Employer
|
Talent
Get Started

Rising Costs? Talent Shortages? Discover the APAC Salary Advantage

Hiring locally is becoming increasingly challenging. Rising salary expectations, limited access to specialized skills, and high turnover rates are making it harder to grow your business.

What’s the solution? Offshore hiring.

With access to global talent markets, you can find the skills you need at competitive costs, all while ensuring business continuity and scalability.

Our APAC Salary Comparison 2024/2025 report provides the data you need to evaluate offshore hiring opportunities across Australia, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.

Why Download This Report?

What’s Inside?

The report includes salary benchmarks for key industries, such as:

With clear data on how salaries vary by country, you’ll be equipped to make strategic decisions about hiring locally or offshore.

Who Should Download This Report?

Download the Report Now

Don’t let local hiring challenges limit your business growth. Download the APAC Salary Comparison 2025 report and discover how offshore hiring can help you build high-performing teams while staying within budget.

Throughout 2024, hiring in Hong Kong has remained relatively cautious, with growth still subdued despite improvements from the previous year. Global economic challenges, geopolitical tensions, and the lingering impact of the pandemic have left many companies hesitant to expand, adopting a 'wait and see' approach. The city’s attempt to re-establish itself as a regional headquarters for international firms has been impacted by the loss of businesses relocating to places like Singapore, tarnishing Hong Kong's reputation as a global career hub.

The demand for skilled professionals in sectors such as technology, fintech, ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), and healthcare continues to grow. Companies are increasingly offshoring routine roles to neighboring regions with lower costs, like Southeast Asia and mainland China, but focusing on retaining high-value, strategic roles in Hong Kong. Despite the uncertainties, Hong Kong's strategic location and efforts to attract global talent remain key to its gradual recovery, with tech-driven sectors expected to lead hiring trends moving forward.

Our report highlights the latest hiring trends, key roles in demand, challenges, and a comprehensive salary benchmark across these core sectors:

Download the full report to gain detailed salary insights and stay competitive in Hong Kong's job market for 2024/2025!

The job market in Singapore is evolving rapidly, with significant changes expected throughout 2024 and into 2025. As companies navigate a challenging global economy, there are key trends emerging across various sectors, making Singapore a strategic hub for talent in the Asia-Pacific region.

While hiring activity has seen improvement compared to 2023, the focus has been primarily on junior to mid-management roles, with senior management positions recovering more slowly. Singapore’s status as a high-cost business center continues to influence companies' strategies, as many reevaluate their local presence in favor of lower-cost alternatives. Nevertheless, Singapore's role as a leading technology and financial hub remains intact, attracting businesses seeking access to Asia's growing markets.

Our report highlights the latest hiring trend, key roles in demand, key challenges, and a comprehensive salary benchmark across these key roles:

Singapore's job market outlook for 2024 is one of cautious optimism. As businesses continue to navigate the aftershocks of the pandemic and global uncertainties, the demand for talent—especially in tech, finance, and green industries—is set to rise. For companies seeking to attract top talent or professionals looking for their next opportunity, now is the time to capitalize on these emerging trends.

Download the full report to get detailed salary insights and stay ahead in the Singapore job market for 2024/2025!

In today's fast-paced business environment, staying ahead of the curve in talent management and recruitment strategies is crucial for organizational success. The challenge of finding and retaining top-tier executive talent, while balancing financial constraints, is a puzzle many companies are eager to solve. If you find yourself navigating these complex waters, seeking innovative solutions to enhance your leadership team without overspending, we have something that might just change the game for you.

Introducing our latest eBook: "Fractional Hiring: Revolutionising Executive Roles in Contemporary Organisations". This isn't just any resource; it's a comprehensive exploration into the transformative world of fractional executive hiring:

If you're ready to redefine how your business approaches executive talent and leadership development, our eBook is an essential read. Arm yourself with the knowledge and strategies to not only navigate the complexities of modern hiring but to thrive in doing so. The future of executive hiring is fractional, flexible, and financially savvy – and it's all within your reach.

Download our eBook today and embark on a journey to transform your talent management approach for an era of business agility and innovation. The blueprint for a more dynamic and cost-effective leadership model is just a download away.

