HSBC Singapore launches its ‘Future of Work’ and ‘Return to Office’ plans

Future of Work

Underpinning HSBC Singapore’s ‘Future of Work’ will be a shift towards a more hybrid and flexible model of working between office and home for its employees while managing operational and business continuity risk. The plan will be underpinned by three key principles:

• Customer focus: Ensuring the way HSBC employees work suits our customers’ needs and their changing behaviours, and delivers the best outcomes for our customers and businesses.
• Flexibility for individuals: In how, when and where we work.
• Collaboration: Ensuring that our offices are designed and used to build collaboration and networks for the benefit of our customers and our employees. We will use best in class digital to modernise the workspace.

To prepare for a more permanent shift to hybrid and flexible working, HSBC Singapore has made the following policy, location, technology and cultural changes in the past year:

• Refined its existing Flexible Working Policy
• Became the anchor tenant of Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 2 and upgraded offices at MBFC and its split-site at Mapletree Business City featuring state-of-art design, technology and sustainability
• Moved from traditional fixed desk seating to an activity-based workplace where employees have a variety of individual and shared spaces available to work or collaborate with others
• Provided staff with the necessary IT and security infrastructure to support large-scale WFH arrangements
• Virtual recruitment and onboarding of new employees through video interviews and online assessments
• Provided a one-time reimbursement of SGD500 to all eligible staff for the purchase of office equipment
• Conducted briefing sessions to educate people managers on the policy, and ongoing courses on how to manage dispersed and hybrid teams
• Ongoing focus groups on pain points and how to make hybrid and flexible working more sustainable
• Launched telemedicine to enable staff to consult a doctor remotely

Brandon Coate, Head of Human Resources, said, “Forward-looking companies are change-makers. This includes creating working environments that enable employees to set up arrangements that deliver high customer impact whilst suiting their personal lives. HSBC Singapore has worked extensively over the past two years to create this environment, and there is more we will do to refine our approach. But at its essence is about bringing policy, infrastructure, risk management, technology, trust and culture together in a structural and lasting way.”

Return to Office plan

In addition to its wider ‘Future of Work’, HSBC Singapore will be executing a ‘Return to Office’ plan to enable more employees the opportunity and choice to return to the office, in line with the Singapore Government’s recent policy shift while also maintaining operational and business continuity risk.

With immediate effect, HSBC will:

• Allow a maximum of 65% of total staff in the office, while abiding by the 1 metre safe distancing requirement in all premises.
• Split-site arrangement is only for critical services to mitigate concentration risk. All others may work from their usual office location or from home. We do not allow cross-site deployment for now, in line with safe management measures.
• Social gatherings amongst colleagues are allowed but in groups of no more than eight, with safe management measures in place.

Mr Coate continued: “As the Singapore Government has now changed its rules to bring more people back to the workplace, it is now time for HSBC to do the same. Whilst the health and safety of our employees is always a top priority, we believe now is the right time for employees to re-engage with their teams on how they perform their role and the frequency in which they will be attending the office.”

Media enquiries:

HSBC | Karina Tham | karina.tham@hsbc.com.sg | +65 9178 8552