue to reconsider where and how work should be done, M-DAQ Global has taken a different approach: listening to employees and designing flexibility around real-life circumstances, rather than enforcing a fixed arrangement.
Its hybrid-work model was developed through early leadership alignment and open conversations across the business. Employees, managers, supporters and sceptics all had an opportunity to raise questions and concerns before the approach was formalised. This helped turn hybrid work from a top-down directive into a shared commitment, with managers playing an active role in helping teams find arrangements that work.
Following a bronze win for 'Best Hybrid Work Model' at the Employee Experience Awards 2026, Singapore, the M-DAQ Global reflects on the conviction behind its approach, why it chose to retain hybrid work amid return-to-office mandates, and how HR can build employee experiences that support the human behind the role.
Q Tell us about the biggest insight or lesson that influenced your EX approach this past year.
If you create space for employees to feel safe, they will tell you exactly what they need. That came through clearly in our engagement survey, our Town Hall Q&A, and SunnySideUp sessions – informal coffee chats where our leaders sit down with small groups of employees to build genuine connections beyond the day-to-day.
Flexibility wasn’t just a perk our people appreciated, it was a reason they stayed. That insight became the foundation for our hybrid work model. It reshaped how we think about employee experience. We've come to see EX not as a programme to run, but as a culture to build, one where we listen with intent and act with consistency.
Q How did you bring leaders, managers, and employees together to support the execution and success of the initiative?
Alignment on the hybrid work model started at the top, through direct calibration with our CEO and Group Management Committee. We made sure everyone had a voice, supporters and sceptics alike, hearing out every concern, including the toughest ones, until it was clear each could be managed.
With our HODs and managers, we took a conversation-first approach instead of issuing directives: team leads spoke with employees about hybrid arrangements before anything was formalised. That shift turned managers into partners rather than gatekeepers, and gave everyone a hand in shaping the model rather than having it imposed on them.
That same principle still applies today: employees can request even greater flexibility if their circumstances call for it, and we work with them to find an arrangement that fits. We later embedded the model in our Employee Handbook as an organisation-wide endorsement.
Q What challenge behind the scenes tested your team the most, and what did it teach you about building stronger employee experience programmes?
"The hardest part of rolling out the hybrid work model was building trust at every level at the same time. Employees needed confidence that using flexibility wouldn't quietly be held against them. Managers needed assurance that autonomy wouldn't erode accountability."
So we drew clear lines around how our Work from Anywhere and Flexible Work Arrangement policies, two key pillars of the model, were meant to be used, and held to them.
On top of that, we had to make our In-Person Collaboration days, the model's in-office component, genuinely worth showing up for, not a box-ticking exercise people resented. That meant designing them around real connection, not just attendance.
Q As you reflect on the journey, what does this recognition at the Employee Experience Awards 2026 mean to you and your team?
It means a great deal. This has been an incredible journey for the team, built on a belief we've held firmly throughout: that a highly engaged organisation empowers its people to perform at their best, regardless of where they work. That belief is what shaped our hybrid work model, and it's now woven into both our culture and workplace strategy.
What makes this recognition particularly meaningful is the timing. While many organisations have reverted to full return-to-office mandates, we held our ground on hybrid work, because our people told us this model worked. Being recognised for 'Best Hybrid Work Model' is public validation of that 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 need to rethink the assumption that one flexibility model fits every moment in an employee's life. A person's needs can shift dramatically within a single year, through illness, caregiving, parenthood, or personal loss. We've seen this firsthand at M-DAQ: an employee recovering from surgery, a parent who occasionally needed to bring their child into the office, a caregiver looking after an elderly parent – all supported by the same framework, applied differently to each person's circumstances.
"The future of EX isn't about offering more policies; it's about building systems flexible enough to meet people exactly where they are in life. The HR leaders who design for the human, not just the employee, will be the ones who keep their people, and their organisations, in it for the long run."
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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