Navigating the intricate world of HR budgeting can often feel like walking through a maze. With ever-evolving industry standards, ensuring that every cent is allocated wisely can be overwhelming. If you've been scratching your head over where your HR expenses are heading, it might be time for a fresh perspective.

Introducing our latest HR Budget Blueprint eBook – a comprehensive guide crafted for HR professionals, by HR professionals. This isn’t just another eBook; it's a deep dive into HR budgeting essentials:

So, if you're ready to transform your HR budgeting approach, give our eBook a read. Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools to optimize your HR financial strategy for the year ahead. The path to a streamlined HR budget is just a download away.

Download the FREE resource now!

In the dynamic realm of recruitment, where industries continuously evolve and candidate expectations shift, hiring professionals constantly grapple with the challenge of staying updated and pertinent. Amidst this backdrop, the job interview emerges as a pivotal procedure. Employers rely on it to not only verify the proficiencies claimed in candidates' resumes but also gauge skills, personality traits, and communication abilities. More than a mere skill assessment, interviews offer insights into whether a candidate's aspirations and values resonate with the company's ethos. Recognising the sheer importance of this process, we have meticulously curated our newest eBook. This isn't just a resource; it's a blueprint, offering clarity and direction for modern-day hiring success. From strategies and case studies to innovative approaches, our guide is designed to empower you in the intricate journey of recruitment.

A Deeper Dive Into the eBook's Core

Our eBook is structured to guide you seamlessly through the recruitment process, ensuring no stone is left unturned:

Why This eBook is a Must-Read

Recruitment is not just about filling a vacancy; it's about bringing in talent that aligns with the company's ethos and can propel the organisation forward. Our eBook is designed to serve as a handy tool for both novice recruiters and seasoned hiring managers. It offers a cohesive understanding of the contemporary recruitment landscape, ensuring that every hire is a step in the right direction. Download your copy now!

Finding the perfect leaders for your organisation's C-suite is a demanding endeavour, one that holds immense importance in shaping the future success and stability of your business. Assembling a compatible executive team requires careful consideration of various factors, including skills, experience, cultural fit, and alignment with your organisation's vision. However, navigating these complexities can often feel like deciphering a complex puzzle.

The task of C-level recruitment poses formidable challenges, but fear not — we have created just the right comprehensive guide to help you complete the puzzle. This invaluable resource serves as a compass, providing practical solutions and expert insights to streamline your executive hiring process.

Within the pages of our comprehensive whitepaper, we delve deep into the full process of sourcing, screening, and interviewing the best C-suite candidates:

  1. Defining recruitment process that involves few extra steps
  2. How and where to find top C-suite talent
  3. How to evaluate and measure C-suite talent competency
  4. Typical interview questions for C-suite talent
  5. Should you consider engaging an executive recruiter

Our comprehensive guide is meticulously crafted to address the unique challenges faced by organisations like yours, equipping you with the tools and knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. Don't miss this opportunity to gain a competitive edge in C-level recruitment. Download our FREE resource today and unlock the secrets to building a compatible C-suite that will shape the future of your organisation.

Image by rawpixel.com

The recruitment process poses various challenges for recruiters and hiring managers. These challenges include the time-consuming nature of sourcing and screening candidates, as well as the high competition to attract and secure top talent. Lengthy time-to-hire can also result in candidates losing interest or accepting offers from other companies, impacting the candidate experience and employer brand. Unconscious bias and the need for diversity, along with the existence of skill gaps and the costs associated with recruitment, further compound the challenges faced by organisations. 

To address these challenges, innovative solutions are necessary. Utilising technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and automation can streamline processes, improve efficiency, and enhance the candidate experience. 

How AI Helps Recruitment

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer in the recruitment industry, revolutionising the way organisations attract, assess, and hire talent. With its advanced capabilities, AI offers a range of benefits that enhance efficiency, accuracy, and candidate experience throughout the recruitment process. 

