In the future of work, Singapore could be a trendsetter

How shall we meet? In 3D over Google Starline, as avatars in Meta Horizon Workrooms, or would you like to see me in the flesh?

How we will work in the future is anyone's guess.

One trend that futurists agree on, however, is that bosses will increasingly hire gig and freelance workers across borders, and hire them for skills rather than job placements.

And if that happens, with the Government's focus on lifelong learning, "Singapore has extraordinary potential of being a net exporter of skilled talent", said Deloitte's leader of human resources transformation for South-east Asia, Mr Mark Maclean.

Indeed, 85 per cent of senior executives in Deloitte's 2022 Skill Based Organisation Report said they wanted work organised more around skills so they could respond more swiftly to market changes.

The way jobs are arranged today prompted only 26 per cent of business leaders, and 18 per cent of workers, to agree that employers have tapped workers' full potential, Mr Maclean said.

Singapore has a promising base to work on: In November, business school Insead ranked it as the world's second-best country to find top talent, just behind Switzerland, in its annual Global Talent Competitiveness Index.

Rather than focus on productivity or output by work unit, being able to discover and access the collective skills of the human resources at a company's disposal will be the "secret sauce", he said.

In their book Work Without Jobs, authors Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau wrote that job roles will be deconstructed and reconfigured as employers seek to optimise human resources.

They cite the example of a retailer, struggling to find gig workers to pack and assemble totes in its distribution centre, discovering that store associates were willing to do the work for extra shift wages. Being regular employees, these workers turned out to be more diligent and reliable than gig workers too.

What the pandemic has unleashed, for now, is the rising leverage of workers.

Mr Sujith Abraham, general manager of Salesforce ASEAN, said: "In the next decade, we believe businesses will begin to think of, and treat, their employees as customers."

Today's trend whereby a roomful of senior executives decide work policies with little to no input from employees cannot be sustained, he added. The pandemic has roused up within workers a yearning for flexibility, clear goals, purpose and connection.

"Recent research from Slack revealed that over half of Singaporean workers are burnt out and considering switching jobs in the next year, with 16 per cent admitting to 'quiet quitting'," said Mr Abraham. "These findings indicate far-reaching repercussions on businesses."

Employees said they were engaged at work but quitting nonetheless during the pandemic, said Ms Lauren Huntington, Qualtrics' employee experience solutions specialist of South-east Asia.

Qualtrics is working with its clients on solutions that prompt workflows and action plans from feedback, and seeking to find that link between employee sentiments and organisations' bottom line, Ms Huntington added.

It is also using artificial intelligence (AI) to pick up workers' unstructured feedback, such as chatter on review sites like Glassdoor, she said.

With remote working proven to be feasible, work will move towards a "decentralised model", noted lawyer Clarence Ding, a partner and employment law specialist at Simmons & Simmons. Google's Starline, still in pilot phase, uses 3D technology to make remote meetings feel almost like participants are seated across the same table. PHOTO: GOOGLE

Technology, work-life balance aspirations of millennials and the global war for talent will drive the momentum, leading policymakers to respond with legislative changes.

"We are already seeing this play out," Mr Ding said, holding up the Government's rethink of its long-held position that gig workers should be differentiated from hired hands in the area of employment rights.

The Manpower Ministry said in November that it will accept recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers. Changes to Central Provident Fund payments for workers, work injury compensation and work rights representation will start in 2024, affecting 73,000 platform workers.

From now, Mr Ding hopes to see enhancements made to anti-discrimination laws to protect remote workers from being unfairly passed over for promotions or pay rises.

He also expects changes to the immigration framework so workers can work in various countries without breaching the law, and tweaks to the tax regime that mitigate risks for firms with employees working across borders.

Mr Ian Lim, partner and head of employment at TSMP Law Corporation, expects remaining ambiguities on the enhanced protections for gig workers to be clarified in the next couple of years.

"Hopefully, we'll start to see more measures rolled out to address categories that are being left out at the moment, like taxi drivers and third-party logistics workers, as well as categories that were partially addressed this time round, such as platform workers aged over 30," he said.

"Singapore has been getting more employee friendly. This trend began about 10 years ago, but it has been accelerating over the last few years. It is going to continue, and over the next 10 years, we expect to see plenty more changes coming up."

AI machines and robots such as avatars, robot baristas and autonomous taxis will become mainstream and replace some jobs "relatively quickly", said Professor Trevor Yu from Nanyang Technological University.

Prof Yu, who teaches organisation behaviour, said: "I won't commit to a date here, but I expect our workplace and lifestyle relevant to these AI applications, such as transport, dining and tourism, to look quite different five to 10 years from now.

"Singapore's particular situation - being highly connected, having advanced technical infrastructure, and a lack of cheap manpower - will especially accelerate the adoption of these technologies."

As Singapore contests intensely for global talent, Mr Benson Koh, who is a tech consultant at Access Partnership, believes "the job market will be even more divided than it already is".

Big firms will offer worker-centric work policies and environments to keep up with the West, while workers in the unskilled labour market, gig economy, or workmen such as electricians, carpenter and, plumbers - "skills that are undervalued in Singapore" - will face challenges, he said.

"We may see in the very same Singapore office, employees pushing for the four-day work week even as others are forced to work 60-, 70-hour weeks to make ends meet," he added.

For freshly minted university graduate Lynn Neo, who is about to start a job in journalism, the future looks both thrilling and sobering.

Speaking about her generation, she said: "We are aware of the challenges that the future holds for our careers and how increasingly competitive it would become.

"Technology is a double-edged sword. While we reap the benefits and improvements it brings to our lives, we worry that it becomes too smart and takes over our jobs.

"And we are again seeing an influx of foreign PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians), and that might be a bothering sight for many of us, especially in today's context where locals are already struggling to secure a full-time job."

She added: "But there is so much to look forward to: improvements in technology, changing gender norms, greater emphasis on critical thinking skills, increasing minority rights."

"To say that I am positive is a lie, but I am also able to see opportunities."