A new region-wide report found the Singapore workforce to be one of the top performers in Organisational Health in APAC, a category which measures work engagement, employee wellbeing, and organisational support.
Local employees surveyed across the healthcare and pharmaceutical, government and non-profit, and education industries claimed the highest organisational health scores out of the 10 industries surveyed.
The Workplace Wellbeing in 10 APAC Industries: Intellect Dimensions Benchmarking Report 2024, conducted by leading regional mental health care company Intellect, surveyed 50,000 users across Asia Pacific in 2023 and discovered Singapore employees had a higher Organisational Health score (64%) than the regional average (62.9%), ranking fifth among all 12 countries.
The report aims to enable organisations to measure the effectiveness of their wellbeing programmes and compare their performance in fostering workplace wellbeing across different industries, based on responses to Intellect Dimensions.
According to the report, smaller Southeast Asian markets like Vietnam (65.1%), Thailand (65.0%) and Philippines (64.4%), have the highest Organisational Health scores across the region.
Other markets like Taiwan, Province of China (58.7%) and Korea (58.1%) reported the lowest Organisational Health scores, reflecting the potential for more mental health support to be implemented across workplaces in each market.
Traditionally scrutinised sectors lead in organisational health
Despite the healthcare and pharmaceutical, government and non-profit and education industries typically being associated with high levels of stress and burnout, the report’s findings reflect a positive shift, due in part to employers taking more preventive and reactive measures to care for their workforce.
The report includes a comprehensive analysis of workplace wellbeing by measuring organisational health and employee productivity, providing a more holistic view of workplace wellbeing and its impact on the bottom line in each of the 10 industries.
The three industries with the highest overall organisational health scores across the region are healthcare and pharmaceutical (67.5%), government and non-profit (66.8%), and education (65.8%).
However, employees in Singapore within the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical (66.0%) and Education (65.5%) industries had slightly lower Organisational Health scores compared to the industry average.
There remains an opportunity for mental health support across these sectors to increase and better align with regional benchmarks.
Healthcare and pharmaceutical employees reported a strong sense of purpose (73.8%) and the highest levels of optimism (70.3%) across industries.
This suggests employees are intrinsically motivated, which could translate to their high levels of employee wellbeing (69.7%) and work engagement (67.7%).
Similarly, government and non-profit employees reported high levels of employee wellbeing (68%) and work engagement (67.4%).
In comparison, the Education sector scored better in the areas of work-life balance (63.9%) and relationship building (75.3%).
Improving presenteeism is key to enhancing workplace performance
Presenteeism – which refers to the lost productivity that occurs when employees are not fully functioning in the workplace – has been found to cost companies billions of dollars a year.
Employee Productivity is measured by the cost of physical and mental health associated with presenteeism and absenteeism borne by organisations, with presenteeism playing a larger role in affecting productivity.
The findings from the report underscore the importance for employers to actively address presenteeism, as well as tailored interventions to consider, to enhance employee productivity and mitigate its associated financial impact.
Industries which scored below the industry benchmarks for Organisational Health scores – including e-commerce and online services (60.6%) – reported high levels of presenteeism.
In the Philippines, e-commerce and online services reported the highest levels of employee productivity (74.7%), followed by Malaysia (74.4%) and Singapore (73.7%).
Despite these seemingly positive scores, when compared to the overall benchmark across industries (76.0%), they fall slightly below average.
Theodoric Chew, Co-founder & CEO of Intellect said, “The prevalence of presenteeism across the region underscores the urgent need for employers to implement targeted interventions and proactive measures.”
“This first-of-its-kind report, which uniquely draws primary insights from 50,000 of our users, is our first step in gaining a deeper understanding of the impact of employee wellbeing programmes across industries,” he said.
“With this report, employers and human resources professionals now have access to the largest dataset of employee insights across the Asia Pacific region, offering unparalleled depth and breadth of insights into workplace wellbeing. We want to empower them to make strategic and data-driven recommendations to drive tangible benefits for organisations,” he added.
