Insights from Mercer’s 2024 Asia HR Conference – Workforce 2.0

Once again, our Frazer Jones team had the privilege of attending Mercer’s Asia HR Conference in Singapore this week. The two-day event brought together Lewis Garrad (Career Business Leader, Asia), Kate Bravery (Global Leader Talent Advisory & Insight), the broader Mercer Leadership team, and 200+ CHROs, business leaders, and subject matter experts from various fields.

The conference was highly informative as each speaker unpacked their thoughts, insights, and ideas, inspiring the HR community while showcasing Mercer’s commitment to fostering future-ready and sustainable workforces.

Here are some key takeaways from the conference that left a lasting impression:

The economy across Asia
Asia is still seeing extensive growth, investing notably in globalisation, however, the region is balancing ongoing challenges around demographics (such as an ageing population), with ongoing economic and political uncertainty as well as labour shortages.

Agile operating models
Given the pace of workforce transformation, the ability to think and work differently is key. Taking a cross-functional design approach is critical to enabling organisation effectiveness and human-centric productivity while building agile and sustainable workforce practices.

Cultivate a digital-first culture
Employers are encouraged to adopt a digital strategy early, investing in technology and leveraging data to enhance productivity, while being mindful of the associated risks around AI, data privacy and security. Organisations should make sure sufficient policies are in place, unlearning and re-learning, pushing boundaries to deliver personalised and meaningful services at scale, and leading with purpose and design thinking to establish new ways of working. They should educate and experiment with an “experience” orientated lens, keeping business priorities and value creation front of mind.

Skills are the new currency of work
A personal highlight of the conference was seeing Dan Blackburn (MD, Global Head of HR Transformation & Technology, Standard Chartered)  who we appointed to the group, talking through their journey of becoming a skills-based organisation. He elaborated on how they are creating an organisation that is “fit for growth” through simplifying, standardising and digitising. Dan explained how it is important to understand the talent landscape as a whole, such as sunrise (skills of the future) and sunset (outdated skills) with a focus on upskilling, reskilling, closing the skills gap and ultimately building a skills-powered organisation through leveraging tools such as talent marketplaces, internal mobility programmes and gigs.

Trust and EVP
Employee trust has declined over the last year, impacting energy, thriving and intent to stay. In this highly competitive market with narrow talent pools and ultimately employees want to work for a brand they are proud of.

Vision, purpose, values, behaviours, inclusivity, trust, integrity, benevolence, empathy, psychological safety and accountability are all critical to shaping how an employee feels about an organisation. Firms should leverage employee insights through employee listening and feedback to enhance the employee experience and belonging, re-designing the “moments that matter”.

The role of leaders and managers is important, ensuring they operate as ambassadors, advocates and champions “walking the talk”. Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) are also encouraged to enable inclusiveness and belonging, setting up employees to thrive. It is worth keeping front of mind that based on Mercer data, the top three reasons individuals stay with their employer include; job security, fair pay and work culture. Therefore, employee experience must remain a top priority.

Reward, pay equity, and transparency
Rewards as a function is under growing scrutiny with tighter budgets. In Singapore, there’s relatively flat GDP growth (2.1%), low unemployment rates, and 10% expected voluntary attrition in Singapore. According to Mercer’s latest data, average salary increments in Singapore are anticipated to remain flat at +3.8% YOY in 2025. Promotion salary increases are trending downwards at +10.3% instead of 10.2% last year. Similarly, short-term incentives are generally being paid lower than the target ranges declared.

When considering the debate around “pay for jobs” vs “pay for skills”, generally organisations are taking a hybrid approach in the context of jobs continuing to evolve at pace, also recognising that “in demand” skills can also quickly become obsolete.

Surprisingly, the latest data suggests that males in Asia are still earning +12% more than females operating in the same job. However, we are seeing progress on the legacy “black-box” approach to closed reward & pay transparency. With enhanced legislation surrounding pay transparency and gender pay gap reporting as well as additional pressure from investors regarding reporting requirements (as ultimately investors value engaged workforces), employers are increasingly reviewing pay equity, being more transparent about salaries, bonuses and benefits. Interestingly, data suggests that 46% of candidates won’t apply for a job in Asia if the pay range isn’t displayed, hence employers should consider this when thinking about talent attraction.

In APAC, Mercer also observed a notable uplift in employers putting in place LTIP structures, with a focus on encouraging long-term performance and behaviours. Employee stock options have reduced somewhat in popularity. Employers also continue to adopt Restricted Stock Units (RSU’s) as another popular vehicle. However, companies want to do more than just pure financial incentives, looking at various structures such as; one-off transformation incentives, milestone vested cash or % of value created models.

Employers are becoming more creative with their rewards philosophy, exploring their approach to pay segmentation as well as reviewing strategies such as; pay for person, pay for performance and pay for position.

Overall, it is important that pay remains fair, equitable and aligned with the strategic objectives of the organisation.

Benefits and well-being
Personalisation of benefits programmes is increasingly preferred.  With stress and burnout being at an all-time high (83% feeling burnout), well-being must on the priority list if employers are to remain an employer of choice and retain their top talent.

Risk, governance and corporate resilience
With the heightened risk landscape, technology risks, misinformation and disinformation, it is important to ensure that evolving legislation is met and the organisation has robust governance and policies in place. Cross-functional governance is recommended across HR, IT, risk, legal, compliance, finance for diverse perspectives helps to ensure the best results, making sure the short and long-term enterprise-wide risk landscape is fully assessed for corporate resilience. Employers should also have business continuity plans in place, being pro-active, with the ability to adapt quickly while having strong leadership and communication channels in place.

As anticipated, the Mercer Asia HR Conference made a strong impression, providing our CHRO community with valuable insights. If any of the themes discussed piqued your interest and you’d like to explore them further, or if you would like to review their standout research via their latest Global Talent Trends 2024 report, I highly recommend reaching out to Lewis Garrad and his team.

The future of work is evolving rapidly, and events like these are essential for staying at the forefront of HR and business trends.

If you would like to discuss building your HR function, your personal HR or Reward career or discuss the Southeast Asia HR market in general, please reach out to myself or a member of our Frazer Jones team today.

Note: The data presented is sourced from the Mercer 2024 Global Talent Trends report.