{"id":66002,"date":"2026-07-04T10:02:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=66002"},"modified":"2026-07-04T10:02:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:02:03","slug":"low-engagement-among-workers-is-a-persistent-problem-in-singapore-these-companies-found-the-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=66002","title":{"rendered":"Low engagement among workers is a persistent problem in Singapore. These companies found the fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<h2>CLOSING THE LOOP<\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Another key finding of the SID-Gallup report was that employee engagement depends not just on what organisations say they value, but whether those values are reflected in employees&#8217; day-to-day experience at work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>While many organisations conduct engagement surveys and have rolled out well-being initiatives, too few translate employee feedback into meaningful change. Without follow-through, the report warned, employees can come to believe their views do not matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>For government technology agency Open Government Products (OGP), turning employee feedback into action became increasingly important as the organisation expanded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>As OGP doubled to nearly 200 officers between 2024 and 2026, it realised informal\u00a0conversations were no longer enough to keep pace with employees&#8217; views. The agency formalised its feedback process, sharing engagement survey findings at quarterly town halls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>&#8220;The hard part is what comes after (the survey): telling officers what you heard, what you&#8217;re changing, and what you&#8217;re not changing and why. Skip that second step and you&#8217;ve done something worse than nothing: staff learn that feedback disappears,&#8221; said chief operating officer Hygin Fernandez.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to acting on employee feedback, <span>Wang Caf\u00e9<\/span> learnt more than a decade ago that doing so could transform not just workplace culture, but business outcomes too.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Following its acquisition by NTUC Foodfare in 2011, the leadership noticed inconsistent service standards across the chain. Rather than relying on surveys alone, Wang Caf\u00e9 partnered design thinking consultancy The Curious People Solutions (TCPS) on an 18-month project to understand what frontline employees were experiencing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Using mystery diners and six co-creation sessions involving all 136 staff, employees were encouraged to identify problems and propose solutions using real customer feedback as a starting point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>The sessions gave frontline employees an opportunity to feel comfortable in contributing ideas for refining day-to-day operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Among them was a queue collection process that required customers to collect orders strictly by queue number, even when some meals were ready earlier than others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Armed with a shared understanding of what customers wanted, frontline teams were able to work together more closely to improve the customer experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Over the 18-month project, sales across Wang Caf\u00e9 outlets grew by 20 per cent, customer satisfaction reached 90 per cent and staff attrition fell by 60 per cent compared with pre-project levels. Wang Caf\u00e9 later became the basis for Heavenly Wang, the group&#8217;s halal spin-off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>The lesson has endured, said TCPS\u2019 founding partner Ken Kwan, whose consultancy continues to advise organisations on workplace transformation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>&#8220;One of the strongest drivers of engagement is giving employees ownership, as well as a shared sense of purpose,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>It is a lesson OGP has also found to hold true.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Every year, its officers step away from their day-to-day work to spend time with citizens, public officers and community groups through the agency\u2019s Hack for Public Good programme.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>The aim is simple: identify real problems, then build something that solves them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Undercover, a pedestrian navigation web app that recommends shade-optimised walking routes, is one example of what can emerge when employees are trusted to pursue ideas they believe in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/today\/big-read\/singapore-low-employee-engagement-managers-coaching-6227401\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CLOSING THE LOOP Another key finding of the SID-Gallup report was that employee engagement depends not just on what organisations say they value, but whether&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}