Singapore workers worried about burnout, layoffs: UiPath

UiPath, an enterprise automation software company, has found that 18% of employees globally are concerned they may be affected by layoffs, and that 23% of them have already experienced them at their company. The numbers in Singapore are above-average at 30% and 34% respectively, with even more Indian respondents reporting the same (46% and 44%).

The leading contributors to burnout for Singapore workers are: Pressure from managers/leadership (40%), too much time spent on tactical tasks; working beyond scheduled hours (38%) and uncertainty about career opportunities at their company (33%).

The UiPath survey* also found that 69% of workers in Singapore believed that automation can address burnout and improve job fulfillment, higher than the global average (58%) and third-highest of all countries surveyed globally. In the Asia-Pacific region, the numbers range from Japan at 36%, and India at 86%.

Nearly three quarters (73%) of workers in Singapore also reported that they view employers that use business automation to help support employees and modernise operations more favourably than those that do not. In general, 79% globally view employers more favourably if the employer uses automation. The numbers trended higher than average for India (93%), Japan (77%), and Singapore (82%).

Employees are being asked to do more work with less support, with 47% of all Singapore respondents saying they’ve been asked to take on more tasks at work in the past six months because of layoffs or hiring freezes (globally, 28%; Australia 32%; India 53%, and Japan, 5%). As work piles up, it takes a toll on employees — about one in four workers (26%) in Singapore report feelings of burnout (against Australia, 35%; India, 36%; and Japan, 13%;) — and more staffers are leaning on AI tools to provide relief, giving rise to the Automation Generation.

The Automation Generation does not represent a specific age or demographic, the company said, but rather, the professionals embracing AI and automation to be more collaborative, creative, and productive. This generation of workers wants these technologies to enrich their work and personal lives and prevent them from feeling like robots themselves, UiPath explained.

Forty-nine percent of Singaporean workers are already using business automation solutions at work, the second highest among all countries surveyed globally. Of these workers comprising the Automation Generation, 87% feel like they have the resources and support needed to do their job effectively and 81% believe business automation solutions can help address burnout and enhance job satisfaction. The numbers for business automation benefits are also high globally at 83%, with India topping the ranks at 94% and Japan scoring the lowest at 67% of respondents. Australian respondents were also optimistic (88%).

The survey of 581 Singaporean workers also found:

● Automation Generation workers desire flexibility, upward mobility, and spending less time on manual tasks: When asked what aspects of their job would change with the help of automation tools, Singaporean workers said they wanted more flexibility when it comes to their work environment (47%), more time to learn new skills (43%), and less time spent on manual tasks (42%).

● Workers are increasingly looking for automation and AI-powered tools to help with mundane, repetitive tasks:

○ Nearly seven in 10 (69%) of Singaporean workers believe that automation can address burnout and improve job fulfillment. This contrasts with global figures of 58%, and 67% in Australia, 86% in India and 36% in Japan.

○ Workers are most interested in automating these tasks:

- Analysing data (58%);

- Inputting data/creating datasets (54%); and

- Resolving IT/technical issues (50%).

○ Workers who are using business automation solutions say it has enabled greater productivity (55%), more accurate work (46%) and better internal workflows (45%).

○ Regardless of job role, 55% of workers are interested in becoming citizen developers to create new automations that could enhance their work/life balance. A citizen developer does not have the traditional coding skills that programmers have, but is able to achieve results with a low code/no code solution.

● More than half of all Singaporean workers across generations are receptive to the potential of AI-powered automation in helping them at work. More than half of all Generation Z (85%), Millennial (72%), Generation X (65%), and Baby Boomer (57%) respondents think that automation would help them do their jobs better.

“Disruption in the workplace and macroeconomic factors often mean employees are asked to bear that burden by doing more with less—but it doesn’t need to be that way,” said Brigette McInnis-Day, Chief People Officer at UiPath.

“The employees of Automation Generation are embracing AI-powered automation so they can better manage their workloads, excel in their careers, and improve their work-life balance. Businesses that deploy AI in an open, flexible, and enterprise ready way are best positioned to attract and retain the types of employees that will help them thrive in an automation-first world. Automation is a key differentiator for companies to attract and retain by empowering employees and driving engagement.”

“As the Singapore economy continues to remain volatile due to the global outlook, automation can play an important role in helping organisations navigate challenges, as it has the potential to transform industries and improve the lives of workers,” said Jess O’Reilly, Area VP, Asia at UiPath.

“The insights from our survey has shown that the majority of Singaporean workers are ready to embrace AI-powered automation to support them at work. To enhance job satisfaction and increase productivity of workers, organisations in Singapore must augment capabilities of the human workforce with automation to ensure sustainable business growth.”

