Reflecting On 2021: What Changed, What Didn’t & How Far We’ve Come
Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash
This year was not the return to normalcy we had hoped for, but it’s important to reflect on what the year did bring, other than new variants of Covid-19.
Across our Talent, Finance and Communications divisions, Accela Group has been working closely with clients to navigate the new landscape we found ourselves in this year.
As we scroll through our blog posts, we can see what called for our attention this year, and it really gives a sense of how far we’ve come.
Accela Talent
Work pass changes
The year kicked off with the MOM announcing more changes to work pass criteria. From January 2021, the quota of S Passes a company could hold was reduced from one S Pass to every seven Singaporeans, to one S Pass to every nine Singaporeans. Two years previously, the quota was one S Pass to five Singaporeans. The S Pass is critical to Singapore’s hospitality industry, so the quota proved to be another major hurdle as the industry tried to reignite itself despite restrictions.
Then in March the MOM announced it would no longer be issuing Letters of Consent (LOCs) to Dependent’s Pass (DP) holders. This had businesses like medical clinics and international schools in a panic, as many of their part-time specialists were on LOCs, because due to not working full-time hours, their salaries weren’t high enough to qualify for an EP.
Foreigners who ran their own business on an LOC; like everyone from therapists to IT consultants to artists, had to either close up shop or apply to hire themselves on an EP, which was often not viable due to the qualifying salary for an EP rising to $4,500 month ($5,000 if you’re in the finance sector) and then you also need to employ at least one Singaporean. But anecdotally, people were needing to earn a minimum of closer to $8,000 per month to get approved.
We wrote about how the Work Pass Processing team was seeing more stringent cross-examination for work pass applications by July, and that by the end of this year, the average work pass application was taking eight weeks.
War for talent
A combination of work passes not being approved or renewed and a healthy investor market presenting strong support for high-growth tech companies, and tight borders meant Singapore experienced its greatest talent shortage in 15 years this year. Statistics showed there were 163 jobs for every 100 unemployed people.
We shared the ways employers needed to stand out in order to attract people from this very in-demand talent pool, and some of the ways that could lean on the government’s training programmes, to hire people for their potential to learn, rather than to hit the ground running.
A focus on mental health and gender parity
A year of working from home highlighted stark inequalities in the division of labour, with women taking on more of the caregiving duties for the children, sick and elderly in their families. Our Accela Communications’ pro-bono client, NINEby9 released its inaugural report highlighting the discrepancies in gender parity and what employers as well as colleagues and employees need to do to take action.
Gender parity plays into the other big Human Resources theme of 2021, which is protecting your team’s mental health. With the boundaries between home and work blurred for such a long time, and the financial, family and health stresses of Covid-19 wearing us down, burn out, depression, anxiety and even suicides reached unprecedented highs.
Preparing for a return to the office and travel
2020 was all about Zoom etiquette and 2021 had more of a focus on how we could safely gather again.
Employers began to realise that the role of the office had changed forever and they needed to adopt flexible and hybrid policies in order to retain their employees and attract new people to the team.
With Singapore’s efficient vaccine roll-out, we assumed that return would come earlier, but as Delta flared, HR teams learned to tackle a new challenge: Mandatory workplace testing.
They also learned the ins and outs of applying for any of their staff who are on work passes to travel on the Work Pass Holder General Lane, and later, on VTLs.
Testing, vaccine mandates, and having any staff members who travel moving in and out of various stages of quarantine look to remain the norm in 2022, but at least we’re able to move about now - whether that’s meeting your colleague and clients face-to-face in the office again, or even traveling overseas!
Accela Finance
An influx in pandemic entrepreneurs
Whether it was that working from home made people tired of their jobs, or that they lost their role due to Covid-19, 2021 was the fresh start many people needed to launch their own business – CNBC even called them, “pandemic entrepreneurs”.
Accela’s Corporate Secretary team helped many people through the process. For Dependent’s Pass holders, who would have set up on an LOC prior to May 2021, there were two different pathways to set up a business this year; either by employing themselves on an EP, or through the new pass, a business owner’s LOC.
Guiding our clients through a sea of acronyms
The acronyms in business set-up can be a minefield, and they all start with ACRA, or the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.
This year we guided several people through the process of becoming an ACRA-registered director of a company, through a Director’s LOC - not to be confused with a business owner’s LOC or the regular LOC that is no longer being issued.
Among the other acronyms we had to explain this year was RORC, which stands for Register of Registrable Controllers. This year, ACRA made it mandatory for businesses to report the name of the ultimate beneficial owner of the company - so the person right at the top of the chain who is profiting from the business. Previously you were able to note a holding company, but now it must be the person at the top of the chain.
Helping navigate business bank account set-up
Accela Corporate Secretary also helps businesses set up their bank accounts, and this year we saw more businesses looking to set up with a neobank, which can all be done online, rather than a brick and mortar account which involves inked signatures and in-person appointments with a bank manager (when social distancing rules allow).
We expect to see more neobank regulation here in Singapore over the coming year, and unfortunately, we don’t see the brick and mortar branches offering e-signatures any time soon.
Accela Communications
The pandemic made us all slow down, but it was still critical for brands to continue to tell their story, particularly their evolving story, and this year the team at Accela Communications was kept busy helping our clients find new ways of connecting with their target audiences.
Working with consumer lifestyle clients, it’s always been important for Accela Communications to bring our clients to journalists so they can experience them firsthand. Over the past two years we’ve oscillated between virtual experiences and sending experiential deliveries to influencers’ homes.
No industry has had to bend what it does more than travel and hospitality, both of which are a significant part of our business at Accela Communications.
We have helped promote our clients who switched to takeaway, and in the brief periods between heightened alerts, were able to change the way we ran media tastings and events to keep everyone safe.
Our team always prided ourselves on being agile and creative, and this year we learned to pivot as quickly as our clients, becoming even more flexible with our timeframes than we were previously. The silver lining is that all the knocks and curved balls have brought our team and our clients even closer.
What’s next?
Aside from the cloud of Omicron, which hovers in the corner of our vision, the future is looking bright for Accela and our amazing clients across our Talent, Finance and Communications verticals.
As a team, Accela has lots to look forward to this year, and we are especially excited about helping our clients achieve incredible results in the coming months.
