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To manage this, companies could set clearer expectations on splitting workload evenly among workers.
According to ADP Research Institute’s People at Work 2023: A Global Workforce View report, 40% of Singapore workers believe that they work up to 10 hours of unpaid time per week, this includes time spent working over lunch breaks and staying late after work. The study surveyed 32,612 workers in 17 countries globally between 28 October and 18 November 2022 including over 8,613 working exclusively in the gig economy.
Regionally, it is estimated that Singapore workers spend 8.19 hours unpaid per week on average. This is the second highest number of unpaid hours worked in the APAC region, behind India (10.65 hours), but ahead of China (7.50 hours) and Australia (7.17 hours). Interestingly, the percentage of Singapore workers who feel they work up to 10 unpaid hours increases to over 50% when it comes to parents with newborns.
Yvonne Teo, Vice President of HR, APAC, ADP, explains that this could be due to shifting priorities as parents may be more particular about hours spent unpaid for their jobs if they have a newborn to care for. Overall, almost half of Singapore workers (45%) feel that they are underpaid for their jobs, along with feelings of not being compensated fairly, this can lead to significant employee dissatisfaction over time.
On the rest of the findings, Yvonne comments, “Research has consistently shown that unhealthy work life balances can lead to a drop in productivity, which is contrary to the assumption that working more hours means that an employee is more productive."
She suggest that employers alleviate the issue of unpaid overtime hours by ensuring that employers set clear, reasonable expectations for employees to manage their workload efficiently and ensure responsibilities are equally distributed across team workers.
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