*In partnership with Researchscape, UiPath conducted this research via an online survey fielded in March 2023. There were 6,460 respondents to the survey. Topline results were weighted to be representative of the collective economy by each country’s GDP: US (55%), Japan (10%), Germany (9%), India (8%), UK (7%), France (6%), Australia (4%), and Singapore (2%).

Source: UiPath Automation Generation Survey Report. Workers from India feel the most burnt out.

Requesting services in personal life isn't the same as requesting services at work..yet

Source: ServiceNow report.

Enterprise cloud solutions company ServiceNow has found a significant divide between the way people seek out services in their personal lives and how they do so at work in their Today’s State of Work: The Service Experience Gap report. It is as if we live in an online world for our personal lives and a completely different world tethered to email at work, the company observes.

“Consumers are accustomed to using mobile and cloud technology in their daily lives, but this doesn’t translate to the way they approach their work,” said Jimmy Fitzgerald, VP, Asia Pacific and Japan, ServiceNow. “Companies need to stop living in the past and streamline their workplaces processes through the extraordinary solutions available to them.”

The report surveyed 100 Singaporean managers, comparing their experiences with consumer services and with workplace enterprise services. The company surveyed 2,400 managers globally to rate their experiences with popular consumer services as well as typical enterprise services, such as opening a purchase order, requesting help from another department, ordering equipment, or tracking down information. The survey found that most enterprise services are still based on technology introduced in the 1990s and fall short of the modern consumer service experience.

A ranking, The Service Experience Index, quantifies how beneficial and intuitive services are at work and beyond. In general, ServiceNow found that ease of requesting and fulfilling work services fell behind consumer services on all eight criteria used for the index:

1. Services are easy to request or order
2. The entire process of the services from request to delivery is fast
3. The services can be accessed via a mobile device to check the status or request
4. It’s quick to find what services or products are available
5. Alerts on status of the request are provided
6. Alerts on estimated delivery times are provided
7. It’s easy to compare services with others available
8. Recommendations are provided based on previous selections

Singapore ranked highest on The Service Experience Index for work services compared to Australia, France, Germany, US, and UK, but even then its score was only an average of 35 on a scale of 0 to 100. Singapore scored an average of 61 for consumer services reflecting the reality that at work, managers are almost six times more likely to use email and, conversely, eight times less likely to use a mobile app than for consumer services.

ServiceNow explains that the gap is driven by outdated technologies that reduce productivity:

· Nearly all (94%) of managers use email to request services

· Slightly over a quarter (27%) of managers use the web or a mobile app to request work services, versus 85% for consumer services

· If only mobile channels are considered, 7% of managers tap mobile apps for workplace services

· Six in 10 managers spend more than three hours at work processing work emails and 84% of them agree that the need to constantly monitor their email makes it difficult to drive tasks to completion. Eighty-six percent of them also feel pressure to answer work emails outside of standard work hours

Automation will drive improvement in the workplace, but it has to be the latest type of automation, ServiceNow said. At present:

· A third of Singaporean companies use mostly automated processes for workplace services. When a business service is mostly automated, 58% of managers say it is easy to request, and 36% say the entire process from requesting to receiving is fast

· However, even the most automated of those workplace services cannot match up to the type of experience available with consumer apps. Only 33% of managers can use their mobile device to make a request in the workplace compared to 72% for consumer services, for example, while just over a quarter (27%) of managers say that they receive notifications of estimated delivery times, compared to 59% for consumer services

ServiceNow suggests that companies close the gap between consumer service experiences and those at the workplace by streamlining processes and injecting automation. Concrete steps to take include:

• Identifying work tasks that require coordination among employees or across departments
• Outlining the coordination process and then defining what it should be
• Designing an intuitive, frictionless interface for employees
• Tapping into consumer-like techniques such as portals, workflows and catalogues
• Tracking and analysing the services to finetune the process.

Interested?

Read the Today’s State of Work: The Service Experience Gap report

*ServiceNow commissioned Lawless Research to design and conduct a study about the state of work in companies with 500 or more employees. Research Now, an independent market research company, hosted the online survey and provided respondents from their panel.

The 10‑minute survey was fielded between March 25 and April 4, 2016 in Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, the US and the UK. A total of 2,400 managers (100 in Singapore) who supervise at least one employee and use interdepartmental services completed the survey.

The margin of error for the study is ±2.0 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. Tests of significant difference were conducted to the 0.01 level (99% probability that the difference is real, and therefore not by chance).