How Remote Work Changed Gen Z Careers in Singapore

Flexibility Becomes Part of the Career Decision

In Singapore, 73% of young talent prefer remote work to working in person, according to a Universum survey, while Deloitte research found that 69% of Gen Z respondents would seek new opportunities if their employer required them to attend the office full time. Those preferences are changing how young workers choose jobs, judge employers and think about professional success.

Generation Z, defined here as people born between 1997 and 2012, began entering working life as the COVID-19 pandemic changed where and how people worked. For many starting jobs or internships in 2020, working from home was their introduction to employment. Flexibility became part of what they expected from a job, alongside autonomy and support for mental health.

Singapore's rapid digitalization and openness to global trends helped make these expectations particularly pronounced. As the country moved beyond the pandemic, remote work continued to shape career choices even as more employers brought staff back to the office.

Young employees also value what an office can provide: quick feedback, friendships, mentoring and opportunities to learn by watching experienced colleagues. Their career decisions increasingly involve balancing those benefits against the freedom to manage their own time.

For employers, the practical challenge is to combine flexibility with useful contact between colleagues. For workers beginning their careers, the question is how to protect personal time while gaining the relationships, skills and visibility needed to progress.

Why Working From Home Changed Expectations

Singapore's offices emptied rapidly when the pandemic struck in 2020. Older employees had an established office routine to adjust; many Gen Z recruits were learning the basics of professional life through screens. Remote and hybrid arrangements, which combine working remotely with attending the office, became their starting point.

Flexibility could mean working from home, dividing the week between home and the office, or aspiring to work from another country. The common thread was greater control over the working day and less dependence on being at a particular desk.

A CNA survey found that 53% of Gen Z respondents named flexible work arrangements as their top reason for staying in a job. For these workers, flexibility also represents trust, respect and an employer's willingness to recognise boundaries between employment and personal life.

Remote work has helped shape a more experimental approach to careers. Changing jobs or trying a different industry can be understood as self-exploration and personal growth, with less of the stigma once attached to frequent job changes. The autonomy of remote work allows young professionals to explore roles, industries and locations without being tied to one physical office.

Career success, in this view, includes finding work that fits personal values and leaves room for life outside employment. Pay and advancement remain part of the decision, but workers also assess how an organisation treats their time and independence.

Burnout Makes Mental Health a Hiring Issue

Research by Impossible Psychological Services found that 68% of Gen Z employees in Singapore reported feeling burned out, the highest proportion among the age groups examined. Employment Hero's 2024 Wellness at Work Report found that 61% of Singaporean employees felt burnt out, with Gen Z bearing the greatest burden.

The figures describe different groups: the first concerns Gen Z employees, while the second covers employees more broadly. Both place exhaustion at the centre of the discussion about how work is organised.

Digitalization and remote work can blur the boundary between work and home. When the same devices and spaces serve both purposes, stopping work can become difficult. The resulting pressure to stay connected can contribute to chronic stress and fatigue, even when employees have more freedom over their location.

Gen Z workers have responded by setting clearer boundaries, making time for self-care and looking for employers that provide flexible conditions and mental health support. In Singapore, 86% of Gen Z respondents consider mental health support and policies very important when evaluating potential employers.

Some organisations are responding with mental health days, wellness programmes and flexible working arrangements to attract and retain younger staff. Access remains uneven: only 45% of employees say their employer provides confidential counselling.

Young professional Corrine Chong described how exercise and time with people close to her help her recharge:

Regularly exercising at least once a week to kick in those endorphins and stay physically healthy! I also like to spend quality time with my family and friends over the weekends to recharge.

Her routine reflects the wider priority placed on protecting time outside work. It also shows why flexibility matters beyond the place where a task is completed: employees want enough room in their week for health, family and friendships.

Why the Office Still Matters to Young Workers

Gen Z employees may be comfortable with digital tools, but many are rediscovering the value of working alongside colleagues. Remote work can make informal learning, mentoring and the development of workplace social skills harder, especially for someone in a first job or internship.

An office offers opportunities to ask a quick question, receive immediate feedback and observe how experienced colleagues handle everyday situations. Those small exchanges help new employees understand workplace expectations and feel more at ease with their teams.

A Randstad poll found that 67% of Gen Z respondents in Singapore would consider resigning if they did not feel a sense of belonging at work. Friendships, peer learning and support from colleagues can therefore carry more weight than the practical convenience of staying home.

Some young workers have found it difficult to learn job skills and workplace dynamics remotely. Relationships with supervisors and colleagues can affect career development, particularly when an employee needs guidance or someone more senior to support their progress.

Social capital means the relationships that help someone obtain advice, opportunities and support. Building those relationships, understanding company culture and becoming visible to senior colleagues often involve meeting in person. Without that contact and support, young employees may feel stuck and begin to question their value.

Employers designing hybrid work can use office time for mentoring, shared learning and collaboration. Cross-team conversations, structured mentoring programmes and regular gatherings are ways to build the human connections that digital communication cannot fully reproduce.

More Office Attendance Meets Demand for Flexibility

Singapore's return to office work has made the balance more difficult. Figures cited by The Straits Times put the share of workers working from the office at 61%, an increase of seven percentage points from the previous year. That places the earlier share at 54%, while hybrid and remote work have declined.

Some companies are increasing the number of days employees must attend because of business needs and the value of collaboration in person, particularly for junior staff. Young employees seeking flexible jobs are therefore navigating a market in which their preferred arrangements may be becoming less common.

Demand for flexibility remains strong. Nearly nine in ten workers in Singapore say benefits such as flexible working arrangements, comprehensive health insurance and mental wellness support are crucial to staying with their current employer.