Reduce the time and effort spent on manual tasks

AI-powered algorithms can automate the initial stages of candidate sourcing and screening by analysing resumes, job descriptions, and relevant data to identify the most qualified candidates. This saves recruiters from the daunting task of manually reviewing countless applications. 

Improve efficiency to the recruitment process

With the ability to process vast amounts of data at a rapid pace, AI algorithms can assess candidate qualifications, skills, and experience more accurately. By leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, AI systems can understand and interpret resumes and other documents with remarkable precision. This not only minimises human error but also enhances the overall quality and efficiency of candidate evaluation. 

Enhances the candidate experience

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can engage with candidates in real-time, providing instant responses to inquiries, scheduling interviews, and delivering personalised updates. This interactive and responsive communication creates a positive impression of the organisation and ensures that candidates feel valued and engaged throughout the hiring process. 

AI Applications in Recruitment

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer, revolutionising the way organisations approach talent acquisition. With its advanced capabilities in data analysis, natural language processing, and machine learning, AI has paved the way for innovative applications in various stages of the recruitment process. From candidate sourcing and resume screening to skill assessment and candidate engagement, AI-powered tools and algorithms have proven to be invaluable in streamlining workflows, improving efficiency, and enhancing the overall recruitment experience. 

Candidate Sourcing

AI-powered tools can efficiently search and analyse vast amounts of data from various online platforms, social media profiles, and professional networks to identify potential candidates who match specific criteria. 

Resume Screening

AI-driven systems can automate the screening of resumes by using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms. These tools can extract relevant information, assess qualifications, and match candidates to job requirements, speeding up the initial evaluation process and ensuring that recruiters focus on the most promising candidates. 

Skill Assessment

AI technologies can objectively assess candidate skills and qualifications by analysing multiple data points, including resumes, application responses, and online profiles. Advanced algorithms can evaluate technical skills, cognitive abilities, and behavioural traits, providing recruiters with valuable insights into candidate suitability and potential. 

Candidate Engagement

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can engage with candidates in real-time, providing instant responses to queries, scheduling interviews, and delivering personalised updates. These interactive tools enhance candidate engagement, improve response times, and create a positive impression of the organisation. 

Background Checking

AI helps automating data collection and analysis, allowing recruiters to efficiently process large volumes of information and identify potential red flags or discrepancies. It helps mitigate bias by focusing on objective criteria and provides a more comprehensive assessment of a candidate's background.

Reference Checking

AI can help to analyse reference responses and extract key insights, quickly identify patterns, sentiment, and relevant information from reference check conversations or written feedback. AI can also help automate the collection of reference data, ensuring a more efficient and standardised approach to the process.

Onboarding and Employee Experience

AI can also play a significant role in the onboarding process by offering personalised training materials, addressing employee inquiries, and ensuring a seamless transition for new hires. With AI-powered tools, organisations can provide ongoing support to employees, offering personalised development suggestions and cultivating a positive employee experience. 

Challenges of AI in Recruitment

A recent research found that 79% of employers use AI or automation for recruitment and hiring. Despite the optimistic outlook on AI's impact, concerns and challenges surrounding its implementation persist. It is crucial to acknowledge and address these challenges to ensure the responsible and effective use of AI in recruitment. 

Mitigating Bias

To achieve this, it is crucial to provide clean and unbiased data for AI-powered tools. Organisations should carefully select and feed in data that is free from unconscious biases to prevent the algorithms from learning and perpetuating biassed decisions. Continuous monitoring and auditing of the AI algorithms can help identify and rectify any potential biases that may arise. 

Understanding Candidates

AI algorithms may face difficulties in understanding candidates, especially when analysing resumes or engaging with them through chatbots. To overcome this challenge, providing candidates with options to select or interact with buttons can help the AI chatbot better understand their preferences and needs. Additionally, candidates with specific requests should be connected with human recruiters to ensure effective communication and a positive candidate experience. 

Complementing Human Decision-Making

AI should be viewed as a tool to aid recruiters, not replace them. Human recruiters possess gut instincts and subjective judgement that AI lacks. It is important to maintain a balance where AI is used as a supportive tool alongside human decision-making to leverage the benefits of both approaches in the recruitment process.

