'I’d choose remote every single time': Singapore worker who experienced all 3 work setups says even if he’d take a 20% to 30% pay cut

SINGAPORE: Flexible work arrangements ranked the second-highest priority among jobseekers just after salary, according to a June report from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM)—and a Singapore worker who just hit his 30s feels the same.

Sharing his views on r/singaporejobs, he wrote that, having experienced all three work setups—fully in-office, hybrid, and fully remote—“I would choose fully remote every single time, even if it meant taking a 20 to 30% pay cut.”

With companies pushing to return to the office again, he said he’d rather have a job that is genuinely “remote from the beginning.”

According to him, hybrid “sounds great,” but work from home (WFH) can feel like “a privilege that management can take away whenever they want,” while when it comes to office work, it’s not just the commute but also unpaid overtime, staying late, forced socialising, lunches with colleagues and spending so much of your day around work.

“A higher salary doesn’t necessarily feel higher when you calculate the extra hours and commuting time,” he argued.

He added that working remotely also helped his career progress much faster and allowed him to earn significantly more after feeling stagnant in junior corporate roles.

“Some people love office culture and climbing the traditional corporate ladder, and that’s completely fine. But having experienced office, hybrid, and remote work myself, remote wins for me every time”, he said.

“Even if someone offered me double the salary for a hybrid role, I’d seriously have to think about it. Once you experience having that much control over your own time, it’s very difficult to give it back”, he added.

Some commenters, however, noted that while there are more pros to working remotely, there are also cons.

Some said working remotely can make it hard to reach people when you need to get things done, while others noted that it depends on one’s home situation, where there could be a lot of distractions.

One commenter shared, “If you are married/with kids (especially young kids), actually getting work done is hard and can be frustrating. Spouse and kids can assume ‘cos you’re home you can help me with this, it will just take five minutes… which becomes one hour.”

Another commenter also warned that any role that can be done remotely risks being “offshored to cheaper countries”.

Several others noted how the work setup blurs work-life boundaries.

One commenter who once worked remotely shared, “Honestly, the biggest con about working remote is that everyone expects you to be on your pc 24/7. Take MC? People still find you. Vacation? People still find you. Had people call me at 2am several times too. The only pros is no need to transport but OT a lot. But this also depends on your role and industry. Some have it easy, some have it tough.” 

A recent study reveals similar concerns about such boundaries when working outside the office.

JobStreet by SEEK’s latest Singapore Workplace Culture study found that two in three (63%) Singapore workers feel the need to be “always-on” almost every day (32%) or a few times a week (31%), which has depleted their energy (63%) and job satisfaction (47%). While 22% believe this “always-on” work culture is unsustainable because of burnout, 48% of employers have no plans to introduce policies related to this. /TISG

Read also: Only 2 in 5 Singapore employers offer flexible work even though jobseekers consider it a priority