Compensation & Benefits

Our compensation package includes more than just a salary. It also comprises bonuses, allowances, incentives, benefits and perks as we strive to remain competitive.

The objectives of our remuneration strategy are

1. To ensure proper compensation and an enticing benefits package
2. To motivate staff to drive performance and reward for good work
3. To retain high performing employees
4. To attract high calibre candidates

We adopt three approaches to ensure pay fairness. Firstly, we leverage market data to establish externally competitive pay ranges; secondly, we use analytics to ensure pay is internally equitable; and lastly, we build a culture of paying for performance to reward employees who best contribute to the organisational and departmental goals.

We also designed and tailor-made various incentive schemes for different functional teams to drive a high-performance culture. These incentive schemes are reviewed annually to remain relevant.

Offering benefits is not just a great way to attract preferred candidates to our Company, it is also a significant factor in keeping our employees happy long after the onboarding process ends. With this in mind, we are constantly reviewing our employees’ benefits to align with the evolving needs of the employees.

As such, we even provide our employees with leave benefits beyond what the Employment Act stipulates, such as Vaccination Leave, Blue and Skills Future Leave.

Vaccination plays a key role in getting us closer to living normally with Covid-19. As a retailer that serves customers in the frontline, it’s all the more important that our staff be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to protect ourselves as well as our customers and the people around us. To encourage more staff to be vaccinated, Watsons has implemented extra two days of paid Covid-19 Vaccination Leave to our employees for them to get their jabs. This new paid leave is offered in addition to the medical paid leave that our employees are entitled to, so that they will be able to have a proper rest and monitor their health at home after their vaccination. Through this initiative, we hope it will go a long way in supporting our employees to help make the vaccination process easier for them.

Being a supporting employer, we also offer Skills Future Leave to eligible employees when they take ownership of their skills development and attend SkillsFuture training courses. This is part of our efforts to promote and support the national initiative of lifelong learning and upskilling through all phases of life. Honing skills is especially important in this digital age and we believe in doing our part to help our people upskill to stay relevant for the future.

Learning & Development

The speed at which the world is changing has caused a shorter life span for the knowledge that we have learned today and thereby raising the importance on reskilling and upskilling. The development of our people has always been our key responsibility. However, 2020 posted a great challenge to us.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore forces the government to clamp down on social interactions to curb the spread. As a result, everything seems to come to a standstill. Our 2020’s training plan that was carefully crafted in the beginning of the year was nothing but a mere piece of paper with courses and teambuilding placed on indefinite hold.

We had reacted quickly to reprioritise and shifted our focus to helping our employees adapt to the new norms instead. With the government mandating businesses to allow employees to work from home, we implemented Learn from Home initiatives. We organised several online sessions on useful and practical ergonomic tips for the office employees to make working from home more comfortable. Light but effective exercises were also shared to help them stay fit and healthy. We even threw in a game or two for their children to join in the fun. On top of this, we also worked with our training vendors to conduct virtual workshops and webinars to keep our staff engaged and to encourage continuous learning.

For frontline employees with no company-issued laptops, we converted our training rooms into virtual learning desks where laptops were set up to help store employees attend virtual workshops with safe management measures in place. No matter how tough the situation, we are glad that our adaptability and resilience have made learning a persevering journey within the Company.

Employee Value Proposition

At Watsons, we believe happy employees deliver excellent results, which in turn drives business success. We encourage our employees to upskill themselves and grow with the company on new trends in the world of retail.

Our DNA (Passion, Commitment, Teamwork, Science and Innovation) drives us forward. They provide the framework for making decisions, such as how we get things done in our daily lives. Our employees support the Company’s strategic vision and goals. They help to build the culture and brand that the Company is striving. We encourage employees to share their voices through Internal Suggestion platform. This allows everyone to contribute their ideas and feedback and their great ideas will be recognised and implemented.

During the Circuit Breaker period, our office employees were working from home. With the adoption of technology, they displayed great resilience and strived to do their best to stay connected. They were virtually connected via Microsoft Team with each other for their daily work and collaboration. This crisis makes Watsons stronger with our staff quickly adapted to the new norm of working thanks to our DNA that makes us who we are today.

Watsons is an inclusive employer and we support fair employment. We have fostered a multiracial and multicultural workplace by ensuring equal employment opportunity to people of all ages, races, gender identities, religions, marital statuses or disabilities. We are committed to building a work environment in which all employees are fairly treated and respected. We believe that every employee has the right to work in a conducive workplace that promotes equal opportunities and prohibits discriminatory practices.

Maintaining a safe and healthy work environment is the top priority for Watsons. Our frontline employees are at higher risk of exposure to Covid 19 infection. To safeguard them and their love ones, we are one of the first retailers who voluntarily provide them free ART kit for self testing every fortnight.

Our entire chain of close to 100 stores are also among one of the first few to be certified with SG Clean certification amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The SG Clean campaign is a national mark of excellence for public hygiene and was created to rally businesses and the public to uphold good sanitisation standards and hygiene practices. The SG Clean quality mark in our retail stores is a display of our commitment to maintain hygiene standards and ensure a safe environment and good health for all of our employees and customers so that they can enjoy even greater peace of mind when they are at our stores.

Engagement Strategies

Watsons fully recognises the importance of connecting with our employees.

We hold quarterly Town Hall meeting as we believe it is a critical part of engaging employees. It brings the entire Company together to get updates on business directions and development and align everyone towards a common goal.

Town Hall meeting is also when the management acknowledged, appreciated, and applauded the employees for their hard work, contributions, and even the smallest milestones.

We conduct periodic anonymous employee engagement survey to provide employees with the opportunity to make their voices heard. We develop detailed communication plans to increase survey participation, encourage open and honest feedback to cultivate a positive mindset.

We organised several employee engagement activities to allow employees to bond with each other and to have fun in the workplace. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, we had planned various virtual activities such as Play Kahoot!, Pilate, Skribble, Game of Wealth etc. via Microsoft Teams and ZOOM platform and let the employees take time off and connect with each other despite being physically apart.

Our virtual workshops had helped the employees gain a little routine back in their daily lives and brought a comfort space for them to interact in the safety of their homes.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Watsons takes pride in serving the communities through our business and other initiatives. Providing the local communities with products and services they trust and can rely on is fundamental to building a sustainable business. Watsons is committed to generating a positive impact in every aspect of our operations, which is manifested in implementing corporate social responsibilities (“CSR”) across the Company to ensure that the Company actively contributes to the community and environment in our operations. We task ourselves to deliver our responsibility under four key pillars: workplace, marketplace, planet and community.

Our community

Over the years, we have always been passionate about serving our community to fulfil social purposes relevant to the community needs. We strive to engage our loyal customers to create a healthier and more sustainable world and support our employee’s efforts in contributing to society. For the past 3 years, we have partnered with the Life Community Services Society (LCSS) to help children from low-income and vulnerable backgrounds. Watsons volunteers get the opportunity to interact with the children from LCSS for a bonding session. It encourages employees to be involved in local organisations and activities to help others.