Those preferences give employers a reason to look beyond attendance when assessing the employment package. Companies providing these benefits are more likely to retain talent and maintain a motivated workforce.

The developments described span several stages:

• In 2020, pandemic restrictions emptied offices and introduced many young recruits to working from home.
• The 2024 Wellness at Work Report recorded burnout among 61% of Singaporean employees, with Gen Z bearing the greatest burden.
• New flexible work guidelines were described as taking effect in December, requiring fair consideration of formal requests.
• By the July 22, 2025 publication, the career debate combined continued demand for flexibility with a rise in office attendance.

What Formal Requests Mean for Employees

The government guidelines described as taking effect in December require employers to "fairly consider" formal requests for flexible work arrangements. The arrangements include telecommuting, staggered hours and job sharing. No year was specified for that December start date.

Telecommuting means working away from the usual workplace, including from home. Staggered hours change when employees start and finish, while job sharing allows people to share the responsibilities of a role. Flexibility therefore concerns working time and job structure as well as location.

Employers can still reject requests for business reasons. Employees gain a formal route to ask for a different arrangement, while organisations retain a role in deciding whether it fits their operational needs.

Making such arrangements work also requires changes in workplace culture and performance assessment. A focus on completed work and results gives managers a way to assess contribution beyond the hours someone spends visibly sitting in an office.

Trust matters on both sides. Employees need clear expectations about their responsibilities, and employers need ways to organise collaboration and maintain standards across different schedules and locations.

Job Searches Need Clearer Working Arrangements

Young Singaporeans looking for remote opportunities can struggle to establish what a job actually permits. Many employment platforms still organise searches around location, making genuinely remote roles harder to identify.

Some employers also describe positions as remote to attract applicants without being transparent about the conditions. A candidate may need to understand office attendance, travel requirements and the hours when colleagues expect them to be available before deciding whether a role fits.

Clearer job listings and search tools would help applicants compare those requirements and make more informed career decisions. Details about travel and time zones are especially relevant to workers considering global opportunities.

For an employee seeking autonomy, a vague promise of flexibility leaves a practical gap. The useful information is specific: where the work can happen, when the employee must be available and what contact with the wider team is expected.

Gen Z and Millennials Share Priorities, With Differences

Gen Z and Millennials both value flexible arrangements and a balance between work and personal life. Their approaches to everyday work can differ, however. Gen Z's experience of entering employment during the expansion of remote work is associated with greater reliance on solving problems independently, while Millennials place value on teamwork and collaborative environments.

Young workers also place weight on ethical business practices and social responsibility. The Bentley-Gallup Force for Good Study found that 71% of respondents aged 18 to 29 would consider leaving their employer for an organisation with a positive social impact.

That finding fits a broader approach in which a meaningful career includes alignment between personal values and an employer's actions. Flexibility helps explain where and how young employees want to work; purpose helps explain which organisations they want to work for.

Employers seeking to retain young talent therefore face several connected expectations. Independence, support, belonging and responsible business conduct can all enter a career decision, alongside the more familiar considerations of salary and promotion.

Travel and AI Add New Choices to Working Life

Remote work has also supported interest in "bleisure", the combination of business travel and leisure. Young professionals extend work trips to spend time exploring a destination, bringing travel experiences into the way they plan their working lives.

Singapore is at the forefront of this trend. The bleisure travel market is projected to grow rapidly, with Millennials and Gen Z seeking personalisation, balance between work and life, and the ability to work from different places.

Technology is changing daily tasks as well as location. In Singapore, 79% of employees use generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, as part of their work. These tools can generate material in response to instructions and are helping employees improve productivity and spend more time on tasks of greater value.

Fully remote work is declining, but hybrid arrangements remain a regular feature of employment. Figures on employer provision indicate that 76% offer options to work remotely between two and four days a week. That measures the availability of arrangements among employers, while the office attendance figures describe where employees work.

Flexibility over location ranks second only to salary among employee priorities. For young workers considering both local and global opportunities, the combination of digital tools and hybrid schedules continues to influence what a desirable job looks like.

Making Flexibility Work Without Losing Connection

Singapore's Gen Z workforce faces two pressures at once: the wish for greater control over working life and the need to develop skills and relationships. Remote work provides autonomy, while office contact can supply guidance and belonging that are especially valuable at the start of a career.

Employers can address both through deliberate hybrid arrangements, with mentoring, conversations across teams and regular opportunities to meet. Mental health support and clear boundaries around availability address another part of the problem, particularly where employees struggle to disengage after work.

Young employees are challenging a culture that treats personal sacrifice as a necessary price of advancement. Their preferences connect flexibility with trust, wellbeing with retention, and professional growth with meaningful relationships. Employers able to bring those elements together are better placed to attract and retain them.

Key Points

• Universum found that 73% of young talent in Singapore prefer remote work, while Deloitte found that 69% of Gen Z respondents would seek another opportunity if required to attend the office full time.
• Burnout affects young employees heavily: research by Impossible Psychological Services put the Gen Z figure at 68%.
• Mental health policies matter to 86% of Gen Z respondents when assessing potential employers.
• Office contact remains valuable for learning and belonging; 67% of Gen Z respondents in a Randstad poll would consider leaving if they lacked a sense of belonging.
• The share of workers working from the office reached 61%, up from 54% the previous year.
• Formal flexible work requests require fair consideration under the guidelines described, but employers can reject them for business reasons.
• Clear job terms, mentoring, mental health support and trust are central to making flexible arrangements work.