Working from home will continue to be a labor trend in the Philippines in the next couple of years, results from a survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson (WLTW) said.
“The (COVID-19) pandemic pushed organizations to consider remote work and other flexible work arrangements," Patrick Marquina, Head of Talent & Rewards, WLTW Philippines said in a statement Monday, March 29.
"This practice will most likely continue as part of the new normal as companies realize that flexible work arrangements play a significant role in employee productivity and engagement,” he noted.
The broking and solutions company, which surveyed 47 companies in the Philippines, between October and November last year, said employers anticipate that the proportion of full-time employees working from home by the year 2023 will be more than 10 times higher than it was back in 2017. Percentage-wise, the expected jump is from 3 percent to 34 percent.
"Indeed, nine in 10 respondents (95 percent) cited employee safety concerns as one of the main reasons for providing alternative work arrangements with flextime as the most typical form last year (35 percent), but two thirds (66 percent) were aware that this flexibility could promote employee retention and help to improve inclusion and diversity (55 percent)," WLTW said.
The highly-contagious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has claimed over 13,000 lives in the Philippines so far. Although several vaccines are being used against it, the disease still has no approved treatment.
WLTW further said that, despite the high levels of remote working anticipated in the future, only one in seven companies think their current job architecture and job levelling process support developing a flexible and agile workforce. Furthermore, nearly one fifth (17 percent) of employers still do not have policies in place to manage flexible work arrangements, and about two thirds just created a formal policy last year.
“An integrated work strategy supported by technology and strong digital capability will enable companies to maximize the full potential of emerging work arrangements,” reckoned Marquina.
However, it was found out in the survey that only a small percentage of employers have an integrated digital and business strategy (30 percent) and a basic, reactive digital strategy with rudimentary digital capabilities (28 percent).
"Employers now need to take a step back and examine the future state of their organization overall and decide how they can make the most of their new agile workforce," Marquina said.
The survey also found that three out of five respondents think their flexible work policies would not have much of a significant impact on their overall pay budget. However, nearly half (47 percent) are recognizing that the new requirements for work require a hybrid model for pay and rewards.
"With spend on pay unlikely to change significantly, companies are anticipating that any savings they make will come from real estate, where 48 percent are expecting to reduce their spend over the next three years. A third (32 percent) also expect savings from expenses connected to commuting to work, such as transportation and travel," WLTW said.
It further said some of these savings are being channelled to facilitate the necessary changes to the companies’ total rewards programs, such as equipping employees to work from home or for the health and well-being programs to support employees in a more agile and flexible workplace in the future.