Singapore has emerged as one of the "strongest champions" of hybrid work arrangements across the Asia Pacific region, according to a new report that sheds light on the uneven implementation of hybrid work arrangements in the region.

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) published a new report, “WORK 3.0: Reimagining Leadership in a Hybrid World. The study is based on a survey of 2,170 leaders across 13 countries and 27 in-depth interviews with leaders across 10 countries from a mix of industries including financial services, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), technology, retail, infrastructure, education, and professional services companies. The countries surveyed were Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The adoption of the hybrid work model, or Work 3.0, has nearly doubled in APAC, increasing from 41% pre-pandemic to 80% post-pandemic. However, countries across APAC differ in how far organisations are willing to embrace hybrid work. 

Singapore came out on top as one of the strongest champions of the work flexibility agenda, where leaders are the least likely to expect employees to be fully onsite (1%) and the most open to giving employees complete flexibility to work anywhere at any time (31%).

The report found that, among other APAC nations, leaders from Japan, Australia, and Vietnam were also more open to arrangements in which employees are not 100% on-site. Only 8% of them want their workers to be in the office full-time. The situation is different in the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia, where more than one in five leaders expected their employees to be 100% in-office.

Amid its boom in popularity, leaders across APAC identified the following benefits of hybrid work:

• Employee happiness and wellness (62%)
• Talent attraction (42.3%)
• Increased productivity (27.4%)
• Safety post-pandemic (27.1%)

• Cost containment (23.6%)

Interestingly, the data suggests that hybrid work has a two-fold effect on productivity. While a hybrid model may considerably lift the productivity and engagement of top performers, it can have an adverse impact on ‘below average’ performers.