Uh huh, our Asia Pacific regional office is gonna move, from CBD to industrial area.
This is a group initiative, in consolidating offices in each country to save cost on rental and administration. In fact, our UK HQ had just recently done it too.
In SG, we have two county offices and one regional office. The two country offices are both located at industrial areas while our regional office is centrally located in CBD.
Needless to mention, commuting to work and out having lunch are so convenient to us at the regional office. In fact, the rented room that i had moved in recently is just opposite Compass Point at Sengkang, while the nearest MRT station to my office is Dhoby Gourt station, just about 10 minutes walk away. So i just have to take the MRT directly from the place i stay to office everyday, whereby the train journay takes about 20min.
Then we are gonna move to one of the country offices, which is located at an industrial area off Macpherson Road. The nearest MRT station is about 30 minutes walking distance, and i think there isn't a direct bus from where i stay to that office. There aren't a lot of nearby places for lunch either, except some canteens in some factory buildings.
The HR Director, who is a lady newly joined our company, is very much against the move. She failed to convince the top management not to move, and then heard about the complaints from the staff. She then took the opportunity to "listen to our views and then feedback to the management". So we had a meeting last week, when she went around the table asking us to express our opinions freely and whether or not we are against the move (of course everyone is!). Then she also asked for a show of hands for those staff who would take work location as one of the main considerations in career choice. Half of the staff put up their hands, who were mostly the girls from Finance and Marketing. Many of them have never worked out of CBD and simply cannot accept working at industrial area -- less "glamorous" i guess.
I was very much amused by this. Firstly, all along, our HR has never really showed much care and concern about the opinion of the staff on HR policies and benefits. Then out of the sudden, they cared so much for our feelings about the office move? Well, i guess whether or not our voices are being heard is actually dependant on whether or not someone has her own agenda for the cause.
Secondly, do these people seriously think that the company will care about whether or not they would resign if we were to move? Compare the cash savings that would help to increase the share price with a bunch of employees whose skills are not actually irreplaceable, isn't the choice very obvious already?
I saw the girls in the office talking about it today and were still holding on to the hope that the top management would change their mind. I kept quiet as i wasn't supposed to say anything but to wait for the official announcement instead.
Accessibility is definitely a personal concern to me as well, but if i still want this job, then i have no choice but to take two buses to work. I go on business trips a lot anyway and don't spend much time in the office, so i don't really care much.
The main concern from our department is more of functional consideration. The floor space will be reduced from the current 5000+ square ft to 3000+ square ft. We raised the question about server room, store room, working area (as our infrastructure team sometimes gets lots of IT equipments that require setup), and meeting area (as we have lots of conference calls on the projects with overseas). If these are not available, or is reduced in space, our work will definitely be affected as well.
Anyway, i heard that the move will be in November. So from now until then, there may be surprises. I mean, life changes so fast after all; we can never know what will happen next.
Labels: work
