How these companies improved employee engagement through listening, not wellness perks

Since local interior build firm Ngee Koon & LFA Studio introduced a common weekly work-from-home day last month, Ms Stacy Zuo, 41, has found it much easier to collaborate with colleagues from across the company.

Previously, when different departments worked from home on different days, the marketing and communications director never knew whether the colleagues she needed from the design or project management teams would be in the office.

Small questions that could have been resolved with a quick conversation often took longer than necessary, and when it came to more complex discussions, she felt nothing quite replaced meeting in person.

Momentum on projects would stall and small misunderstandings quickly became roadblocks, creating unnecessary stress and making it harder for teams to collaborate.

Employee feedback soon prompted management to realise its well-intentioned flexible work policy had inadvertently created silos.

The company, one of Singapore's small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), responded by introducing a common work-from-home day across all departments, alongside weekly cross-team touchpoints to improve communication.

"It felt like the company listened to and understood what we wanted. It's not just about being productive, but also feeling a sense of belonging," said Ms Zuo.

Since the change, she said, it has also become easier to organise bonding activities such as post-work runs and Friday learning lunches.

This relatively simple change shows that organisations do not always need sweeping reforms to help employees feel more connected, supported and heard at work.

Yet helping employees feel genuinely engaged remains a challenge for many employers here, according to the Singapore Workplace Report 2026 released in June by the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) and United States analytics firm Gallup.

Despite Singapore’s strong economic performance, the report found that just 14 per cent of employees here are engaged at work – well below the Southeast Asian average of 25 per cent and the global average of 20 per cent.

The figure has remained largely unchanged since 2019, suggesting the problem is a persistent one rather than a temporary post-pandemic hangover.

Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Engaged employees are more likely to take initiative, collaborate with colleagues, stay with their organisation and go beyond what is expected of them.

According to the report, many of the leaders surveyed attributed low employee engagement to external factors such as global market forces, challenging economic conditions and labour market policy.

Others pointed to Singapore's high proportion of SMEs and family-owned businesses, suggesting these organisations are often less likely to adopt formal people-management best practices and may face greater challenges preparing for future workforce demands.

But Gallup representatives and other experts who spoke to CNA TODAY said these factors are not really the main causes of malaise among Singapore's workers. Rather, it's day-to-day problems such as demanding workloads and unfeeling managers that really affect workers' engagement.

And fixing the problem requires leaders to be willing to listen to their employees and confront perhaps uncomfortable truths about their workplaces – something that may sound simple, but is not easy.

In Singapore's context, employee engagement is not just a human resources issue. It is a productivity, resilience and national competitiveness issue.

Still, it is crucial. Experts warned that the implications of persistently low engagement extend far beyond workplace morale, especially for a country whose economic competitiveness depends largely on its people rather than natural resources.

"In Singapore's context, employee engagement is not just a human resources (HR) issue. It is a productivity, resilience and national competitiveness issue," said Mr Derek Keswakaroon, a Bangkok-based partner at management consulting firm Bain & Company.

While initiatives such as wellness programmes have become commonplace, the report cautioned that these often fail to address the real, structural causes, such as excessive workloads.

CNA TODAY spoke to six companies, including several SMEs, that have improved employee engagement by identifying and addressing the day-to-day issues affecting their workforce.

Their examples show that meaningful progress begins only when leaders are prepared to engage with difficult feedback about their organisations rather than shy away from it.

"It's the leaders who are willing to face those uncomfortable truths and then commit to improving performance who make the difference," said Ms Kanika Singh, regional director at Gallup.

MIND THE MANAGER

Given that employee engagement is shaped by everyday workplace realities, the SID-Gallup report argued that no one has a greater influence over those experiences than managers.

Gallup's broader global workplace research found that managers account for 70 per cent of the variance in team engagement – far outweighing the impact of any organisational value or town hall.

It was a lesson that global IT services company DXC Technology came to learn as it transitioned out of its virtual-first strategy between 2021 to 2022 after the pandemic, and began reassessing how best to support its employees.

Through feedback channels like surveys and town halls, the company's Singapore operations identified five interconnected workforce challenges, ranging from skills gaps to productivity pressures.

One conclusion stood out: managers would be critical to helping employees navigate the change. The company therefore shifted its focus towards turning managers from supervisors into coaches, by equipping them with the skills and tools to better support their teams.

