Singapore has made a name for itself as a high-performing, globally connected economy built on resilience, adaptability and trust. Yet, an inaugural study finds that only 14% of its workforce is engaged at work – way below the Southeast Asia average of 25%, and the global mean of 20%. This is not a recent trend. Singapore’s workforce engagement has stagnated at or near its current level since 2019. The finding is especially acute among younger workers, pointing to a generational divide that leaders can no longer afford to ignore.
The inaugural Singapore Workplace Report 2026: Powering Singapore’s Future by Gallup Inc and Singapore Institute of Directors (SID), released in June 2026, reveals that in 2025, a large majority (86%) of Singapore’s workforce was disengaged, costing the economy an estimated US$73.6 billion (approximately S$95 billion) in lost productivity annually. With GDP growth forecast to slow to 2 to 4% in 2026, the report argues that low engagement is transitioning from a cultural concern to a strategic liability.
“Workforce engagement, organisational culture and leadership capability are strategic priorities directly linked to productivity, innovation, resilience and sustainable growth. Boards must play an active role in building workplace cultures fit for the future,” says Yeoh Oon Jin, Chair, SID.
The report sets out four priorities for Singapore’s leaders, namely:
The figures for workers under 35 years of age indicate an engagement rate of just 10%, compared to 16% for those aged 35 and over. This six-point gap is almost three times wider than the two-point global equivalent. Stress levels among younger Singaporeans are also sharply elevated – 53% report experiencing daily stress, compared to 37% of their older colleagues.
The report, which draws on Gallup’s global workplace research and indepth interviews with 16 senior Singapore leaders, challenges the popular narrative that younger workers are simply less committed. Leaders pointed instead to structural conditions including a high cost of living, national service obligations, constrained career pathways, and a competitive labour market that bears down hardest on those yet to establish financial security.
The report delves into the specific forces widening this divide. It finds that most organisations make minimal effort to adapt working practices for younger employees. Leaders scored this at just 3.25 out of 5, with no respondent strongly agreeing their organisation does this well. Younger workers, the report finds, expect a “productive and protective” relationship with their manager, defined as direct, efficient and genuinely developmental. Most managers are not equipped to deliver it.
The report also identifies an emerging artificial intelligence (AI) career stage split, where generative AI is eliminating the repetitive, entry-level work that has traditionally given junior employees their foundational skills. AI also elevates the risk of a generation of mid-career professionals who were never given the building blocks needed to progress.
The research is unambiguous about the role of the manager in workforce engagement – 70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the direct manager. Yet, Singapore leaders rated their organisations’ manager effectiveness at just 3.32 out of 5, and their leadership pipeline strength even lower, at 3.05.
Organisations continue to promote top individual contributors into management roles without adequate preparation or support, and reward managers for personal performance rather than team development. The cost is measurable – disengaged Singapore employees report daily stress at twice the rate of their engaged counterparts, and they are also three times more likely to experience daily anger.
“The generational engagement gap is not a values gap or a work ethic gap; it is a management gap. Singapore’s younger workers who are entering the workplace are managed by people who were promoted for technical excellence rather than people leadership,” explains Kanika Singh, Regional Director, Gallup Singapore. “The right manager can transform engagement at any age. Closing Singapore’s generational divide starts with building a generation of managers who know how to coach, develop and genuinely see the individuals on their teams.”
Most organisations offer flexible working and wellness days. Yet, leaders rated their ability to prevent chronic work overload at just 2.93 out of 5, the lowest score in the entire leadership survey. The report concludes that wellbeing initiatives treat symptoms rather than causes, and calls for structural fixes to role clarity, workload and spans of control instead.
There are courses that equip directors with the capabilities required to govern workforce issues strategically. The ISCA Board Nexus programme provides aspiring board members access to experienced board mentors to learn, network and grow. Through this programme, aspiring board members can pick up valuable tips on positioning themselves for board service, leadership management skills, and stakeholder communication, among many other areas of expertise which the mentor can offer. SID is working with Singapore Management University (SMU) to launch a new module on Strategic Human Capital Stewardship in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Looking ahead to the implementation of the Workplace Fairness Act in 2027, SID is also working with the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices to help boards understand that workplace fairness is not simply an HR compliance matter, but a critical component of governance, risk and culture for organisational resilience.