Data Availability and Updates

AI algorithms require a significant amount of good quality data to operate effectively. Collecting and preparing the data can be time-consuming, and organisations must stay updated with changing trends and language in the job market. Regularly updating the AI technology and providing the algorithm with relevant and up-to-date data is essential for achieving accurate and reliable results. 

Understanding Limitations

Like any tool, AI software has its limitations. When choosing an AI recruiting solution, organisations should carefully evaluate its capabilities and consider whether it aligns with their specific needs and improves the overall candidate experience. Being aware of these limitations and seeking solutions that offer comprehensive features can help optimise the recruiting process.

GRIT - AI driven Recruitment Platform

There are countless AI recruitment tools in the market, each enabling employers to easily navigate candidate sourcing, screening, assessment, interviews, and more. There’s one particular tool that stands out — GRIT. GRIT helps employers to solve the biggest puzzle in the recruitment world — candidate sourcing & screening. 

GRIT works at the top of the funnel, which is also the most challenging part of the recruitment process, where GRIT automatically source, curate and qualify the candidates to be interview ready. Moreover, our in-house talent advocates are also involved to remove bias and take the hassle out of hiring by managing end-to-end recruitment life cycle.

Instead of spending months and thousands of dollars to hire, GRIT has consistently been able to help employers to hire in just 3 weeks, at only US$999 per role. On top of that, there’s a risk free plan where you only need to pay when you decide to interview the candidates! Sign up now and experience the power of AI hiring. 

Embracing AI for Recruitment Success 

AI in recruitment holds transformative potential and plays a crucial role in shaping the future of talent acquisition. By adopting AI technologies, organisations can overcome traditional challenges, streamline processes, and enhance the efficiency of their hiring practices. From automating candidate sourcing and screening to improving candidate engagement and making data-driven decisions, AI offers numerous benefits that revolutionise recruitment. 

Embracing AI enables companies to stay competitive and optimise their strategies, ultimately leading to the identification of the most suitable candidates and the formation of high-performing teams. It's time to embrace AI and leverage its capabilities to enhance recruitment practices and drive success in the ever-evolving talent landscape.

Image by rawpixel.com

Hiring and retaining competent and talented employees has been a top priority for any human resource department (HR) in an organisation. Hiring and retaining employees are two sides of the same coin; though you may be able to hire competent and talented employees,  retaining them is a different matter to tackle. 

To encourage employees to remain in an organisation, HR utilises one of its professional arsenals; an attractive compensation package that employees will find hard to refuse. According to research published by PWC Global, Hopes and Fears 2022, 71% of employees opinionated that the most important factor in a workplace is compensation and workplace benefits.

However, before you determine what compensation packages to offer, it is important to understand the definition and objectives of compensation.

What is Employee Compensation 

The technical definition of employee compensation refers to the monetary payment provided in exchange for services provided by employees or hired hands. This includes salary in addition to any other incentives or perks that come along with the job or position.

Compensation Objectives

When planning for employees’ compensation, you must first understand and decide the objectives for your employees' compensation — the purpose of it. This is so that your compensation is aligned with your intention and employees’ best interests. 

In addition, there are four questions that you should consider and ask yourself when designing a fair compensation strategy:

6 Questions to Help Drive Your Compensation Philosophy

1) What Counts As Compensation For Your Company?

The first question you need to ask yourself is, what counts as compensation in your company? This is because compensation is more than just providing monetary payment to your employees — it can be the ability to remote work, a hybrid work schedule, medical treatment coverage, or any other non-monetary benefits.

This combination of rewards and benefits is called employee total compensation (TC), offering both monetary and non-monetary rewards and benefits to employees in a company. The employee total reward is provided in addition to gross pay, it can include traditional benefits (medical and healthcare), voluntary benefits, retirement plans, vacation time, pensions, stock options or even equity.  

To find out which rewards resonate well with your employees, conduct a company-wide survey to find out what are your employees' preferences for the employee total reward packages. As for the survey timing, it can be conducted six months before the enrollment period — this will provide you with ample time to evaluate and organise new offerings.  

