Most are only ‘moderately optimistic’ of business growth due to strong internal and external forces
Businesses in Singapore are ‘moderately optimistic’ about growth in Singapore due to disruptive internal and external forces, according to Korn Ferry.
Top internal factors affecting business growth are strategy transformation or re-organisation (67%), organisational cultural change (44%) and change of senior leadership (40%).
Externally, businesses are acutely aware of issues like the global economic slowdown (66%), strong global competition and talent shortage (54%).
Companies are also becoming increasingly concerned about technology disruption – from 25% in 2018 to 38% this year – as well as the ongoing US-China trade war (23%), according to the recent study.
To deal with the volatile and competitive business landscape, companies in Singapore are implementing multiple actions to support cost management, including plans over the next two years to redesign work processes (67%) and reducing business-related travel expenses (55%).
In the area of talent management, companies are focusing on making their compensation and benefits package competitive (80%), linking performance management and rewards (62%) and analysing internal equity (51%).
This is especially crucial as dissatisfaction with their compensation package is cited as one of the top reasons for turnover amongst employees (37%), as well as a lack of career progression (52%) and working relations with supervisors (30%).
Some key trends identified for HR budgets include:
- 74% of the organizations indicated that their HR budget has maintained or increased by up to 5% compared to the last year
- The average total salary increase in the last 12 months was 3.8% and the forecast for next 12 months is 4.0%
“Looking ahead, businesses should continue to brace themselves from the impact of the ongoing global economic slowdown and renewed trade tensions between the US and China,” said Mirka Kowalczuk, head of pay & engagement delivery Asia Pacific at Korn Ferry. “They will also need to look out for the growing talent shortage and rising performance expectations in today’s fast-changing business environment.
“Some initiatives that they could explore include monitoring and designing employee experience across the whole employee life cycle in the organization through ongoing listening of employees' voices, as well as balancing the financial and non-financial aspects of reward packages they offer to attract and retain employees.”
