Man says he’s forced to travel to office to “do the same work and at 6pm pack up and squash into bus/train”

SINGAPORE: A man who had been working in a company for many years wrote that he found having to come to the office a rather rigid practice.

In an anonymous post to popular confessions page NUSWhispers, the man said he felt overwhelmed because of his work situation. The amount of work he had to do daily was a lot, and he said that he also had to go to office for four days a week. “This 4day on-site is so rigid. Cant this, cant that. You are basically travelling all the freaking way here just to sit at your desk and do the same work and at 6pm pack up and squash into the bus/train only to crash into your bed when home. Worst case i live in the east. What kind of life is this. Covid has taught us something and its beneficial. Govt is also pushing for it”, the man wrote. He added that he was not able to easily find another job as he had a mental health condition.

Last year: One thing the COVID-19 pandemic taught us well is that many of our jobs can be flexible and that working from home is not just a possibility but a workable reality. And for the younger generation of workers in Singapore, this type of flexibility may just be non-negotiable. Even as the situation normalizes and bosses are encouraging employees back into the swing of working from the office, workers aged 18 to 34 are saying, “Maybe not” according to the results of the ADP Research Institute’s People at Work 2022: A Global Workforce View, which was published on July 4.

In Singapore, over half of the young workers who participated in the study said they would contemplate leaving their jobs if asked to return full-time. Among workers aged 55 and older, only 35 per cent of the respondents had the same sentiments. And yet, the percentage of Singapore’s younger workers who feel this way is lower than that of the rest of the world.

Based on the survey conducted in 17 countries among 33,000 employees, 71 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old employees said they might look for another job should full-time work resume. Among 25 to 34-year-olds, 66 per cent held this sentiment. For workers aged 45 to 54, 56 per cent said they would do so. The study pointed out that this sentiment may affect industries such as food and beverage and retail, which depend heavily on younger workers.  /TISG