A list of the best workplaces in Singapore has just been released, and home-grown tech company Grab has joined the likes of Royal Plaza on Scotts and Salesforce as one of Singapore’s best employers.
Grab was ranked fifth in the Great Places to Work: Singapore Best Workplaces list in the “Medium and Large” workplaces category, making its first appearance in the firm’s seven-year history, Business Insider reports.
Also new on the list were Hubspot, Agilent Technologies Singapore, Aviva Ltd and Micron Tecnology, Inc.
The top three companies for the “Medium and Large” category this year were hotel Royal Plaza on Scotts, American software company Salesforce, and DHL Express Singapore.
Royal Plaza on Scotts overtook Salesforce to take first place this year, while Salesforce fell to second place, losing its four-time first place streak.
DHL Express Singapore came in third place, rising a total of three ranks from last year.
In the “small workplaces” category, the top three were: Hays Specialist Recruitment, Signify Singapore, and Rackspace.
According to Great Place to Work (GPTW), the list is based on a survey of 400,000 employees across 900 organisations in eight Asia Pacific countries.
The study focused on studying gender diversity in Asia, and was jointly conducted by Great Place to Work, an institute headquartered in San Francisco, and the Singapore Management University (SMU).
The annual list certifies organisations in three ways: Great Place to Learn, Great Place to Work, and Singapore’s Best Workplaces – all of which were obtained by Grab.
Joni Ong, GPTW Singapore’s managing director, said that Grab is a “household name” and its workers invest in people culture where “pride and camaraderie are keenly felt”.
“Since 2012, we have not steered from our vision of driving South-east Asia forward, and we are proud that this translated into a unique employee culture of out serving our communities,” said Kaira Peh, Grab’s head of employer branding and people communications.
The Singapore-based super app currently operates in 339 cities across South-east Asia, and employs over 7,000 staff in 11 countries. A 2018 report Google and Temasek classified it a decacorn – a term referring to startups with a valuation of over US$10 billion (S$13.6 billion).
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Study finds inclusitivity and belonging key to high-performing culture
Besides revealing the rankings of Singapore’s Best Workplaces, the GPTW study also found that inclusive environments and a sense of belonging are important factors that foster teamwork, which in turn contributes to high-performing culture.
Additionally, the male-female gender gap was narrower in organisations that were perceived as great workplaces by women.
Notably, when female employees feel a sense of belonging, they are nearly twice more likely to feel a sense of “psychological safety”, and agree that their company is a great place to work, GPTW said.
“Psychological safety” was defined as the perceptions employees have about a mentally and emotionally healthy workplace, and of leaders’ abilities to recognise and accept honest mistakes.
Professor Richard R. Smith, SMU’s professor of strategic management and deputy dean for Lee Kong Chian School of Business, said firms where female employees feel “psychological safety” are “three times more likely to be identified as Best Workplaces, which is highly correlated with financial performance”.
2019 Singapore’s Best Workplaces – Medium and Large Workplaces
2019 Singapore’s Best Workplaces – Small Workplaces
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