SINGAPORE: Companies in Singapore are preparing for a partial return to the office as the country is set to ease restrictions imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus.
The multi-ministerial task force tackling the COVID-19 pandemic recently announced that working from home would no longer be the default from August 19.
Instead, up to 50 per cent of employees able to work remotely would be allowed back to the office.
But, most employers expect hybrid working arrangements to be a permanent feature of the post-pandemic world, according to a report by The Straits Times on Wednesday.
"The Public Service is working towards supporting greater work flexibility in the post-COVID new normal," a spokesman for the country's Public Service Division was quoted as saying.
"This will go towards meeting the needs of officers and, at the same time, balancing organisational needs."
Companies had scrambled to make hybrid work possible - sometimes haphazardly - when COVID-19 first arrived in Singapore last year.
While there was some easing of safe management measures from September last year - allowing a portion of workers to return to the office - Singapore had returned to working from home from May this year when rising COVID-19 cases triggered tighter restrictions.
The Singapore office of Japanese multinational NEC said that currently, 80 per cent of its 700 employees work from home.
From August 19, the company will adopt hybrid work arrangements so that 50 per cent of workers can return to the office, while letting individual business units decide how to implement this, according to a Channel News Asia report on Wednesday.
NEC said that it has set up a 'Future of Work' task force to study this.
Mastercard said its employees can return to the office, if they wish to, from August 23.
They can register the days they wish to go to the office using an internal online tool, which will disallow staff from returning once the daily quota is reached.
"Some of our offices in other countries, depending on the relaxation of safety measures, have already moved into a hybrid working environment where employees work from office two or three days a week," the Channel quoted Shafi Shaikh, executive vice president for customer delivery, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.
"We envision a similar approach for our Singapore office as the situation improves," Shaikh said.
Meanwhile, Singapore reported the death of a 90-year-old fully vaccinated man from COVID-19 complications on Tuesday.
He had a history of chronic kidney disease and hypertension, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.
As of Tuesday, 45 people have died from complications due to the COVID-19 infection while 66,281 people have been infected from the virus since the outbreak began here.