Managers underwent career conversation training with Workforce Singapore (WSG), complemented by monthly forums led by the company's people and culture team, which provided a platform to surface challenges, identify capability gaps and work together on solutions.

They were also equipped with digital tools, including a Career Navigator that brought together information on employees' skills, learning progress and career aspirations, helping managers better identify development opportunities and support career conversations. Managers also had access to a portal housing resources and training materials.

Drawing on the coaching techniques he picked up from all this training, Mr Robert Benusa, a delivery manager at DXC Singapore, said he now conducts coaching conversations that encourage his team members to think through problems, celebrate small successes and discuss their longer-term career aspirations, rather than simply telling them what to do.

For example, after identifying a gap in financial management skills among project managers, Mr Benusa worked with the human resource department to introduce targeted training, which equipped employees with skills that benefited both current projects and their longer-term careers.

The investment appears to have paid off. While DXC declined to disclose exact figures, Mr Deepak Mishra, DXC Singapore's people and culture leader, said employee retention has improved year on year, while attrition has declined over the past few years.

In 2025, the company also received gold awards from the Singapore Human Resources Institute for Excellence in Workplace Culture & Engagement, recognising its people-centric approach to workforce development and employee engagement.

If managers matter so much, what actually makes a good one? And why do so many organisations still struggle to develop them?

Experts say the problem may lie in how organisations identify, evaluate and reward managers.

"Our research suggests many organisations still reward managers primarily for business results, rather than how they develop and engage their teams," said Mr Puneet Swani, the head of talent solutions for Asia Pacific at global human capital and insurance company Aon.

While domain expertise remains important, Mr Sagar Goel, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), said the qualities that distinguish great managers are increasingly human-centric abilities – such as setting clear direction, fostering collaboration and exercising sound judgment.

"These are absolutely coachable skills", said Mr Goel.

Rather than being competing priorities, developing people and delivering business results often go hand in hand, he added.

"Plenty of studies show that great people managers also deliver stronger business outcomes… investing in developing coaching capabilities is simply good judgment."

Gallup's research found that only about two in 10 people naturally possess the talent to be great managers, yet less than half of managers received any form of training, said Ms Singh.

Instead, many are left to learn on the job by observing others, while organisations continue investing more heavily in senior leaders than the managers employees interact with every day.

Many workplaces still lack alternative pathways for employees to progress, leaving management as the default route for career advancement even when an individual's strengths may lie elsewhere.

CLOSING THE LOOP

Another key finding of the SID-Gallup report was that employee engagement depends not just on what organisations say they value, but whether those values are reflected in employees' day-to-day experience at work.

While many organisations conduct engagement surveys and have rolled out well-being initiatives, too few translate employee feedback into meaningful change. Without follow-through, the report warned, employees can come to believe their views do not matter.

For government technology agency Open Government Products (OGP), turning employee feedback into action became increasingly important as the organisation expanded.

As OGP doubled to nearly 200 officers between 2024 and 2026, it realised informal conversations were no longer enough to keep pace with employees' views. The agency formalised its feedback process, sharing engagement survey findings at quarterly town halls.

"The hard part is what comes after (the survey): telling officers what you heard, what you're changing, and what you're not changing and why. Skip that second step and you've done something worse than nothing: staff learn that feedback disappears," said chief operating officer Hygin Fernandez.

When it comes to acting on employee feedback, Wang Café learnt more than a decade ago that doing so could transform not just workplace culture, but business outcomes too.

Following its acquisition by NTUC Foodfare in 2011, the leadership noticed inconsistent service standards across the chain. Rather than relying on surveys alone, Wang Café partnered design thinking consultancy The Curious People Solutions (TCPS) on an 18-month project to understand what frontline employees were experiencing.

Using mystery diners and six co-creation sessions involving all 136 staff, employees were encouraged to identify problems and propose solutions using real customer feedback as a starting point.

The sessions gave frontline employees an opportunity to feel comfortable in contributing ideas for refining day-to-day operations.

Among them was a queue collection process that required customers to collect orders strictly by queue number, even when some meals were ready earlier than others.

Armed with a shared understanding of what customers wanted, frontline teams were able to work together more closely to improve the customer experience.

Over the 18-month project, sales across Wang Café outlets grew by 20 per cent, customer satisfaction reached 90 per cent and staff attrition fell by 60 per cent compared with pre-project levels. Wang Café later became the basis for Heavenly Wang, the group's halal spin-off.