Utilise Total Reward Statement

Most companies’ HR view such offerings as a part of the compensation package because they are informed of the associated cost. The hiring cost of a new employee goes beyond their salary; benefits and other compensation such as equity should be considered. 

So when employees do not know about the costs like these, they will feel less inclined to view their compensation as competitive. This is when your company’s HR should share the employee's total reward statement. The total reward statement is an itemised one-pagers that will highlight all the benefits you are compensating your employees — in dollars, euros or pounds. The companies that provide employees’ total reward statements do so at least once a year. 

They will typically list out the combined compensation made of monetary and non-monetary rewards given to the employees. For example: 

• Salary

• Bonuses

• Commission

• Retirement benefits

• Stock options

• Paid time off

• Profit-sharing

• Employer-paid premiums for health, vision, and dental insurance

• Stipends

• Disability and life insurance

• Employer-paid Social Security and Medicare taxes

3) How Should You Structure Salary Band

Salary or pay band refers to the minimum and maximum amounts a company is willing to compensate employees based on their job levels. For example, if job levels help you to set up a career path hierarchy for employees, salary banding serves a similar purpose as compensation.  

For example, a Level 1 Designer at your company will be eligible to earn $50,000 to $70,000. While a Level 4 Designer, like an Associate Design Director, will be eligible to earn $100,000 to $130,000. These salary bands help define and communicate with employees and will allow them to understand their earning potential and how much their future promotion can provide. 

The Benefits of Salary Band

A salary band like this serves an important purpose in your company’s compensation strategy. From a financial point of view, salary bands are vital for budgeting. This is because, without salary bands, your company will not be able to forecast overhead costs, plan a growth strategy or plan rewards for performing employees without risking your company’s financial health. 

However, salary bands also serve an additional purpose. Salary bands are also used to facilitate your employees’ career development and pay conversations based on competencies and job levels.

In addition, and just as important, providing minimum-maximum salary ranges can help clear the ambiguity surrounding employees’ pay and help the HR team to identify and prevent pay disparities. 

How to Structure Salary Band

There should be several factors that influence your company’s salary bands, such as role expectations, education, experience and geography — all of which need to be backed by market research. There are also broader economic factors that should be influencing your company’s salary bands; inflation or cost of living  — both impact a job’s market rates. 

Besides the market rates and geography, you will want to take a look at each role’s skills and influence. Though it is typically assumed leadership roles warrant a higher salary than those in contributor positions, it is not always the case. For example, having a competent junior employee with high-in-demand skills that tangibly affect your business — warrants a salary that outearns managers in other departments.

Also, it is advisable to have a degree of flexibility in your salary band structure. For example, a Level 2 employee deserves recognition and promotion but is not quite ready yet. Their manager can instead reward an increase on par or similar to the next level starting salary because the salary band overlaps. 

3) Should You Consider Performance?

For the compensation model with merit cycles, where employees receive pay raises based on past performance. Such a compensation model is common, especially for sales roles. But it also can be divisive because some of the leading HR professionals believe that such a compensation model might hinder conversations related to growth and performance.

However, despite such beliefs, performance-based compensation models are growing increasingly popular among companies. In addition, according to a study's key finding, linking pay to performance or performance-based compensation increases employees' productivity and raises job satisfaction level.   

What Are The Benefits of Linking Performance and Compensation?

Compensation is a very powerful motivator for employees, there’s no denying that. An attractive compensation will likely convince employees to continue providing their skills and talents to the company they’re working for. However, must bear in mind that compensation is not a sure and definite method to retain competent and talented employees. 

As mentioned above, respectful treatment at the workplace is what most employees consider the most important. So, even if your company does an attractive compensation package but you’re not treating the employees with respect, employees will leave. 

A study has shown that strongly linking attractive compensation with performance lead to greater employee satisfaction, trust in leadership and better motivation. The same study also showed a weak relationship between compensation (reward) and performance can be detrimental to employees' motivation.

Strongly linking compensation and performance will provide a tangible way for employees to see the benefits or improvements they bring to your company.

Structuring Pay For Performance

Performance-based compensation may be gaining popularity, but a majority of employers do not disclose it works to their employees. This lack of transparency will cause employees to feel frustrated. Hence, employers should provide a clear rationale to employees why they’re doing so.

