1 in 4 Singaporeans are unsatisfied with their employers

It seems like they are not getting the necessary feedback to improve.

Singapore is bucking the global trend when it comes to employees’ satisfaction towards their companies.

According to Mercer's Singapore Employee Engagement Index: Insights to Enhance Workforce Productivity study, employee engagement has declined consistently over the last three years, with only 73% of Singaporeans satisfied with the companies they work for compared to 82% of their global counterparts in 2016.

Additionally, Singaporeans are less likely to endorse their organizations as good employers — 76% of employees in APAC would advocate for their companies as good places to work, while only 68% of employees are willing to do so in Singapore.

Mercer CEO Kulshaan Singh said improving employee engagement continues to represent a significant opportunity for businesses.

“As then Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam noted in his 2014 budget speech, ‘Raising productivity is at the center of our economic agenda,’ the decline is primarily due to the lower feelings of pride in and satisfaction with organizations and our analysis shows that such views are largely driven by the employees’ concerns about innovation and career development," he said.

The firm observed an increasing number of employees not getting the right opportunities to learn and grow. The study further revealed that 20% of employees in the workforce say they are not receiving the necessary feedback from their immediate managers to improve themselves.

Even more worrying is that one in three feels that personal career goals are difficult to meet in his or her organization. At the same time, 95% of employees in Singapore want to be recognized and rewarded for a wider range of contributions.

Meanwhile, although 85% of employees are proud of the products and services they currently offer, 30% feel their organizations are not continually innovating these products and services. Notably, one out of every three employees feels that the company does not support the development of new ideas. This is in contrast to the strong government commitment and support around driving innovation.

Attitudes toward employee involvement are notably more positive in Singapore. Seven out of 10 employees feel they are sufficiently involved in the decision-making process on matters that may affect them as compared to 67% globally. Immediate managers play a critical role in this perception, with 80% of employees saying their immediate managers notify them of important information related to their work.

“Engagement represents the best opportunity for Singapore to optimize the human capital it has. If performance and productivity are a combination of individual talent and engagement, the best way to optimize talent is to ensure it’s engaged. Although this seems obvious, many organizations still struggle to build the work environment they need to fully realize engagement in the workplace,” Singh concluded.