The lesson has endured, said TCPS’ founding partner Ken Kwan, whose consultancy continues to advise organisations on workplace transformation.

"One of the strongest drivers of engagement is giving employees ownership, as well as a shared sense of purpose," he said.

It is a lesson OGP has also found to hold true.

Every year, its officers step away from their day-to-day work to spend time with citizens, public officers and community groups through the agency’s Hack for Public Good programme.

The aim is simple: identify real problems, then build something that solves them.

Undercover, a pedestrian navigation web app that recommends shade-optimised walking routes, is one example of what can emerge when employees are trusted to pursue ideas they believe in.

The idea grew out of officers' own experience navigating Singapore's heat, prompting them to develop a tool to address what they had identified as an informational gap.

The approach has resonated. More than 88 per cent of OGP officers said they can see how their work contributes to the public good – a figure that has remained above that level since 2024 despite the organisation's rapid growth.

Lead software engineer Ian Chen, who has been with OGP for eight years, said the autonomy to pursue meaningful ideas is what has kept him at the agency.

"That ability to take ownership of problems, build things you care about and see them create real value is what makes the work meaningful over the long term," he said.

While leaders increasingly recognise the importance of employee engagement, experts said changing workplace practices has proved far more difficult at many organisations.

"Many continue to rely on workplace practices that worked for previous generations, instead of rethinking how employees experience work today," said Gallup's Ms Singh.

Mr Keswakaroon added that while many organisations regularly measure engagement, fewer have the leadership routines and management systems needed to turn employee feedback into genuine ownership.

In Singapore's relatively hierarchical workplaces, he said, leaders may underestimate disengagement because employees are often reluctant to voice concerns until the effects become visible through attrition, burnout or declining motivation.

INVESTING IN HUMAN CAPITAL

Beyond good managers and a supportive culture, employees also want opportunities to develop their strengths.

The SID-Gallup report found that engagement rises sharply when people believe their unique talents are being developed and fully utilised, urging organisations to move beyond one-size-fits-all development.

Back in 2024, employee engagement surveys at events company Unearthed Productions revealed that many staff felt stagnant, with few opportunities to do anything beyond their day-to-day scope.

Expecting employees to seek more technical training, founder Adam Piperdy was surprised when they, instead, expressed that they wanted to develop soft skills such as communication, negotiation and public speaking.

"We're in a new era and it's no longer just about maximising profit at all times. Employees want to be empowered to become better people for their community," he said.

The company, which now has 70 staff in Singapore, responded by setting aside a learning budget for every employee, alongside quarterly learning days, weekly sharing sessions and workshops led by both internal leaders and external coaches.

Other organisations have taken a different approach. At business technology and digital solutions provider company Fujifilm Business Innovation Singapore, the emphasis has been on helping employees build future-ready capabilities through expanded training budgets, bite-sized "Makan & Master" lunch sessions and practical AI workshops.

Topics ranged from reducing repetitive work with AI to family-focused sessions on communicating more effectively with children, while hands-on workshops showed employees how to use tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot in their day-to-day work.

The company prides itself on its sustainable engagement score, which assesses whether employees have the support, resources and workplace environment to stay engaged over the long term. It has remained around 90 per cent over the past three years.

What moves people is feeling capable, trusted and genuinely part of where the organisation is heading, so we anchored our efforts in skills.

"What moves people is feeling capable, trusted and genuinely part of where the organisation is heading, so we anchored our efforts in skills," said Ms Ong Hiow Yim, head of people, culture and corporate social responsibility.

Although their approaches differed, both companies deliberately made learning easier to access – whether by carving out dedicated time or making development easier to fit into the workday.

Mr Piperdy said cost should not be a deterrent either, pointing to simple initiatives such as monthly lunch talks, where colleagues and industry partners share skills and knowledge.

"There are always champions in your company who know something useful, just give them 10 minutes to share," he said.

The investment has since changed more than employees' skill sets. Staff have become more willing to share ideas and explore new ways of working, creating a more connected workplace where people feel comfortable speaking up.

The company's regional expansion can even be traced back to a conversation in which an employee simply suggested: "Why don't we give it a shot?"

These experiences reflect a broader pattern Gallup continues to observe across organisations.