In practice, a member of the HR team will need to announce and outline your company’s approach to merit increases during a company-wide meeting.  Due to the personal nature of compensation, invite employees to anonymous questions before the company-wide meeting session and do a follow-up via email with clarifying points.

Planning to be clear about pay-for-performance also means equipping managers with talking points they need to field questions from direct reports during performance discussions. 

There some critics claim that the pay-for-performance compensation model can distract employees from having meaningful performance conversations. Employers may counter this by limiting merit increases to specific quarters so they won’t overlap with performance reviews. In addition, separating the two will help provide time for employees and managers to process and evaluate how they have performed against the job competencies that your company has outlined. 

Your company managers will require those contexts when deciding whether to approve a higher or lower increase.

4. How Transparent You Should Be Regarding Compensation

One of the common complaints employees would make about compensation packages is that their employer doesn’t fully disclose it to them. However, the complaints are not necessarily about numbers, but more about how they do not understand how the pay increase gets determined. This makes disclosing and helping employees understand the calculus behind pay decisions a prerequisite to building trust in the process and believing that it is equitable. Simply put,  “lack of transparency” is one of the main complaints often voiced by employees.

However, this is not limited just to individual contributor employees, but also the HR team. Their opinion is that most managers are not equipped for pay transparency conversations with their employees. 

This is where pay transparency comes into play. Pay transparency is an approach companies take when communicating and conveying their compensation philosophies to employees. As we have mentioned before, employees do not necessarily want to know how much pay their peer earn, but this might be a favoured and good approach in some companies.

To help you understand pay transparency; pay transparency fall on a spectrum ranging from a very open model to a very closed one. 

Identifying and Determining The Level of Transparency

The current trend for the level of transparency is leaning towards more, not less transparency. Because even with a modest level of transparency; if it is still able to help employees understand how salary bands work and what factors influence when determining pay, they will be more inclined to trust the process. 

Though a full or modest level of transparency might not work and be suitable for some companies, especially companies without a fully developed compensation strategy and system. This is because full transparency or even modest transparency made in front of the company will expose discrepancies in pay and compensation. The discrepancies however commonly originated from legitimate sources and reasons such as years of tenure, geography, or educational background. 

The most important component in pay transparency conversations is communication. An HR team should reiterate their company’s compensation philosophies, including their approach to transparency, to employees — company-wide, during an advance performance review or upcoming compensation cycles. 

A more practical level of transparency; might involve employees knowing and understanding their current pay band’s range and the one directly above them. This model of transparency will allow employees to understand their role’s potential earnings, and provide them with a realistic set of expectations during compensation conversations. This would be valuable information for the report’s manager to have since they will be coaching the employees. 

5. Compensation Strategies Drive Equity

In People strategy, the word “trust the process” carries additional meaning. Performance management is the best example here. A survey showed some companies exhibit gender, racial and religious bias;  about 50% of female employees experience gender discrimination and 22% of female employees experience racial or religious discrimination at their workplace — hence cutting them off from proper compensation such as adequate maternity leave. 

This happened because of the lack of formal review processes in some companies. Without the proper system, managers will fall back and rely on their “gut feeling” when making decisions for roles and compensations for their employees. Having proper compensation, performance and merit increase policies will provide your company with a headstart in the fight to pay for equity.

Additionally, salary bands will reinforce your commitment to pay equity in more obvious ways. HR and finance teams won’t be able to have a stopgap in place — to protect against out-of-control disparities, without minimum and maximum salary ranges assigned to each role. For example, a situation where there are two employees with the same role, but one of them earns more than the other without clear factors and reasonings. Such a gap could be from deliberate or unconscious bias, however, it could also result from less nefarious reasons — an inexperienced manager recommending more generous merit to increase their team.  In either case, salary bands will be able to provide clear guidelines to follow, providing managers with a degree of flexibility when determining salary. 

However, salary bands do not help in countering biases that can cloud and impair evaluations and future promotions. So if your company is planning to opt for linking performance and compensation, it is advisable to root out inequities during reviews. 

One of the most helpful and impactful steps is to incorporate performance adjustments into your review cycles; where managers will come together for a discussion moderated by HR to discuss their reports’ performance rating. Since each manager will have different opinions and interpretations of what constitutes good or bad ratings, these discussions will help managers to go over these differences by requesting managers justify and explain their thought process and finally have everyone on the same page so that everyone will follow the same standard.

6. How Does Compensation Integrate With Your Existing Programmes?

Compensation is important in how you attract and retain employees, but compensation is only of several pillars. Other pillars are just as important and where compensation can be integrated into; performance reviews, engagement surveys, check-ins,  and development conversations. 

However, getting all the mentioned programmes to work together in harmony will require a thoughtful and timely approach and execution. For example, your company arranges and schedules performance reviews and compensation decisions in alternating quarters. This is to avoid self-growth conversations with employees from getting sidetracked. Such an approach also will provide employees and managers with time to prepare and set growth plans and deliver them in time for promotion or merit increase. 

Additionally, you can run engagement and pulse surveys year-round to provide you with insights into your total rewards strategy and whether you’re meeting employees' expectations. One crucial point to remember is that although your compensation is structured, it is not fixed and should have flexibility. Your employees' feedback should and can influence your compensation structure over time. 

Conclusion

Compensation isn’t just about numbers, it is a critical and integral part of people management. Your employees will want to be properly rewarded for their efforts and services rendered. 

But not having a proper structure or tools in place for compensation, it will be easy for your employees to feel demotivated and lose faith. Furthermore, companies without solid and proper compensation philosophies will struggle to come up with answers to key employee questions. Unclear compensation philosophies can breed distrust, suspicion of bias, disengagement and ultimately turnover. 

So it is important to take a holistic approach to engagement, performance management and development and properly integrate compensation philosophies into them to create a thriving workplace. 

Image by tirachardz

With online connectivity becoming more stable, smoother and efficient, long-distance communication is no longer an issue. This fact affects how businesses work nowadays; the old ways are slowly disappearing — the ship is sailing away, and the train is leaving the station. What sparked this change was the Covid-19 pandemic. When the pandemic swept across the world, businesses were forced to switch to and adopt hybrid work schedules to survive and continue operating during the pandemic. With that, employees' found hybrid work schedules are more liberating and offer flexibility since they are longer have to commute and rush for the rigid nine-to-six schedule, and just as efficient, if not more. 

A Buffer report for this year's work-from-home survey found that 98% of employees preferred hybrid work schedules. This is because it allows them to rotate between working from home and working from an office. with 91% perceiving work from home as a positive experience. However, to create an efficient, productive and positive work-from-home experience, there are a few matters you have to observe and set up. To that end, we have prepared a hybrid workplace checklist.

Though employees are returning to the office in droves, hybrid work schedules remain the preferred mode and are becoming the norm for remote-capable roles due to the fact hybrid work schedules can meet both employers' and employees’ needs if done right

Why Should You Adopt Hybrid Work Schedules?

Hybrid work schedules offer agile and flexible work schedules that allow employers and employees to have a work-life balance as well as increased productivity, engagement, burnout mitigation and satisfaction at the workplace. 

In addition to that, hybrid work schedules are also excellent for businesses because they will help reduce office costs, promote diversity, attract new talent and reduce turnover rates.

Long-Term Vision for Hybrid Work Schedules

To ensure hybrid work schedules are executed effectively and their benefits are fully reaped, you will need to have a long-term vision for how to deliver productive, intelligent and agile workplace experiences beyond the office’s walls. 

When planning for hybrid work schedules, you should consider:

Executing Hybrid Work Schedules

1) Addressing Employees’ Concerns 

When transitioning to hybrid work schedules, one of the main considerations is your employees — especially if most of the employees in your company are made of the Boomer generation. 

Baby boomers' reluctance probably stems from their preference to communicate face-to-face instead of online messaging or video calls. Hence the reason why they will need some reassurance and training on how to use collaboration tools before they can feel comfortable and confident working remotely. 