"When people feel they can contribute what makes them unique, they're more likely to thrive. They're able to be the best version of themselves, which means the team also benefits from stronger performance," said Ms Singh.

Organisations should move beyond using employee development solely to address weaknesses, she added, and spend more time recognising what each individual uniquely brings to the workplace while building the capabilities they need to succeed.

PERILS OF A DISENGAGED WORKFORCE

Underlying Singapore's persistently low engagement levels is a broader shift in what people expect from work, experts said.

Financial rewards and job security may attract employees, but they are no longer enough to keep them engaged. Instead, autonomy, purpose, mastery and strong workplace relationships increasingly determine whether people stay, said Mr Goel.

The shift is particularly evident among workers under 35, who are less engaged than their older counterparts and experience more daily negative emotions.

The divide is also more pronounced in Singapore than globally. While global employee engagement differs by just two percentage points between workers under 35 and those aged 35 and above, the gap in Singapore is six percentage points.

Rather than reflecting differences in attitude or work ethic, leaders interviewed for the SID-Gallup report attributed this to changing economic realities, from the high cost of living and career uncertainty to evolving ideas of what success looks like.

Mr James Root, a Hong Kong-based partner at Bain & Company, said high-performing organisations recognise that employees are motivated by different things.

Rather than relying on one-size-fits-all talent strategies, these organisations offer different ways for employees to grow – through flexible job design, customised learning, recognition programmes or alternative progression pathways.

None of this is easy, but the cost of getting employee engagement wrong is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

In 2025, low employee engagement cost the global economy an estimated US$10 trillion in lost productivity, equivalent to about 9 per cent of global GDP.

In Singapore, the cost has been estimated at US$73.6 billion in lost productivity annually, according to The Business Times.

For Singapore, where an ageing workforce, talent shortages and artificial intelligence (AI) disruption are converging, experts said engagement is no longer simply an HR concern but a competitiveness issue.

As experienced workers retire while AI automates much of the entry-level work that traditionally served as an apprenticeship for younger employees, organisations risk losing institutional knowledge and an important pathway for developing the next generation of talent at the same time.

A disengaged workforce cannot absorb that double shock, and engagement is precisely what determines whether a workforce adapts to AI quickly or resists it.

"A disengaged workforce cannot absorb that double shock, and engagement is precisely what determines whether a workforce adapts to AI quickly or resists it," said Mr John Hazan, global leader of Bain & Company's talent solution practice.

That is why, said Mr Goel, employee engagement has become more important than ever. A recent BCG Henderson Institute study found that more than 30 per cent of leaders already observed lower levels of collaboration as employees increasingly turned to AI instead of colleagues – a worrying trend as relationships are one of the key pillars of employee engagement.

The urgency is underscored by Singapore's position in the region. While countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia have made steady gains in employee engagement over the past decade, Singapore has remained largely stagnant.

Mr Swani warned that if the gap persists, Singapore risks slower productivity growth and a weaker ability to compete as a high-value, skills-driven economy.

In a region where talent and adaptability are increasingly key differentiators, he said employee engagement has become a critical lever for sustaining long-term competitiveness.

Rather than viewing this as a reason for pessimism, Ms Singh said Singapore's continued investment in technology presents an opportunity to place equal emphasis on developing its people.

"As Singapore invests heavily in AI infrastructure, the question becomes: How do we get the best out of our people so that we can get the best out of our technology?" she said.

Ultimately, experts said the organisations best placed to thrive will be those that invest as deliberately in people as they do in technology.

Mr Mark Tham, country managing director for Singapore at technology consulting company Accenture, said organisations that prioritise people alongside data and technology can achieve productivity gains of up to 11 per cent, compared with just 4 per cent when the human factor is neglected.

"The organisations that will win the AI era are not necessarily those with the most advanced technology. They are those who have built workplaces where people trust the organisation enough to grow alongside it."

For Ms Rosalind Tay, the head of commercial at Unearthed Productions, the payoffs can be felt in everyday work.

She said Mr Piperdy's willingness to empower employees to upskill beyond their day-to-day responsibilities had cultivated a workplace where people felt genuinely valued, invested in and motivated to contribute.

"Having the space to learn ... definitely makes it a lot easier for you to be confident in your work. His approach signalled the kind of culture the company wanted to build, one where people were encouraged to learning for the long term rather than simply doing their jobs."

Source: CNA/jw/yy