To address such employees’ concerns, when drafting the hybrid policies for your company, make sure to include a sentiment checklist to gauge and address their concerns. The sentiment checklist can include the following examples: 

In the feedback survey, you can include questions such as: 

2) Choosing The Suitable Hybrid Work Schedule for Your Company

There are several different hybrid work schedules that companies may adopt and use, such as remote first, scheduled hybrid and synchronised hybrid. To determine which hybrid work schedule works best for your company: 

Remote First

Employees work in the office for a set number of days per week and work remotely for the rest of the week. 

Scheduled Hybrid

A team of employees will have a reserved desk space in an office. However, employees of the said team still have the flexibility to move between working from home and working in the office. In addition to that, this mode of hybrid work schedules provides an option to set a fixed day to work from home and how many days they are expected to be in the office. For example, it can set that Friday as a work-from day for all employees. 

Synchronised Hybrid

A synchronised hybrid work schedule is where every employee is expected to be in the office with a synchronised schedule. Leaders and managers can track the visibility by using tools such as Google Sheets as a scheduling tool. 

3) Hybrid Work Laws and Policies

Before implementing hybrid work schedules, you will need to figure out the hybrid laws and policies. This can be done by asking yourself the following questions:

On top of that, you also need to think about hybrid policies that will accommodate the new hybrid work schedules plan, such as:

4) Communication Challenges That Might Arise

One of the most prevalent issues for companies that have adopted hybrid work schedules is communication challenges. As an employer, you will need to think of a tool and platform that every employee can access and easily use. 

For example, when you moved both files and communication online, you can use tools such as Slack, Discord or Google Docs to facilitate smooth online communication among employees. 

When there is a need for collaboration, practise hybrid meetings and make them a norm for your company — hybrid meetings can be conducted based on the number of employees involved in the collaboration. You can utilise collaboration tools such as Monday and Zoom to enable optimal collaboration. 

5) Choosing Hybrid Work Schedules Software

To create an efficient and productive hybrid work schedule, you will need to invest in software that is suitable to your company and employees' hybrid work schedules. For example, you may need hot desking software such as Yeastar to prevent overlapping hot desk booking and low remote employees visibility. Collaborative tools such as Monday will allow employees that are in the office and working remotely to collaborate on the same project in real-time. 

6) On-Site Space Management

The core idea of a hybrid workplace is that your employees only come into the office on certain days, while on other days they’ll working from home. However, this can be an issue if your company doesn’t have any space to accommodate the whole team. You can tackle this issue by grouping your employees by project, team or needs;

By rotating the schedule, you will not only be able to provide a fair work schedule but also sufficient workspace when your employees need to collaborate on a project together in the office.

7) Managing Hybrid Work Schedule Rotations  

Since on-site space management is related to hybrid work schedule rotations, you can add a few more steps as a solution that will help both space management and schedule rotation issues. 

8) Design Training and Development Plans for Hybrid Work Place Managers

The hybrid workplace and schedule without a doubt comes with its own set of new challenges that managers have to face. To ensure managers will able to tackle these new challenges effectively, employers will want to provide managers with training and development plans that will equip them with the required skills, such as to facilitate efficient collaboration, effective communication between in-office employees and remote employees, team building and performance management. 

Towards a Hybrid Future

Progressing forward toward a hybrid workplace is no easy task post-pandemic. However, by taking the necessary steps and considering the elements mentioned in this article, you as a manager or leader of a company can move the company’s hybrid workplace towards the right direction. 

Besides that, you also should start aligning the company’s leadership with employees so that everyone can be on the same page regarding what to expect; due date, project time, and many more. 

In addition to aligning understanding, it is also important to assess the current maturity level of your company and employees, which will help you to plot as you move forward with a hybrid workplace and invest in leadership to smoothen future journeys.

At GRIT, we believe people look for opportunities instead of jobs in this new era of work. We focus on in-demand Digital and Technology roles, where we intelligently match outstanding talent to some of the most groundbreaking companies in the industry. Find us doing what we do best globally at our offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Germany.
Connect With Us
© 2025 GRIT Search Singapore Pte Ltd. Reg. 201931701Z. EA Licence 20S0054. All rights reserved.